Italy and Spain

Last week I went to Bologna, Florence, Lucca and Pisa in Italy and Benidorm in Spain. I started to write things up but then I got lazy. I posted some pictures on Facebook, so if you aren't my friend on there, here is a link to the pictures from last week that you can access:

http://www.facebook.com/album.php?aid=2124296&id=36103121&l=a3a40bde83

Unbelievable

I spent my last day in Portugal in Faro, where I couldn’t find much to do besides walk around the small town and look into some shops. There is a beach in Faro but that required getting on a bus across town and I wasn’t really feeling like making the journey.

My flight back to London was leaving at 9:30am and I asked the night clerk at my hostel the easiest way to get to the airport in the morning. The clerk was trying very hard to explain to me that I should take a bus across the street from the but he was struggling to find his words. At first I thought that he was just trying really hard to find the right words in English but after several minutes of him trying to explain it to me I discovered that he had a stammer. I have to give him a lot of credit for taking a job where he has to explain to people how to get places with a speech impediment in a language that he was unsure of.

After a week in Portugal without doing any laundry and only bringing a small carryon bag I was ready to do some laundry. First thing back in my room in London I dumped everything from my suitcase onto the floor and then I stripped down to nothing but my underwear. I was getting ready to put all of this in the washing machine and hop into the shower when I noticed that there was cat hair all over my bed. I had closed my door while I was away but one of my flatmates must have opened the door and the two cats looked like they had had a shedding party on my bed. Everything was covered in cat hair. First I grabbed the two pillows and walked out to the back steps and beat them together to get the hair off. Then I did the same thing with my two sheets and finally went back to get my duvet and shake that out. While shaking out the duvet a gust of wind came up and the back door slammed behind me. I tried to open the door but it was locked!

I was standing on my back stairs wearing nothing but my boxers and holding a duvet at two in the afternoon. Neither of my flatmates usually get home until 6 or 7 at night. I tried the windows without luck. I banged on the window above my flat but the guy who lives there wasn’t home either. I walked around to my front door and tried that door but it was also locked. A woman came walking down the street and saw me and laughed. I was stuck, no keys, no cell phone, with no idea what my flat mates phone numbers were.

On the first floor of my building is a convenience store, so I wrapped my duvet around my waist and walked into the store as a final act of desperation. There was a woman shopping who gave me a once over with her eyes, and shook her head. I went up to the counter where the owner and her son were working and they gave me a look of “What is this guy doing?” I explained that I lived upstairs and had locked myself out and asked if they had a key to the main entrance to my flat. Luckily they did and I was able to get back into my flat without sitting on the street nearly naked for 5 hours. If it had happened in a movie, I wouldn’t have believed that it was possible but apparently it is!

Surprises

While in hostels I sleep with an eye mask on and earplugs in my ears, to keep the distraction of other people’s activities to a minimum. I was woken up last night by the Aussie guy sleeping in the bunk above me. He was violently shaking the bed and I removed my mask to look at him and see what was going on. He was obviously very drunk and was trying to climb up the side of the bed instead of using the ladder and then fell from the bed onto the floor. I laughed to myself and shook my head and went back to sleep. In the morning I noticed that my shorts and shoes, that had been with all of my other stuff on the floor under my bed, were wet. I slowly moved the stuff close to my nose and tried to smell anything but all they smelled like was dirty water. I woke the Aussie guy up that was now snoring loudly in the bunk above me and asked him what he had spilt on the my stuff. In his hungover sleepy state of mind he said he hadn’t spilt anything. I told him I hoped it was only water and then went and washed my shoes and shorts just to be safe.

I headed out to explore more of the cove beaches. I was walking along a path on a cliff top and followed a path down to a beach in the middle of nowhere. I looked from above and the beach looked nearly deserted and I got excited. The idea of no one near me smoking cigarettes or little kids running around screaming sounded perfect. When I got down to the beach I discovered that it was a naked beach, mostly with old sun burnt overweight naked men. There was one couple that wasn’t naked and I figured after the long climb down I would just sit and read my book for a while. After several minutes an old naked man came and stood about 10 feet behind me. I noticed him in my peripheral vision and kept reading. After he had been there for a few minutes I turned my head slowly keeping my eyes towards the sky to see what he was looking at and he was looking at me. I turned my head back around and read some more, thinking that now that he knew that I knew he was there he would leave, but he continued to stand there naked and stare at me. After another minute of the staring I decided I had enough energy to climb out and find another beach, even if that meant cigarette smoke or little children.

Luckily, I was able to find another beach not far away that was much more family oriented and while this beach was much noisier there weren’t any naked old men staring at me.

