Riding Holidays for Dummies

This post may seem like an endorsement and that is because it is just that. I am not getting “paid” by Los Alamos to write said post, but since I do live/work here, I have a feeling I will get some extra dessert or maybe first choice on horses next week. I would write this regardless.

Riding Holiday (ˈrī•dēng 'häl•i•dā)
-noun
a freaking amazing place where you go on vacation for a set period of time, ride horses everyday, drink a lot, eat a lot and do other fun vacation stuff.

Ok, so maybe that didn’t come RIGHT out of the dictionary. The point is, if you had asked me 5 years ago what a riding holiday was, I would have laughed and asked if it was some codeword for a honeymoon or something equally as juvenile.  But now that I have been enlightened to the glory that is the riding holiday, I am compelled to share this information with anyone and everyone who will listen.

You will be especially interested in this post if you ride horses, and not like “oh, one time I sat on a pony at the Jonesboro County Fair and it was AWESOME” kind of riding. For those of you finding yourselves short on equestrian talent, maybe this is inspiration to get out there and take some lessons – and then come visit me :)

So I’m going to speak generally about riding holidays here, but really I’m mostly talking about my riding holiday, which is Los Alamos Equestrian Holidays in San Ambrosio, Spain.

The general premise of a riding holiday is that you pay for, say, a week of all-inclusive vacation.  What you get with this payment is all the normal all-inclusive benefits (think unlimited food and booze) but with an equestrian twist. Here is the typical schedule for one of our normal Sunday to Sunday holidays.

Sunday

Pick up at the airport, lunch on the patio at Los Alamos, intro to horses, afternoon by the pool

Monday

4 hour ride in the morning around the amazingly gorgeous pine forest around our house including a stop at the Torre de Meca an old Moorish lookout tower and the Trafalger Mirador a lookout from the top of a cliff out over Cabo de Trafalger and the Los Caños lighthouse. Tie the horses outside of Venta Los Majales del Sol in the forest for lunch, a bar who only cooks food for us, usually Spanish style tortillas and fresh asparagus, tomato and tuna salad accompanied by a big jug of Tinto de Verano or “Summer Wine,” a Sangria type wine cocktail. Naturally capped off with an authentic and amazing Spanish coffee.  Dinner tonight, as with every night, is back at Los Alamos, either on the patio or inside the large common room and includes three courses of delicious Spanish and English dishes. As well as unlimited booze. Is anyone surprised I’ve gained 15 pounds since moving here?

Tuesday

4 hour ride in the morning down to the beaches in Los Caños de Mecca with long canters in the sand dunes, a couple canters on the beach and if the tide is right, an impossibly long full out gallop along the Playa de Zahora. Tie up the horses at a bank of trees near one of the dunes and lunch is at Las Dunas, an adorable hippie bar/restaurant on the beach serving up the best Olives in the world and simple but delicious sandwiches. Maybe today, we try a Rebojito, which is sherry’s response to the Tinto de Verano, a white wine sherry (fino) spritzer. And duh… coffee.

Wednesday

My day off, how am I supposed to know what they do? Ok, just kidding. Another 4 hour ride in the morning around the forest, past the old San Ambrosio hermitage, the view of the windmills (both old and new), past the largest dovecote in the world and a stop at Venta Canuto’s (Miguel’s) bar for lunch. The ride (like it does everyday) arrives back in San Ambrosio around 2:30 and the rest of the afternoon is yours to lay out by the pool, go to the beach, walk to the Dove Cote bar for a gin & tonic or take a siesta with the rest of Spain.

Thursday

A day off for the horses. Andrew takes the whole lot to Jerez de la Frontera for a day trip. After a traditional Spanish breakfast you head to the carriage driving museum, to the stables to look at the carriage driving horses at the Royal Andalusian School of Equestrian Art and then take in a show at the Royal School of their stallions doing Doma Vaquera, Doma Classica both in hand and ridden as well as a carriage driving show. It’s absolutely amazing. After the show, you head to a local sherry man for some sherry tasting.

