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| Sea Caves |
When we were planning the rest of our weekend trips in July, I got on Ryan air, pulled up Google maps in a separate window, entered Dublin to ______ and went down the list of destinations. If I didn’t know the city, I’d look it up on Google maps. If the mystery town happened to be in the middle of Russia or looked like it was a place I had no interest of visiting, I’d move along. When I got to “Faro” and had no idea where that was, Google maps informed me it was on the southern coast of Portugal. Air fare was cheap and Dublin weather had me craving for real summer weather and a beach, so I booked it and e-mailed Becca and Remi to inform them we were going to Faro whether they liked it or not. I had been to Lisbon when I was in 3rd grade, and the only thing I really remembered was that “morango” meant strawberry in Portuguese because everyday I ordered a strawberry push pop on the beach. So even though we were heading somewhere I had never heard of, my extensive Portuguese vocabulary could order us some strawberry popsicles. Things were looking up for us.
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| So happy to be in the sun |
The day we were flying out we still hadn’t booked a hotel, which is quite normal for our traveling style…everything is last minute. We didn’t know one thing about Faro or where to stay, and around 1pm it was looking like we were gonna be sleeping on the beach. Becca sent me a link on booking.com for Hotel Artismar – on the beach, a pool, and air conditioning – I gave her the thumbs up and she booked it. Unfortunately we didn’t read the reviews until after Becca submitted her credit card info, and apparently Hotel Artismar wasn’t exactly a gem.
Booking.com warned us of the small elevator, that the maids didn’t refill the shampoo or bring clean towels, and that the hotel restaurant sucked. They failed to mention that we were located in the straight up hood of Portugal, but for some reason that didn’t stop us from wondering over to the local beach bar. Amongst Julio’s posse and pregnant women tossing back Corona’s, the 3 of us blondes stood out pretty bad. The owner came over with free drinks, held up his digital camera, motioned for us to pose and said “Facebook!” That was the only word in English he was able to say. When I realized my face was going to be on the Facebook page of some bar in the ghetto of Portugal and I was drinking a cocktail made by a man who owned such a bar, I began to fear for my safety.
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| Villamoura, our preferred location |
For the rest of the trip we spent most of our time in Villamoura, a neighboring area that was much nicer and more for tourist. We went to the beach and took a sailboat one day to the sea caves. I was so excited to be in the sun and get a tan that I didn’t put a drop of SPF on the whole trip. My skin color is now far closer to red on the color wheel than tan, and I believe I may have 3rd degree burns on my back. Despite staying in Portugal’s 8 mile and the fact that my skin is about to peel like Goldmember from Austin Powers, I loved our weekend in Portugal and would love to go back... except next time I’ll wear some suncreen and won’t be staying anywhere near Hotel Artismar.
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| On the boat by the caves |
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| Our sailboat for the day |
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