Portugal: Sushi, Spaniards and Shenanigans

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July in Tavira has been awesome ... so much so that I forgot about my blog. There have been some rough times too as is with life anywhere, however each day is a new day and you just move on.

I'll start off with a brief discussion on health and nutrition. During June I decided to take physical fitness seriously and being quite anal with my food by logging every item I ate and % of macro-nutrients. I had a good result by the end of the month with strength, muscle/fat ratio, energy levels. In July I stopped taking things so seriously and didn't quite know what I was eating, having large meals and eating out a lot as it's easy to over-indulge, it is after all summer in a mediterranean climate. The end result by the end of the month was less energy, higher body fat, less muscle, no will to train, allergies, nervous system issues, general health degradation. Therefore I made a decision to take things to another level. I have now quit the gym and tomorrow I begin with calisthenics bodyweight training, log my daily food intake again, eat fresh and take back control of the mind and body.

Actually my last gym session last week was funny. I learnt the hard way never to train smaller muscles 1st before larger ones as I almost crushed my chest .... twice. I made the mistake of tiring out my triceps and then afterwards deciding it would be a good idea to do dumbbell chest presses with 20kg per arm ... knowing I managed 4 sets the previous week I had no worry, until rep 3 when my arms were shaking like a crackwhore who hasn't had a fix in days .... and the next rep I dropped the weight onto my chest, aannddd then came the other one, kaboom ... that's 2 thirds of my body weight landing right on me ... it hurt.

The beaches over here are awesome now with warm enough water to swim in and let the waves carry you from A to B ... sometimes to C if you're too light. At the start of summer I went to Sport Zone and bought some speedos, thinking "yh man, if girls can wear small things guys should be able to as well, it's the beach, anything goes ... kind of". Well after a few visits with speedos I realized that I'm the only one who thinks this way .... well not only, the only other guys I ever saw wearing speedos were old, fat men ... wtf man. Also speedos can be tricky if you're doing things with a girl on the beach with other peeps around and not wanting to 'appear' excited. Back to the shorts it was.

I have a new favourite beach called 'Olhos de Agua' which means 'eyes of water' ... something to do with holes in the sand but I don't get it. All I know is this is an awesome beach with cliffs and rock formation with caves where people can find their own spot and hide away from the rest of the peeps. Amazing place to do some adventurous things too. I decided to walk all around the beach and then climb the cliff to come back another way. All went well until I hit a dead end, and I could see down below where I needed to be but with no way of getting there without doing a dangerous descent. I decided to go for it. First I look all around to make sure nobody is watching because I know Im about to turn into a big girl ... and guess what, some bearded dude was sat behind me watching me like a hawk .... which made me feel on edge. I put my backpack on my back, made a manly posture as I was being watched and started to descend, but my manly posture turned into a girlie descent within seconds as I was trying not to die. At this point I realized I had no shoes on while I was sliding through nettles, but it was too late to do anything about it now, i'm in it all the way. I'm near the bottom eventually with 1 last hurdle to do and I see 2 gorgeous portuguese girls posing and taking pictures by the water, and once again I decide "right, man up u b!tch, be masculine, look cool like u're taking a stroll, be tarzan" ... so I straightened my hair, stuck my chest out and off I went ... 5 seconds later Im sliding like a big sissy again, oh well.

Things have picked up a notch since August, it's like as soon as 1st August hit, the population in the Algarve multiplied by a million. Everywhere is crazy busy now, the roads, the supermarkets. Yesterday I went grocery shopping, and after a while I was so fedup I put everything back and walked back out, it was either that or slap somebody in the face for cutting me up in the banana section. I couldn't handle it, could be the heat combo too. I'll go tonight and hope things are better, probably best I stay away from the banana section.

The main nightclub in Tavira is open now. We went on the opening night which was cool, however nowadays I do feel like the dad as I don't drink alcohol, I have a car and have somehow given myself the role of "sober token asian taxi man" .... which to be fair is better than my cambridge days of "drunk/stoned token asian tax man". For example, when we came out of the club it was prob 7am when my friends decided it would be a good idea to get into underwear and swim in the dirty river that runs through Tavira. At this point I drove home, had a shower and got a change of clothing, made an olive omelette with plums and a glass of orange juice for my daily intake of Vitamin C, then drove back when the others were done with their drunken mission.

I took my camera to the club but realized in there it was broken. I've had it for yrs however I decided to leave it in my car so it would always be available whenever I needed it. Didn't realize 3 wks of scorchio would burn it out. I even left my wallet in the car for a couple of days and all my cards are bent now. So I've got myself a new camera and it's awesome, the zoom is unreal. Yesterday from the roof of my place I used it to zoom into the distance and I could see my usual hangout bar "pink flamingo" which is on the other side of town ... I could see people sat down outside, unbelievable zoom strength, almost as powerful as the hubble space telescope I think, and only for €169. As if that's not enough, it even has a baby detection mode ... Im not sure how it works as I don't take pictures of babies but I'm keen to figure out what it does. I have been tempted a couple of times when I see a pram to go up to it and take a quick snap, but that cool look weird. I wonder if it can do baby detection through my laptop screen, I'll just find a utube vid.