Friday

Another beach ride, similar to Tuesday but giving us a little leg room if the tides are better on one day or the other. Whichever day is better, the ride extends past the wildflower field out to El Palmar beach and we spend a solid 2 hours in the sand before lunch back at Las Dunas again.  Dinner tonight is special, as Rachel and I take the group back to Los Majales where one of Antonio’s cousins (who happens to be a professional flamenco singer) puts on a show with Antonio’s sister, Conchi, Rachel, myself and any other flamenco dancing passersby dance after a huge feast of fried chili peppers, chicken paella and an amazing assortment of local chorizo and ham.

Saturday

Last day of riding. We take a bit of a shorter ride this day to a look out of the Porto de Barbate and then walk a half a mile up an old Roman Road up the coast of Barbate from the beach up to another Moorish lookout tower and one of the most spectacular views of Morocco (less than 8 miles away from us at this point) you can get from this area.  Lunch today is a Venta Luis in San Ambrosio and includes a feast of Calamari, Grilled Vegetables, Garlic Chicken, Russian Salad and Garlic Pork. After this we do a quick ride back home possibly including a stop at the Corkscrew, if the group is up for it, an intense downhill gallop on one of the many firebreaks in the area. This is not for the faint of heart.

This ain’t your grandmamma’s trailride. This is fast paced long distance riding. I’ve ridden horses competitively my whole life and when I first came out here, it took me a couple of days before I was truly adjusted. Each day has at least 5 or 6 long and difficult canters or gallops including the Corkscrew (mentioned above), the Rollercoaster – a similar downhill firebreak canter, as well as many full out firebreak gallops and wiggly forest canters. People riding here have to be in complete control at all times and are encouraged to pave their own way rather than follow nose to but with the horse in front of them.

In addition, the horses we have are amazing. Yes we have some quieter horses for people who need a bit more confidence; but not many. Most of our horses are lively, spirited and absolutely love to run. Several of the horses are classically trained dressage horses coming to us from Antonio, our best friend horse whisperer and amazing dressage trainer in Vejer. We have a 4 year old filly Andalucian/Cob cross who is one of our most popular rides, a dozen or so full bred Andalucian horses with papers, and 3 horses who are bred out of the Spanish National Champion Doma Vaquera stud. 

I’m not really sure why we don’t embrace this more in American culture, but the holiday I’m on here is not that unique. These places exist all over the world, and Brits are taking advantage of them every day. If you are a rider, or know someone who is, I highly encourage you to take a look at some of these and try them out. Some cool sites to check out are:

In the Saddle
Riding Holidays
Far and Ride
Equitour
Equitours
Los Alamos

Finding "campera" to be less of an insult everyday

Welcome to the campo. The Spanish countryside. The veins and capillaries in the extremities of this large county that keep everything working, that keep us aware of why this country is so great. Welcome to San Ambrosio: my home. My tiny 400 or so person town somewhere in the forest between Barbate and Vejer de la Frontera. Never heard of those “cities” either? How about half way between Cadiz and Tarifa? Hmm… those cities not striking a bell either? Look at a map. Find the southernmost tip of Spain, the part that almost touches Morocco. Now move your finger up the coast to the left an hour’s worth of driving. That’s me.

I live 20 minutes drive from the nearest grocery store, 20 minutes drive from the nearest bank, an hour drive from the nearest “department store”, an hour and a half drive to the nearest airport, 2 and a half hours drive to the nearest train station. If this isn’t remote, I don’t know what is. But despite my distance from most of the amenities I would have previously considered important, I have everything I need and rarely find the need to go to any of the aforementioned places. Why do you need a bank when you don’t use money? Why do you need a grocery store when you grow your food yourself? Why do you need a department store when sew your own clothes? Why do you need and airport or train station when you have absolutely no intention of leaving?