Back at my hostel while getting ready for bed another Aussie guy from my room who was friends with the guy who was sleeping above me confessed to me that he had in fact accidentally peed on the floor and gotten my stuff wet. He was very apologetic and offered to buy me a drink and have my stuff cleaned for me. Score one for Aussie class.

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2010_06_29 Lagos

Lounging in Lagos

I arrived by bus in Lagos today to have a couple of days of relaxing by the beach. At my hostel I was given the most through explanation at check in that I have ever had. The guy showed me every part of the hostel, the terrace, kitchen, showers, bathrooms, lounge and my bed. Then he showed me the lockers that use an electronic lock and showed me how to enter my code and then hid his eyes while I entered my code. He then gave me a map of the town and spent 20 minutes (not an exaggeration, I checked my clock before and after because I was starving from not yet having had lunch) explaining the town and the beaches to me. Despite the excessive explanation he is a really nice guy and a welcome change to some hostels who act as if you are an inconvenience.

I spent the rest of the day wandering around and the coves and hanging out at the beach, it’s beautiful here.

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2010_06_28 Lagos

Belem

This morning I hopped on a tram (I do a lot of hopping in my blog and I don’t even talk about how I like to hop over things late at night as I walk the streets of towns. Hopping over trash cans, signs, ledges and whatever else I can find) to a nearby town called Belem.

There is a large statue in tribute to the maritime actives of the country, a fort and a monastery. It was really hot today and the sun is a lot fiercer(I didn’t even know that was a word, Word suggested that I use it though) on my skin than in London, so I spent a lot of the day trying to hide in the shade and covering myself in layer after layer of sunscreen.

Back in Lisbon, my hostel was serving fish for dinner tonight and I decided that I would make myself some pasta instead. I used spaghetti noodles and tomato paste, but it tasted really bland, so I looked through the spices that people had left for something to add to the sauce. All the labels were in Portuguese or missing so I didn’t know what was in any of the bottles, so I just started pouring things into the sauce. I think I must have added nutmeg by accident, which in case you are thinking of replicating my masterful cooking is a terrible idea. Nutmeg tastes terrible in pasta sauce.

I met a guy from Canada and another from Germany and we headed out to Barrio Alto for a couple drinks and on our way came across a park that had “Bio Benches”. They were made of recycled plastic and had a tree for shade in the back and a bush on the side. The benches also had wheels for rotating the tree around to be in the shade. Instead of rotating them we decided that we would race them and all grabbed one to push. They are really large and heavy benches. I ended up in second place and then hopped over a really tall trash can to show that my manhood was still intact after not winning the race.

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2010_06_27 Lisbon

Lisbon

I woke up early this morning to catch a train to Lisbon. I got to the train station about 30 minutes before my train was supposed to leave and lined up to buy a ticket. The line was moving really slowly and I worried that I was going to miss my train while standing in line. Finally I made it to the front of the line only to find out the train wasn’t leaving from the station I was at but another one and I wouldn’t be able to make my train and I would have to wait two and a half more hours. The other station was five minutes away by train and I had only seven minutes to make it so I quickly jumped on the next train to the other station and then ran to get on the train to Lisbon. I got on the train just as the doors were closing and took a seat. I hadn’t had time to purchase a ticket and hoped that Portugal wasn’t one of the countries where you have to prepay for a ticket.

As the train employee came around collecting tickets I became increasingly nervous that I was supposed to have a ticket because no one was buying tickets, only showing him their tickets they already had. When he got to me I smiled and pulled my wallet out and motioned like I was going to pay him for my ticket. He explained that in Portugal you MUST prepay for your ticket and that I would have to get off and buy a ticket at the next station and then wait for the next train before I could get back on. I tried my best “dumb tourist” routine and smiled a lot and he finally agreed to let me stay on the train and that he would work something out. The train employee came back and gave me an assigned seat and a receipt and I gave him the train fare, I had lucked out.

Once in Lisbon I checked into my hostel and set out to explore the city. As with Porto, Lisbon is a very hilly city. I went into a large church and explored a castle high up in a mountain overlooking the city. There was a concert going on inside of the castle, which was nice to have music as I walked around, made me feel like I was in a movie.

My hostel is very nice and for 8 Euro they will cook you dinner with three drinks included. I had soup for a starter, meat with bacon and cheese with rice as a main and rice pudding for dessert, it was very delicious. There is an area in Lisbon called Barrio Alto and it is a series of streets that are lined with small bars. The bars are so small that there isn’t enough room for everyone; so instead of being in the bars everyone stands in the streets talking and drinking together. It’s a fun and different atmosphere.