I went to spain a couple of weeks back to check out a couple of islands. Life is different there, you can tell it's spain. I was in a beach bar when I experienced the worst DJ ever ... this guy must have escaped from an asylum because he was in his own world. Absolute b*ll*cks DJing ability, playing tracks for 15 seconds then deciding its time to move on, stop start, no headphones or mixing, randomly turning the volume down and up, randomly abusing the cutoff filter. And the weird thing was that everyone else in the bar was dancing and loving it, I don't get it ... was I hearing something different? Is this a new thing in Spain? Even later that night on another Spanish island I found this bar by the water, paradise, and there was a live band getting ready to play. When they started, same thing, they'd play a song for 15 seconds then decide to stop and try another one ... it must be the Spanish way "aah im bored of that one, let's try another one".

The last 2 times I've gone to Pego Do Inferno (the waterfall place) I have also gone for a Chinese/Japanese buffet sushi meal. I love that place, it's all u can eat for €14 and believe me, I eat all I can possibly eat ... which is why yday I decided it's my last time this month, it's not a healthy way of eating. I've no idea how they make profit as we're chowing down on seafood and that's expensive here. Prawns especially, a small bag in the supermarket is nearly €10 and in this place I'm ordering every prawn thing on the menu ... half feeling sorry for them as I say "yep grilled prawns, chilli prawns, sweet n sour prawns, crispy prawns, curried prawns, etc etc". Still they remain in business, makes me wonder where they get their seafood from. Right, so last night after a feast I ended up going to pego at 1am. When we got there we thought it was a bad idea, pitch black, walking to find the waterfall area, and even diving into the water and then not beaing able to see anything. It was interesting tho as I dove in because I had no bearing of which way was up, it's black everywhere (actually that makes sense because i had my eyes closed). I had a light with me which I put down on the rocks so from the other side of the lake I could see how to get back ... and also hoping I wouldn't see the light suddenly move as if somebody/thing has picked it up. Epic adventure tho, something different. The stars were absolutely beautiful, I have never seen so many stars, it's amazing how much even the dimmest light impacts the sky. Everywhere I looked, thousands of stars, mesmerizing as I love astronomy. I witnessed some shooting stars too, magical. Perfect place for a date ... hmm maybe not, "oh hey random girl ive put into my car and driven out to a dark forest in the middle of nowhere where no-one can hear any screams ... take a look at that beautiful night sky ... dont worry about what im doing".

Last week I went clay pigeon shooting. This was fun, and rather difficult. My instructor I think was getting frustrated as he expected me to become pro in 5 shots, and I felt like I was a newborn trying to control my arms for the 1st time, it takes some getting used to. Guns are powerful man, the blowback/kickback (whatever its called) almost rips the shoulder out of the socket. Out of 25, I hit 1 and a half (my 1st one was a success). I kept forgetting the obvious rule which was repeated to me 25 times "always open the barrel up and put the gun on the ground, never swing it back round to where the people are at" ... and after each shot id get excited, turn around to talk to the dude and he'll be shouting "get the gun outta my face man" ... and he was right (every time), accidental trigger and his head would have been by the office, by the cafeteria and by the car park all at the same time.

I've been struggling during July to sleep in this climate, and typically going to bed at 8am or so and still waking up 3 or 4 hrs later without the ability to re-sleep. However all of a sudden since Friday things have changed, now I'm sleeping 10 hrs and it's not enough. It all changed when I went for a massage downstairs by the pool, this woman has a tent and is verrrrry good with her fingers (I went in speedos). My hour seemed like it was only 20 mins tho, I must go back. In fact that night when I went to sleep, something strange happened. I fell asleep on the sofa and woke up in the night upside down with a sensation that I was being watched. I was sure something was in the room and I felt scared, enough to want to reach for my blanket to cover myself up with. Yet when I went for the blanket I couldn't move my arms, or legs. I started to think something was pinning me down, it was scary big time. I think it's sleep paralysis, not a nice thing to experience. I was out of it that whole night tho, 10 hr sleep and I had crazy dreams the whole of it.

I'll finish off with an exciting discovery I made. Technology astonishes me. I have an android phone and I was doing a Google search on my laptop for an app (QR code reader). It found it and there was a button to install the app. I thought "well that's weird, im on my laptop, whats this going to do?" ... so I click it and was shocked to read the message "this app will be installed on ur phone shortly". How did this site know who I am and where my phone is? And 2 seconds later my phone vibrates with joy as the app is getting installed ... pure genious.

Until next time folks. There were more adventures but I've talked enough, and it's time to get to the grocery store (not the banana aisle).

Easy !!

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