You can get to San Ambrosio from the three nearest “towns”: Los Caños de Meca, Vejer de la Frontera and Barbate. But no matter which direction you come from, you will have to drive on an unpaved road at some point. Once you’re in town, there are two main “streets.” One, Zarzadilla, has most of the resident homes, the vacation homes, the full time residents and the farms. The other, what I refer to as the Yellow Brick Road, because it is just that… a yellow brick road… boasts the towns two fine dining establishments, amply named Luis and Miguel’s. These are also the town’s two pubs. Luis food is amazing and seasonal. If he kills a boar in the forest, we get boar for a couple weeks, if he finds some exotic fish at the market; we get exotic fish for a week or so. He always has chicken, pork, the most amazing Russian Salad and the best French fries I’ve probably ever had in my life. Miguel’s menu is a bit simpler, but just as impressive. His chicken ka-bob’s rival the best of them and he cooks a dogfish that makes me water at the mouth. 

Miguel's as seen from my back porch.Miguel’s is less than 50 yards from my backdoor. One day, while I was laying out by the pool, I heard someone shouting my name – it was Miguel. He was standing on the back porch of the bar and was wondering why I wasn’t watching the US world cup football game, which I had completely forgot about. “Hurry up and come over here,” he said “and I’ll turn on the game for you.” Because of proximity (and my now amazing friendship with the owner) I find myself at Miguel’s almost every night. He closes the bar when me and my other friends leave, not a minute earlier, not a minute later – sometimes that’s 11 PM, sometimes it’s 4:30 AM. It’s just friends hanging out at someone’s house for all I’m concerned. 

Every morning, I am woken up by the roosters next door. They’re a bit overzealous and tent to crow from about 6 AM until about 9 AM, just to make sure. I call it a built in snooze button. But they’re persistent at least, seeming to gawk around until everyone in town is awake. All of my neighbors have their own chickens, pigs, turkeys, ducks and cows. Every morning, Paco, one of my neighbors, walks his cows from his garden out to grazing land down the street right by my window.  And everyone has horses. The men here parade their horses around like fancy cars, and these horses are fancy. We’re talking purebred Andalucian stallions that Braulio and Paco ride to Miguel’s, Luis or Antonio’s (another bar deeper in the forest). We’re talking stallions that rival the talent of Lippizaner stallions and who can dance on command, half-pass across an open field and rear up on command. 

This place is like a throwback in time. The other day, the water out at the horses seemed to be turned off, so I walked over to Paco’s to ask him what was going on and if his water was off as well. He said he was watering his garden and must be taking up all the pressure. He apologized and sent me off with three grocery bags full of fresh produce – a peace offering. I marched back to my house with heads of fresh romaine lettuce, eggplant, zucchini, potatoes and fresh tomatoes. Today while I was trying to take my daily siesta at about 3 PM, I hear a man on a loudspeaker. It’s the chicken guy – who comes to bring the chickens. “Get your chickens ladies, I’ve got brown ones, white ones, old ones, young ones, ones that can be next month’s dinner, ones that can be tonight’s dinner.” He drives around town and all the women in town march down to the truck and get their live chickens which then get each get placed in their own little chicken coop either for eggs, dinner or for making more chickens. I saw a woman trade him a goat one time for two chickens.

Yesterday, I went to the beach with one of my friends Vicky, and she can’t drive, so we hitched a ride in a tractor down to the water. Her boyfriend Antonio was going to drive us, but he wanted to take a nap instead, so he yelled out his window at a tractor driving past and asked the man behind the wheel (who happened to be his cousin, because everyone here is related somehow) if he would take us down to the beach. “Of Course!” he said “hop on in.” Uh… ok!

That’s the kind of place I live in right now. A town where people still ride horses to the bars and tie them up outside while they’re in having their drinks. A town where when I stop hearing the turkey gobbling over at Miguel’s, I know to run over there quick to claim some of the white meat before it’s all gone. A town where the mounted forest guard comes to help me feed the horses on Thursday morning’s because he knows I’m going it by myself – without me having to ask.

