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Published: April 11th 2010
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Today is the day that Pete and I have been dreading .....,..... SHOPPING DAY! We knew what we were in for because the girls have been planning this day for the past 2 or 3 days now. However, we were in for a pleasant surprise because they told us we could split up and meet for lunch and then for the trip back to the villa (they must have heard us whining earlier). We walked up to the main road and caught a cab and we were off.
An interesting thing about Portugilian cabs, they have a week end rate that is more expensive than the weekly rate. We drove to the old city, poked around a few shops together and then the girls turn us loose. As I have mentioned before, the old city at Albuferia is very touristy. Dozens and dozens of shops abound with the same tourist junk. There are so many restaurants and bars that there are people walking the streets with menus and discount cards to attract you t their eateries. We met up after a couple of hours of wandering. We all bought our allotment of stuff and excitedly showed off our treasures.
For
lunch Pete and Jo had filetes de peixe c/ batata frita (fish and chips), Cath had sardinahas grelhadas (grilled sardines and Renita and I had frango piri piri (chicken piri piri). They say piri piri is the Portugese Viagra .......... but don’t believe everything they tell you. After lunch we headed back in to the maylee. The market place is absolutely huge. While Pete, Cath and I went into a shop to look for a hat for Pete, Jo and Renita got themselves picked up by a bunch of guys at a bar across the street. We came out to find them drinking sangria and carrying on like a couple of young schools girls. The guys (all in their 20’s & 30’s) were part of a group of38 guys from Yorkshire & Leeds, England who were in Portugal for a stag and to fish for sword fish. We joined Shane, Rich and Phil for a couple of jugs of sangria and had some good laughs with them. Jo kept referring to the drinks as Shangri-la and we all had a good laugh at her expense.
We said good bye to the Brits and headed off to find cab. By
the time the guys left the bar they probably couldn’t tell one end of a fishing rod from the other but they were all good sports and we had a good time with them. We took several pictures with them before we parted company. The girls took a cab to another shopping area because they heard there were shoes there. Pete and I weren’t going to have any part of that so we caught a cab back t the villa. After a couple hours of wine and port on the deck the girls showed up, defeated unfortunately, without a single pair of shoes in hand. We bar-b-qéd again for dinner and settled in for the evening.
I mentioned before about some of the odd ball vehicles I’ve seen here - luxury cars and utility vehicles alike. Most have 4 wheels but many have 3. Most vehicles have 4 cylinders while many have only 3. I saw the usual assortment of BMW’s, Fords, Peugeots, Toyotas, Mercedes Benz, etc., but I also saw Vito, Piaggio, Megany, Stark and Astra. They are mostly small vehicles and a lot of them are diesel which is a good thing because gasoline is sitting around
1 euro 50 cents (about $1.90) per litre.
Tonight is a bit of a sad night for us as Cath and I have to pack for the return trip home tomorrow. Pete, Renita and Jo will be in Portugal for another week and head out for ............. on Monday. So begins our trip home.
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