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2010_06_26 Lisbon

Portugal vs Brazil

I spent the morning wandering around Porto checking out their famous church and the accompanying catacombs. Then I went to the city center to watch the World Cup game between Brazil and Portugal. Since Brazil was colonized by the Portuguese there are a lot of Brazilian people in Portugal and one half of the square was filled with Brazilian fans while the other half were Portuguese fans. Everyone had flags or banners and a lot of people had horns. Both the Portuguese and the Brazilian fans have songs they sing and things they chant as their team does well or to try and encourage their team to do better. The game ended in a draw with both Portugal and Brazil advancing out of their pool. I head to Lisbon in the morning.


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2010_06_25 Porto

Port Wine

With 2 more days in Porto I decided to do my usual wandering around the city. Porto has a river run through the town with giant hills overlooking the river and lower parts of the city. This makes for spectacular views but a lot of work climbing hills to get anywhere.

Porto is famous for Port wine and most of the large producers of Port wine are located in the city and have wine tastings. I was wandering around and came across a really nice looking port winery and went in to check it out. They had a sign posted, “Tastings 6 Euro”. Of course I am too cheap to pay that and just wandered around looking at things that were free. A woman who worked there came up to me and told me that if I wanted I could have two ports for free and I quickly jumped on the opportunity. The winery was high up in the hill overlooking the river below, I sat there reading and looking at the view it was really beautiful.

I found my way to several other wineries that offered a tour and sampling. I couldn’t really tell the difference between the ports at the different places but I liked the free samples.

Back at the hostel along with some other people we were able to convince the hostel owner that he wanted to make up dinner if we bought the ingredients and we had pasta with chicken, sausage, beans and veggies it was really good.

It has been so long since I walked all day long and I was exhausted. Be sure to check out the pictures thought because Porto is really pretty.

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2010_06_24 Porto

Sao Joao Festival

Ouch!

Guess what’s back,
Back again,
My blog is back,
Tell your friends,
Tell your friends,
Tell your friends…

Well at least for the next week while I am in Portugal taking a mini vacation from my already vacation of a life I will blog about the happenings. While in London I went to the library one day and looked through a book that described the best festivals and celebrations across the world. I focused on Europe over the summer and read about a festival called Sao Joao (Saint John) Festival in Porto, Portugal. Last year I never made it to Portugal and figured if I was going to be there for the festival I might as well check out the rest of the country as well.

I read that the festival was on the 24th and booked my hostel for the nights of the 23rd, 24th and 25th to give me time to prepare for and recover from the festival. I arrived on the evening of the 23rd only to discover that the festival was that night NOT the 24th and quickly went to my hostel to check in. I didn’t know much about the festival before I got there other than it was supposed to be a fun party in the streets. While going to my hostel I encountered hundreds of people walking the streets with large plastic hammers that they were using to whack each other and me with on top of my head. People were also walking around carrying flowering garlic and sticking the smelly flower part in people’s faces.

I asked the guy at my hostel where I should go to enjoy the best of the festival and he proceeded to circle over 10 places on my map and told me those would be good places. I decided I would just wander the streets and follow the crowds and see where I ended up, since the party was spread out all over the town.

Everyone seemed to have hammers, the funniest were the old ladies who could barely walk but hit every single person that they could and you could see the pure joy in their faces as they smacked person after person. The streets were packed with families and stands selling sardines, hot dogs and beer. I found a good spot high on a cliff overlooking the river and watched the firework show at midnight shot off from barges on the river. After the firework show people unfolded tissue paper blimps that had a candle at the bottom and when lit, filled with hot air and soared into the night sky like ghosts.

All of the squares in town had a different band playing and I found one near my hostel and listened to a mixture of American pop and classic Portuguese music. It was a good first night in Portugal.

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2010_06_23 Porto

Stamford

Sheep don't like to be petted


Burghley House


In Cambridge


Tulips


Burghley House


A TON of deer



Downtown Stamford


Stamford Church


An owl at the worst craft show ever.


Wood carving at the craft show


More yellow flowers


Horses in a new paddock and fresh grass for the first time this year

I'm in London

Views from Parliament Hill


I broke my sunglasses



Views from Parliament Hill


Views from Parliament Hill


Flowers blooming on a London street


As the weather gets warmer, the horse coats get thinner


Janelle's horse Mina


English countryside


Overpass in the London suburbs


Janelle grooming Mina


Classic countryside in my mind. A man with two dogs and a horse.


I'm such a good photographer!


Riding Mina