This is how life should be.



I can talk about forever, for a day or two – but I still got a lot of leaving, left to do

If you know me at all, you know that I’m quite restless – I don’t really like sitting still. A small example of this inability to remain in one place is if you take the past 2 years of my life. Since May 2008, I have lived in 6 different apartments, in 6 different cities, in 3 different states and 3 different countries.  I would rather saw my own arm off than sign a lease and when you ask me what I’m planning on doing with my life in 6 months it will usually sound something like “anything but what I’m doing right now.” I used to say that my theme song was Dierks Bently’s “Still got a lot of leaving left to do.”

Until now.

Spain has achieved the impossible. It has managed to tame down this broken vagabond. Spain has reeled me in and though I’m still trying to twist away from it’s grasp, I’m not sure that I can. Yes, that’s right little readers, I am considering making the leap from backpacker to ex-pat – a change many of us go through, but I never thought it would happen this soon.

So how did I get here; how did I let this place take control of the wheel? Well, that’s not so easily explained, as I’m not really sure myself. But rather than try to speculate, I’m going to slowly walk you through this love story from day one. Maybe we can both figure it out together then. 

Part 1 - My town: San Ambrosio

Part 2 - My job: Los Alamos Riding Holiday

Down in Africa

The plan for Day 2 in southern Spain was to… well… leave southern Spain. I had casually mentioned the proximity to Morocco in some of the planning e-mails I had sent B & Emmy Lee, but I wasn’t sure they would bite. I had been to Morocco on this very ferry (ha. very ferry.) during my last Eurotrip and was eager to get back and spend some more time there with the confidence that comes from traveling in groups larger than one. Fortunately for me, Brian and Emily were game, and we all woke up early to take the quick ferry across to Tangier from Tarifa.

We immediately found a nice looking English speaking guide named Majid who offered to take us around town. He offered a short day inner city tour (about 4 hours) or a longer tour which involved a minivan and took us all around the outskirts of the city as well (about 6 hours) for only €10 more. I was casually encouraging the latter, as I had already done the inner city tour, and was ecstatic when my comrades wanted the longer tour.  Yippee! I get to see something I didn’t see the last time I was here.

We started our tour in a van with a man who spoke no English, but who was nice enough, I think. He drove us all up and around town, all the while, Majid telling us about which sheiks and princes lived in which houses and took us to some gorgeous look out points from the tops of the mountains. We looked down on some gorgeous beaches, all of Tangier, back towards Spain and some berbur caves.  Majid took us to Hercules’ Cave which is a tourist trap blowhole type cave where it is said that Hercules used to live in where the water comes rushing in and what not. It was interesting, but had some GREAT views from the top of the cave. 

Next on the agenda was a camel ride, which I was SO freaking pumped for. I can’t exactly remember if I’ve ever ridden a camel before, but definitely not in Africa and not that I have any pictures of, that I can recall. So I reveled in the opportunity to overflow my facebook with pictures of me mounting a camel.  Emily handled it like a champ and seemed completely at ease on the giant cranky beast, but Brian, bless him, was a complete mess (sorry B Lee, I can’t let you off this one easy).  He was holding onto Emily so hard that she couldn’t breathe.  Anytime the camel took a step other than forward, Brian had a look of absolutel TERROR on his face.  Even when he was given the lead rope and asked to lead us around while they took our picture, he still looked like he was going to faint at any minute. And yes, he is wearing a hat in that picture remeniscent of the one Abu wore in Aladdin. Hil-air. I took a video on my phone, but he must have deleted it because I can’t seem to find it (thanks JERK) but hopefully my account of the events embarrass him as much as the video would have.

