Last few days in Ireland first few in Portugal

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Oct 23
We had a lazy wake up today. Jay cooked us up some breaky. After hanging out for a bit we decided to walk through town and so some souveiner shopping. The walking/shopping street in galway was very nice. Many of the buildings are very colorful here it makes for a very cheerful sight. Keaney says they try and make up shades of grey here in the sky that is. We walked around town for a few bours I spent alot of money, we had a nice lunch then we headed back to shane's and hung out till he got home from work. When he did Shane and I went out for a 5 mile run through the city. It was a cool way to see the city, we ran down by the harbor it was a nice run mind the terrible cold and constant drizzle haha. I don't know how people get motavated to work out here it's always rainy and gloomy that being said I see why they aren't the fitest people haha. 
Shane then headed off to to a dinner and dog race. He wasn't sure if we could go for the dinner part so we waited for that to be over then headed to the dog race. It was pretty neat I had never been to any type of race like that. Those dogs were crazy fast. I placed my first bet with an euro that keany gave me. But we lost haha. We stayed there for a few races then when we were leaving they have the dog that just won the last race getting photos taken by the front door. We asked if we could take a photo and they obliged so jay and I hopped in with the owners and some other people and got our photo taken by the newspaper as well as our camera. Hopefully we will make the local paper. Haha.  After the dog race we headed down town to hit a few pubs. It was nice hanging out with the boys but here or home I don't like crowded drunken loud pubs/bars. We closed down the last pub around 2:30 and then headed home to bed. 

Oct 24
Today was a very late start around 11:30. We headed down town with the boys to have some breaky. It was a truely horrible Irish day, super windy and rainy. We were supposed to head to the north to have a surf but the weather was so crap we didn't bother.  Shane dropped us off at his place because he had to go do some work. Since we aren't passing back through Galway we had to sayour goodbyes. We hug out for a few hours at shane's watched a movie or two as we repacked all of our gear. Then we shoved off up to keaneys house.  When we got to keaneys house his aunt fixed us some dinner. We are just going to hang out rest and then head to Belfast in the morning to visit courtney then we leave on Monday. 
Oct 25
Today we got up and keaneys mom made us breaky. We then finished packing and shoved off to Belfast. We got there around 1ish. So we found a payphone to ring Courtney and we meet her at some pub. We then walked through town a little bit and found a pub that had the football game keaney wanted to watch. Manchester vs Liverpool.  It was funny because on the way to Belfast keaney and I were talking about the game and I predicted who would win I got the spread right and who would score a goal. It was pretty crazy considering I knew nothing and was just talking out of my ass. I told him it was because I had witches in my ancestory. 
After lunch keaney dropped us at courtneys dorm we said goodbye to keaney. We then were trying to decide what to do for the night. We wantted to do one the the black taxi tours but it was to late. It was however art festival month so we went to watch a modern Macbeth. It had motorcycles and weird twists to it.  It probably was the weirdest thing I have seen in a long time. If I had know the story better it might have made a bit more sense but some of it was really out there and hard to follow. After the play we went and got some kebabs then went to the bar that was right next to courts dorm. We palyed a couple games of pool and just chatted. We called it a night around 11 since we had a 4:30 wake up to get to the airport. 

