Hola amigos y amigas!  This post is crazy overdue and I apologize for that.  I sit down every day at my desk and feel overwhelmed by the insane amount of things I have to do.  In addition to my new classes here (!), eating meals with my host family, and spending time with friends in my program here, I am also trying to balance preparing an application for a Discovery Grant this summer, considering topics for my thesis next year, worrying about scheduling for next year, and needing time to recharge, as usual.  Writing these blogs sometimes feels like a gargantuan task, but once I get going I remember how fun it is to reflect and write about the things that are happening here.  Especially since so many of you are friends and family from home!  Also, I am going to count this post as two posts since I am so far behind on my writing.  So that means I only have to write one more towards the end of this week.  Deal?

 

I have a lot that I want to include in this post, but my first priority is to fill you in on my Portugal trip like I promised more than two weeks ago!  I am going to make this a two-part blog post since it will be very long.  So I guess I am retracting on my earlier deal to count this as two posts since it will actually be two posts.

 

Portugal

Not Lisbon: Faro, on the coast.  We hopped on a bus Friday afternoon (January 23) after the last session of our intensive Spanish class.  (*Note: over the course of 10 days, we spent 30 hours in this intensive class.  Ridiculous right?  This trip to Portugal was well deserved, we thought.)  First off, navigating the bus station was hard.  We had to figure out which port, which bus, etc., was ours, until finally a bus pulled up that said FARO.  “That’s probably ours,” we said.  It was!  So, with surprising ease–especially considering that we would be crossing the border into an entirely different country, and they didn’t even ask to see our passports–we stowed our things away under the bus and took off!  We were treated to some great views of the incredible and almost exotic Portugal.

 

 

We transferred buses in Faro–we were actually staying in Quarteira, 30 minutes outside of Faro–and drove into the smaller coastal town.  We found our hotel easily while on the bus because it was bright orange, but as we drove right past it we realized it was a little ways out of town.  “There it goes,” we said.  Eventually we made our way there in a taxi and settled in for the night.  Two of our friends went back to Faro to visit a restaurant they had learned about from someone they met on the bus called Tasca do Ricky (more about this below).  That night, those of us left wandered around a strangely empty Quarteira, writing off the silence of the town as a product of the off-season (55 degrees Fahrenheit is cold for these people!).

 

The next morning we decided to walk around Quarteira, planning mainly on visiting the beach.  We made it our first stop and was it incredible.  The sand, the water, a little bit of fog…I can’t put into words how nice it was.  Here are some pictures:

 

 

We ended up wandering a good bit, at some point making a hazy decision to find the port town of Vilamoura, which supposedly held a marina.  We made a few random turns, said hi to a dog who stared back at us, stopped to rest at a great little burger place (called Tuttapanna Artigianale).  After making one last stop in a McDonald’s (a very convenient WiFi spot, if you are ever in a foreign country and don’t have data), almost ready to give up (we had been searching for a good hour or two at this point), a man outside pointed us in the right direction and we found the port!

 

 

I considered it to be a really nice day, but again it was technically the “winter” season there, so many of the shops and restaurants were closed until February.  Regardless, the marina was gorgeous under the sun and we did find one place that we had heard about: Nougat Tea’n.  This was a pretty little tea and dessert place with outdoor seating that looked like the furniture of royalty (later we would discover that some of the seats were soaked with water.  You can probably guess how we figured this out).  This is the food we ate:

 

 

The sun was starting to go down, so we took a taxi home and showered up.  The four of us who hadn’t gone to Tasca do Ricky the previous night decided to put on our nice clothes and go.  We took yet another taxi into Faro, despite having been told by our friends that Ricky’s is apparently a particularly difficult place for the taxi drivers to find.  Ours was not happy (maybe about having to drive 30 minutes outside of Quarteira?) and told us she thought we were in the right place.  Great!  But she had actually dropped us off right in front of Ricky’s…which was closed!

 

At this point, having spent close to 7 Euros per person on a taxi and also having eaten nothing very substantial since breakfast, I think we were all on the verge of tears.  (I was.)  Dejected, we stood there for a few minutes until a townie trudged up the otherwise deserted street and knocked on the door to Ricky’s.  Some hope?  The woman looked at us and I asked, “Aberto?”  Is it open?  She smiled and motioned for me to wait until someone came out of the restaurant; they exchanged a few words.  The person went back into the restaurant and the woman held up seven fingers–Ricky’s would be open at 7!  It was 6:45!  Thrilled, we walked around for a half hour and then came back.

 

This was the experience of a lifetime.  Ricky jumped up to greet us when we arrived, since we were the only ones there, and immediately sat us at a table and began to chat with us.  He is an outgoing, kind-hearted, and funny person who believes strongly in what he does and how he lives.  He told us how he believes in the small-restaurant business and in providing fresh, well-cooked food for his customers.  When I say well-cooked, I don’t mean well-done.  I mean that he pours tenderness and attention into his cooking to ensure that he is bringing out the best of the natural flavors that the food already has.  He is especially fond of making seafood, since Faro is right on the coast.  I ordered a salmon dish, which came paired with potatoes, sweet potatoes, and a salad.  Of course, we decided to order some sangria to accompany our meal.

 

 

Ricky also has a fantastic assortment of desserts.  There were four of us and just as many dessert choices so…why would we not get all of them?  We ordered one of each: flan, chocolate mousse, rice pudding, and a cookie-mousse thing.

 

They were all wonderful.  We finished with an almond liqueur, which Ricky told us was a digestive aid.  Honestly I was so full that the sweetness of the almond, which he mixed with fresh lemon juice, was too much for me.  I drank as much of it as I could.

Phew, this post is almost over.  I promise.  The next day, we had a leisurely breakfast (did I mention we were some of the only ones in the hotel?  We nearly had the breakfast room to ourselves both days).  It was even warmer on Sunday than it was Saturday.  We took the bus back to Faro, where we walked around town for a few hours until our return bus to Seville was scheduled to leave.  I’ll leave you with a few pictures from our adventure there!

Stay tuned for part 2!

Location: Faro, Portugal