After all of this, we drove back to town to begin our walking tour. Most of what we saw was the same sort of stuff that I saw the last time I was here with Abdul, but it was interesting nonetheless. We listened to the call to prayer, browsed through a live animal market, wound around the streets, glanced at the Kasbah, had a spice demonstration (and a €2 neck massage) at a spice shop and did some Persian rug and jewelry shopping at a large store that looked strangely familiar to one I had frequented 3 years ago.  Lunch was served late afternoon at the most INCREDIBLE shish kabob restaurant for about €15 total for the three of us for WAY too much food.  We chatted with a guy who was a fellow tour guide who had dropped his customers off down the street and was coming here to eat his own lunch. It was amazing.

Majid put us back on the bus just before dark and we rode back to Spain with no incident. Dinner back at our favorite restaurant and a try at the “Best Mojitos in the World” which… surprisingly… actually was the best mojito I have ever had.

Majid also wrote our names in Arabic...

Abbey:

Emily:

Brian:

Busses, bad Spanish and the best huevos rotos EVER

Back to Spain we go. And after that ridiculously stressful day in Faro, I am ready for some more normalcy.

We were more than lucky with the bus situation. We had bought tickets from Faro to Sevilla yesterday, knowing that we would need to switch trains (and companies) in Sevilla to head south to Tarifa. I searched for hours on the internet and could never find anything in the form of an actual bus timetable.  But I did know it was possible and so we thought we’d just try and figure it out. 

We caught the first bus from Faro to Sevilla, arriving in Sevilla just after noon. After I asked several confused people in terribly broken Spanish which window we would needed to visit to buy tickets to head down to Tarifa, it was finally explained, in terribly broken English, that we had to go to another bus station.  Uh. Ok?

So we boarded a local bus bound for the airport, which was promised to take us to the other station. But when the bus driver told us to get off, I saw no such station. So again, in my surprisingly terrible Spanish, I asked shop owners, passers by, a police officer. No one seemed to know where we were trying to go. Finally, a guy selling sunglasses on the sidewalk realized what I was trying to do and pointed me in the right direction. After walking to where he told us to, finding nothing in the form of a bus station, I asked one final woman in an office building who pointed us to the small staircase that led to the bus station we were looking for. Walking up to the counter, we realized that we had 10 minutes before the bus left, and it was a good thing we made it, as the next bus didn’t leave for 6 hours.

More bus riding ensued, thankfully, and we arrived in Tarifa early afternoon, in perfect time for a stroll down to the port and a stop for tapas. We checked into our hostel, a place I’d been before called the Melting Pot, had a cocktail and headed out for an early dinner. We stumbled upon the most AMAZING restaurant.  It was incredibly simple, really cheap and had the most amazing food.  We had huevos rotos, which was basically a twist on a large Spanish style tortilla with eggs, potatoes, tomatoes, onions, cheese and other yumminess. We also split a large pan of seafood paella and a couple bottles of €2 wine. The place was so great that when we got back from touring around Tangier the following day, we walked straight off the boat and back into our now favorite little Spanish restaurant. Nothing else for us to see here :)

Faro... meh

We woke up early in Lisbon to travel down to Faro. With images of beautiful white sandy beaches and tiki bars in the sand, we boarded the train down the coast.  The ride was absolutely beautiful.  Luscious green mountains, gorgeous beaches, endless countryside.  All signs pointed to a great Portuguese afternoon in the sun.  We arrived at our hostel, dropped our junk and changed into our suits ready to hike to the surf. Only. When we hiked. We couldn’t find it.

All we found were miles of coastal marshland.  We walked up and down, looked at maps, asked people. No sign of a beach. In pretty poor spirits, we turned back to the hostel and asked the owner how to get to the beach.  Taking a bus seemed to be our best option, and we went to the stop outside to wait. And wait. And Wait.

