Day 57, Beautiful Friends and Beaches

Well, it’s time to say adios to Spain and bom dia to Portugal! We took the early bus to Lagos, a tourist city on the Southern coast of Portugal, leaving at 7:30 am and arriving just after 12:30 pm. We were earlier than expected, and the directions to our hostel weren’t as simple or clear as we needed, so we made it to the hostel an hour later. Upon checking in and checking out our room, we realized that we had accidentally walked right by the hostel, just one street over! Our view was amazing, looking right over the Atlantic Ocean! Even though I felt gross and sweaty, the weather was a welcomed “cooler” than hot, hot Sevilla. Now, all we needed to do was wait for our friend and colleague, Ben, who is studying Portuguese in Lisbon and came to meet up with us in Lagos. Little did we know, but Portugal is one hour earlier than Spain and France, so while we were busy smack-talking Ben for being “late” to meet us, he was unsuspectingly reading on his Kindle and deciding to come back to the hostel “early.” Whoops, misunderstanding! Here we’d agree to meet between 1:30 and 2:00, but because we didn’t know about the time change, there was a disconnect in schedules. Oh, well, the important thing is that we found each other!

Ben arrived the afternoon before us, so he was ready to show us a few spots in the area and suggest some activities. In no time, we were out at the beach, swimming in the Atlantic, climbing on rocks to pretend like mer-people, climbing through tunnels, dodging rocks to swim through arches, and soaking our feet in the sand.

The Little Mermaid--in real life!

Later, we took a “walk” along the coast, one that was designated on our map. However, the path was not as clearly marked as the map led us to believe, so it was mostly a hike, led by Ben’s “man-sense of direction.” Nevertheless, he did successfully lead us to the lighthouse and the grottenfahrt (“grotto,” if you will) intended! All along the way were amazing vistas and picturesque views of beach, coast, boats, and ocean.

And as hard to believe as it may sound, the vistas were further improved by the smiling faces of three friends from school having fun in a foreign land!
 

Behold, the Grottenfahrt (continued in the second picture)!

 

Also, as much fun as it is to be with Ashlee and Ben and to joke with them, it wasn’t long before Ben’s witty (and sometimes rude) comments came out. In one conversation, over lunch, he called me both Dr. Turley and Dr. Fails, the former because I used “puzzle” as a verb, and the latter because I explained in linguistic terms something Ben had said that Ashlee didn’t get from Ben’s mere examples. Silly Ben. But he can be very complimentary and thoughtful when he wants to be, too, and it has been good to be together and laugh. We’ve done that a lot so far.  Of course, part of the best of it is that we can make nerdy linguistic jokes or references to other jokes/previous conversations/inside jokes and they make sense.  Awesome!