Oct 26
We all had a pretty horrible sleep her room got super hot. Jay decided to take a shower which set us back and we missed the first bus to the airport so we had to sit at the bus station for about 40 mins. We finally got to the airport and got to check in everything went smoothly. Next stop Portugal.
So we landed got all of our gear, got some info and our bearings, I changed and threw away my shoes, then we were off. We took the bus from the airport to the bus station then  found out the bus to Lagos wasn't for 2 hours so we walked across the street and got some grub and looked over the surf and travel guide. I had an awesome meal eggs and a chicken steak the chicken was seasoned very well. It was delicious. Finally our bus came and we were off.  The bus ride was pretty nice it is an alomst desert surrounding wih nice small white houses with red roofs. 
When we finally got to Lagos we asked if we could catch another bus onward to carapateira but no luck. We were thinking about basing out of Lagos anyway. 
We are on a budget so we decided to camp outside of town. Only thing was we weren't 100% sure wich way to go and once we got the right direction we started to get lost in the center of town. Which wasn't terrible because it was a mostly a walking town and it was super cool and beautiful.  We tried to find internt to contact the surf camps in town but we didn't have any luck. We did find the info both and he directed us in the right direction. It wouldn't have been bad but it was a hilly town and we had to drag our board bag around. It was ridiculous. Plus we started down a hill we thought was the right way but wasn't so we had to hike back up that. It must have taken a sweaty long hour or so to find the camp. 
We set up came had probably the coldest shower I have ever had then headed back into town to try and chat up some surf camps to find transport to the breaks. We got a little info but were told to come back in the morning. So we headed down restaurant row to find a bit to eat. We had a lovely dinner. I had some pork and jay had lamb. Then we split  what looked like a chocolate vagina in the picture the server gave us. It was ridiclous looking. But when it arrived it looked nothing like the picture we were sadly dissapointed but had alot of laughs over it. After dinner we headed back to the camp to get some sleep. 

Oct 27
So we got up today and headed into town. Nothing opens up remotely early so we has to grab some breaky before we could talk to any of the surf camps. It was hard to find a breaky restaurant open even, it was only 8:30. We did find on and got a pretty solid breaky. 
The first surf camp we went to the guy seemed cool but was crazy about what he was going to charge us just for transport 35 euros each day. We found another one that was 25 euros for a place to stay breaky lunch and transport. We were sold. We could have maybe done it by bus and pt but apparently there aren't many busses and the don't actuay go to the point breaks/ beaches we were intrested on hitting so we opted to do the surf camp. Only problem was we couldn't get picked up till the avo so we went to pack up our camp the. Then we had to drag the board back to town and wait by the taxi stand in town. We had some decent pizzas for lunch while we waited. The camp van finaly came and they brouht us to a small washy beach break where they had been teaching surf lessons. We didn't bother surifn but went out for a body surf then just hung out till we left. We got to ride in a sweet land rover defender. It was sick. We drove to the surf camp which is located in sagres. The camp is pretty sweet. It has a kitchen, tv room with playstation and comp and wifi. It's a pretty sweet deal. The good thing is there is a surf camp down from England with a surf coach and all so we were able to tag along with them to get to the better beaches then the people that go to beaches to learn. The boys are all pretty cool lil groms probably around 14 or so and there's about 7 of them. 
Jay and I went to a grocery store to grab some food to make for dinners. We had pasta and suasage for dinner. The suasge was pretty good actually decent sauce and weird but good cheese.
We just hung out watching tv and reading till we nicked off to bed. 

Oct28
So we had a 7:30 wake up not as early as we hoped but better then the 10ish wake up they apparently normally do. 
We had a cereal breaky then headed off to check a few spots. We looked at tonell, zavial and beleish but none of them were working well. So we coinvinced them to head to arifanna which is about an hour away. However the wind was on it. It was sort of off shore but with gusty aide shores. 
The little groms paddled out front at the small beach break. Jay and I headed down the beach hoping the left head land would shelter some of the winds and we could get a decent left hander. After sitting around for an hour and taking a set on the head. We decided to head back in to the beach break. Where it was choppy and mostly close outs but we managed to sang a few. 
We headed in after a bit to see what everone was doing. All the boys were grabbing a bit to eat and the coach was gonna head out to the point to try it. Jay and I thought about it but it didn't look worth the effort just really lumpy and choppy. So I went to the small restaurnt to grab some lunch. It had a beautiful view of the break below. 
After lunch we hung out for another hour so then the coach camp in and was gonna make the boys go back out. We both debated it for a while but then decided to give it a go. Which turned out to be a good idea. I had some really fun ones an ld a few mega close out barrels. Jay managed to snag a few nice longer lefts too. After that session we headed back to the surf camp but stopped off at a food store and raided it real qucik. When we got back we watched some of the footage the coach took of the boys. Jay made dinner suasage and pasta again. Haha tomorrow will be either chicken or frozen pizzas we found real cheap. Were just gonna waste the night away now. 

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