By this time, it was late. Nearing 5 PM and the sun was starting to hide behind clouds that seemed to be filling the sky. We decided that if the bus didn’t turn up in the next 20 minutes, we were leaving. And it never turned. So we left. We grabbed a quick snack at a tapas type place near the marina and then after changing clothes began the quest for a place to eat dinner. Only, like the beaches, we found the restaurants to be few and far between. We finally found a place, were staring intently at the seemingly promising menu and all of the sudden there were two gigantic yellow eyes staring at us from the roof. Then the beast lurched towards us barking the most terrifying bark ever. I can’t speak for Brian and Emily but I was terrified. Like. Scared to tears, literally. I thought we were going to die. Visa-vis dog attack.  After initially running away from said restaurant and looking for another without a gigantic beast mounted on the roof, we realized there was none and had to retreat back within reach of the claws of what I had built up to be equivalent to “The Thing” in Sandlot. The food inside was ok. But the wine was alcoholic so I didn’t mind too much. Plus, Brian finally started listening to all of the woman advice Emily and I had been pouring into him and bought us two roses off of one of those cheesy street vendors that always walk up to your table and annoy you. I know… he’s only reinforcing this nasty behavior but, it’s the thought that counts, and when it comes to Brian’s chivalry, beggars can’t be choosers. Kidding B Lee (sort of – ok no I am – at least for public purposes).

About the only good thing that came out of this night was a scene where Emily decided she needed to “free” her flower by mutilating it all over the streets on the way back to the hostel. Oh ya and we stopped at an Irish bar and listened to some, American music, of all things, and I made two new friends who told me they were moving to a “tiny town in Southern Spain.” Hey! Me too! Turns out my new friends were venturing to Tarifa to teach kite surfing and we swapped contact information.

Not a complete loss, I guess!

Best hostel in the world for ser: Rossio Hostel - Lisbon, Portugal

I’ve never been one to use my blog as a space to promote certain tours, hostels, airlines or what have you.  But I am making an exception.  Because this place was the most amazing hostel I have ever been to.  I did not get paid, compensated, not even a pat on the back or a “thanks a lot” for writing this.  I am writing it because I want to make sure that this hostel is repaid for giving the backpacker community a true gem, and the best way to do that is to get other people to go there.  Here is my attempt to convince you to go to the Rossio Hostel in Lisbon. Go. Seriously.

When we arrived, it was just before 11. We expected to be turned away, bags shoved in a luggage room.  Luckily, our rooms were already ready. Luck. After giving us the typical hostel schpeil… oh wait, it was not typical. She first ran down and showed us all of the hostel amenities which included:

• A large common room with beanbags (why don’t we all have these anymore? They ROCK!) couches and chairs
• A large fully stocked kitchen with 24/7 cereals, fruits, juices, tea, coffee and the normal hostel leftovers
• Free wifi through the entire building

Our rooms were simple enough, but with subtle importances only the trained hostel goer would notice. Our bunk beds were made of solid wood.  That means no obnoxious IKEA metal bunk bed creaking.  That means when Joe in the bunk on bottom is snoring and tossing and turning, at least you only hear/feel the snoring. The linens were actually soft. They were actually comfortable and the pillows were actually stuffed and not those paper lined kind they give you on airplanes. There were countless outlets, including a mini lamp attached to the headboard of every bed. Individual lighting, individual plugs. Hello?! Awesome. The room was also spacey. Although the hostel could have easily fit at least two more bunk beds in the room with some rearranging, there was no need to overcrowd, and the space was much appreciated.

The bathrooms were spotless. They were spacey, had plenty of outlets and plenty of mirrors.  The toilets actually worked, and worked well.   But what was so amazing about the bathrooms were the showers. I have literally… not taken a shower like this in years. They were so great, that while Emily and I were showering next door to each other chit chatting (throwback to the old Theta days!!) I actually commented about how I wanted to just sit (yes, sit… on the inside built in seat) and chat while the water ran. The never-ending supply of very hot water, that is. Huge shower heads with plenty of pressure, large showers with plenty of leg-shaving room.  Each shower also had a little changing area outside with a little footstool next to the towel hook to pile your clothes in case any water got on the ground to wet them up.

