So anyway. We went to Portugal. And I know some of you were asking for stories and whatnot and the sad truth is that nothing all that exciting really happened. Well, except for the night we were stuck out in the middle-of-nowhere Algarve shopping mall at midnight and couldn’t get a cab. That was kinda hairy. Seeing as how the woman [oh, did I just write woman? I meant stupidbitch] at the cab company yelled at me over the phone to, “GO AND STAND IN THE TAXI LINE DO YOU UNDERSTAND?” and I promptly hung up on her but went and stood in the taxi line anyway as there seemed nothing else to do and gradually the parking lot grew empty of cars and it was just little YT and AAH standing there bewildered and somewhat cold and just a wee bit freaked out as in MY GOD WHAT IF NO TAXIS COME AND WE HAVE TO STAY OUT HERE ALL NIGHT WITH NOBODY AROUND THIS IS HORRIBLE!!! And all the nice Portuguese people I had encountered in my previous two trips to the country had suddenly vanished and instead we had a mallful of evasive SORRYICAN’THELPYOUSORRY types, until eventually some lovely people we had asked for advice earlier decided to take pity on us and offered us a ride back to Albufeira [they were Brazilian and ever-so nice and with such kindness about them that I trusted them immediately – well, that and the fact that the prospect of sleeping in the taxi line was looming larger by the minute] and so we got back to the hotel in the end and they weren’t even going to Albufeira; so you see there are still good kind people in the world and please send them good happy thoughts loaded with blessings NOW, great, thank you!
Other than that, it was yer basic bake-in-the-sun type holiday. And now I shall post a bunch of pictures and be done with it.
These are chimneys ubiquitous in the Algarve area and nowhere else in Portugal, brought over by the Moors from Morocco many many centuries ago. These were on the rooftop opposite our hotel balcony and I thought they were so cute – like a little family of ghosts. Whereas they reminded AAH of mushrooms [not magic, I hope].
Here are some more:
Here is a shot of some topless Icelanders around the hotel pool…
… wading pool, that is. The actual hotel pool was slightly larger
And here’s our favourite beach, the Praia da Oura [Beach of Gold], which is stunningly beautiful and vastly preferable to the pool any day
… And finally, an unintentional shot of a disgruntled Portuguese man at the food court in the Algarve shopping mall. Obviously if looks could kill, AAH and YT would now be toast.
RIGHT. NOW THE ICELAND WEATHER REPORT
Breezes from the west with some fog creeping in tonight. Temps 8-13°C. Sunrise was at 03.03 and sunset is due for 23.53.