After a particularly intense few months of, ironically, trying to simplify our lives we said our final goodbyes and hit the skies, destined for Lisbon. Such was our excitement, that, despite the immensely disappointing start of ordering an Uber instead of the much hoped for “Olà!” from the airport, we had one of the best 24 hour stopovers we’ve ever had! It could have just been from several loads lifted off the shoulders in recent weeks, but also might have been helped by the random old ladies selling ginjinha in chocolate cups on the streets or even accidentally stumbling across a wine festival where 1 Euro got you as much as you could drink. Showing tremendous (and unusual) restraint after being awake for 36 hours, we tasted very few and chose instead to take some away for our balcony (where we still had to check if the prices were by the bottle or glass…in the good way). The extra Euros were perfectly offset by the priceless look on Lea’s face when asked if she’d like “fresh wine” and answering “no, I want a closed bottle”…to the guffaws of the surrounding Europeans who, for some reason, replace the word cold with fresh when wine’s involved. What a culture shock right!?

We had a lovely dinner and stumbled into a tiny Fado bar where we got to witness performances of at least 6 people as they popped on stage from out the back, from the bar and from where we thought were just fellow punters getting on it…it was all incredible to hear, even through the growing fear that at any stage it could be “your turn amigo”. Other than that, we saw as much as you can in the time we had, Lea got her tart fix (James was left wanting more), enjoyed the same hotel and the same room and the same view from our trip in 2017 in yet another once in a lifetime experience we got to repeat, and thoroughly loved our time in Lisbon…until the train station.

We knew the train station we chose was a while away, but about halfway there we did query the “Oriente” destination we had entered was still in Europe. Once there, we wondered why we would head to the Algarve because everyone else was off to the exotic “Com Atraso” until we translated it and realised we were off there too and had 2 hours to wait, com atraso. But everything went to plan from there….until the train platform changed, as the train arrived! And the train took longer on the journey than anticipated…which could have been anticipated.

On the train we made our way to the Algarve and a small, seemingly English, maybe German, town of Vilamoura for a week of festivities for a “young” friend’s 40th.

While in the Algarve we:

• Were reminded how modern builders still construct toilets to honour distant ancestors rather than the large, red English, German (and in this instance, Australian) populations and how the corresponding impact of not having enough space to perform a reach around has different impacts in different situations
• Discovered 1 “prawns” is really one prawn and it being “coocked” came the way we were hoping that typo was going
• Braved the rugged coast by wearing white shorts and ordering giant bowls of tomato and shellfish rice
• Grew a new appreciation for the proliferation of wet ones (see above comment)
• Enjoyed paying more for food than wine at dinners out
• Had an awkward run-in with toilet cistern in a bar where we were already not welcome, went in looking at number one but came out 2nd best
• Enjoyed using deci-litres when ordering wine and pretending we thought 5dL each would just be a glass
• Wondered what we’d eaten at “A do pinto” restaurant after translating the name
• Enjoyed an amazing Jeep safari of the region around Albufeira and soaking up a stunning sunset before being told how terrible it was we couldn’t actually see the ocean
• Went on an spectacular scenic cruise for bday boy
• Swam into caves
• Played “Happy birthday to ya” (and “I’m on a boat!”) too much
• Hiked the red cliffs of Quarteira
• “Marvelled” at Albufeira’s one apostle
• Reunited with and met amazing people from around the world and appreciated how very lucky we’ve been in life to have so many amazing friends we can travel the world with
• Broke into a beach club hotel for lunch…they ended up winning
• Tried various quality piri piri chicken
• And absolutely enjoyed being a long, long way from the real world!!!