As if that weren’t enough, the breakfast at this place was enough to lure in most people on it’s own.  Every morning (at any time… let alone… no “breakfast only served from 7-7:15” garbage) the hostel owner cooks an AMAZING breakfast with an unlimited (yes, you read that right) supply of scrambled eggs, toast, handmade from scratch crepes with nutella, several selections of cereals and mueslis, tea, coffee, fresh juices, and fruits. And it’s FREE the morning after a night at the hostel. And, if you’re like us, and arrive early in the morning but had not booked the hostel the night before, for only €2 you can enjoy the same royal treatment.  Which obviously we took up for sure.

I know there’s not a lot I can do to get people here, as most people use the reviews on hostelworld.com or other sites to fuel their hostel decision making process, but if I can influence anyone to take a second glance at this place when they’re looking for hostels in the Lisbon area, I will feel like I’ve done my part in good society.   The family running this hostel are good people and deserve to be rewarded by full rooms and good reviews.  So PLEASE! Go stay here when you’re in Lisbon and leave them a good review. I promise, for <€20 a night, you won’t be disappointed.

Emily lounging in a hostel bunk

The view from my bedroomThe computer room area

The main common room area

Hello sun, it's nice to see you again.

Leaving Germany, for me, was pretty easy. I was impressed by the culture and history of this country, but for some reason, getting back to Spain was something I couldn’t stop thinking about. Although I knew we had a couple of days before I would be “moving home” so to speak, just being back in a country where I could feign knowledge of the language was, at least, refreshing.

We only spent 2 days in Barcelona and not a lot happened, so I will spend a paragraph, at most, recounting the events. Our entire existence revolved around food and booze. We walked around La Rambla, got tapas, drank beer, searched for paella, and that’s about it. On our second day, Emmy and I took the hop on/hop off bus while Brian attempted to go pick his cousin up at the airport (HA! I thought I could leave the kid to his own for 5 hours, but he didn’t seem to make it too well on his own and ended up taking the wrong train an hour in the opposite direction of the airport). After we reconnected with B Lee and his cousin, we grabbed paella down by the port and just went back to the hostel to go to bed. Super exciting.

But I wasn’t too bothered by our lame existence in our short days in Barcelona because we made up for it in awesomeness once we got to Lisbon. First off, our hostel was the most amazing hostel. EVER. It is so amazing, that I will spend an entire blog entry tomorrow telling you why it’s awesome and why you should make a trip to Lisbon JUST to stay at this hostel. But in addition to this, I just found Lisbon to be a really magical city. Its absolutely beautiful, first off, and located right on the water in a river inlet. We walked for a long time, down to the water, around the downtown area initially looking for a beach, but without too much direction couldn’t find one (only to find out later that there isn’t one near, and you must go about 30 minutes by bus to get to one).

The best part of this city for me was what we did once we realized that the beach wouldn’t be an option. This involved the likes of sitting down at a street café for round about 5 hours. The scene was pretty simple. Emily had a book. I had a computer and a notebook and was busy recounting the events of the past couple of days. Brian his journal and was doing much the same as myself. Each of us had a drink of choice: a jug of Sangria, a bottle of wine, a capriocha. We sat there and drank, ate tapas and listened to an amazing guitarist for hours. It was warm enough for sun dresses and I finally felt like I was getting warmer to home.

To top it off, we had an incredible dinner at McDonald’s. Don’t judge. It was incredible. And then we went back to the hostel to participate in a bit of karaoke night (that turned a bit too weird for our likings) and to watch the Simpson’s and Family Guy on a gigantic tele. It was the perfect down evening we were all looking for since we started this incredible binge drinking trip over a week before, but none of us had enough courage to ask for. It was a calmly unspoken agreement when we all retired before 11 and we all woke refreshed the next morning and ready to catch the train down to Faro.