Portugal

Well I had a pretty crappy day Friday Night. I went out drinking with some of the people from the hostel, we were going around to various bars, and I had a fair bit to drink, and decided I had enough, so I headed back to the hostel on my own.

It was in an area I was not overly framilar with, so I headed in the general direction that I knew the hostel was in. This is when I ran into two guys with a knife who demanded I hand over everything in my pockets. So that was my Camera, Mobile Phone, and 50euro. Really sucks. But on the positive side, I was not carrying my wallet with me, and I didn´t get hurt.

There weren´t many photos on the camera just of my few days in Lagos.

I am now in a small town called Faro, just resting up and trying to get in a better mood.

All the stores are closed here since it is Sunday, so I can´t look for a new camera, but I think I will get better deals once I get to Edinburgh on Monday and can hit up a Superstore.

I guess I am experiencing a big downer that I have read about other travelers having when traveling for a long time. So I just have to think of the bright moments, and know there will be many more good times when I continue on!

Posted by Jason Willock

Well not a whole lot to report. The last few days have been quite fun, partying with people from the hostel until the wee hours of the morning, sleeping till noon, then going to the beach to relax in the water and get some sun.

Tonight is my last night here in Lagos, which is probably a good thing as I don't know how much more beer I could handle. A little corner store sells a six pack for 3 Euros. So nice and cheap.

There was a massive beach party the other night, and a huge fireworks show, which was quite impressive. The beach party however was not so great, just a club on the beach next to the water, with an admission price of 20euro, we didn't even bother going in considering it was nearly 4 am by the time we got there, and we all were pretty much done for the evening so a group of us just hung out on the beach near the bar as you could still hear the music. (Techno of course)

Lagos is a pretty touristy town, lots of restaurants with more food options than Lisbon, which is certainly a good thing! The number of Australians here at the hostel is mind boggling, but I have also met more Canadians here than I think I have met in my entire trip! There is a little bar here where we have been going after drinking at the hostel, they have a beer bong board, where they keep score on who is drinking the most from various countries, and Canada is #2 behind Australia. I added one to the Canadian scoreboard last night. Guzzling a litre of beer in a couple seconds isn't really my cup of tea, but it was fun!

Nothing really too see here tourist wise, could go on a boat tour to see some dolphins, but it's nice just doing nothing other than laying on the beach and going for a swim during the day, and partying by night, it is like a vacation from my travels!

Posted by Jason Willock

Sorry for the lack of updates, I have been kept busy in Lisbon, with my friend Tan. And the lack of Wi-Fi in Lisbon was quite suprising.

Lisbon is an interesting city, most of it was destroyed in an earthquake in the late 1700's, so mostly everything was rebuilt from there. And frankly I found it a rather unattractive looking city, the buildings were quite run down, and rather bland. However there was some neat looking buildings here and there that added to the charm of the city.

It is a very hilly city, which made walking around a bit tiring, but good exercise. Fortunately the day we chose to do a walking tour of the city it was kind of cool, in the low 20's with not much sun. The other days were great weather, nice and sunny, it was nice to be in the sun again!

There was a neat Castle in the city, which gave great views of the city, there were also some great sights along the massive river of the city, it was also neat to see many fish in the river, and jelly fish, quite large jelly fish that have blown in from the ocean to there demise.

On the note of fish, there are so many seafood restaurants, which I at first was quite excited about, however the food here wasn't overly exciting, rather bland, and every restaurant had pretty much the exact same menu. There wasn't a large selection of restaurants, which was rather strange, only Portuguese, Indian, and Italian, were pretty much the only options. Not many immigrants in Portugal it seems. On the plus side food was pretty inexpensive. Wine however was quite tasty, and cheap as well. I had never tried Portuguese wine, and it now ranks as some of my favourite I have tried.

Yesterday we went to a small town called Sintra which was very Moorish, and had a great old Castle, that had amazing views, and a great park with a nice forest to walk through, we then went to the beach, water was pretty cold.

Today I had to say goodbye to Tan, which is getting harder to do each time. She is moving to Houston in October, so this could have been our last little travel together, which is sad.

I took a bus to the South of Portugal, and am in a touristy little beach town called Lagos. I am looking forward to relaxing here for a few days and get some tan

Posted by Jason Willock