Blogs from Portugal, Europe - page 239

It’s been awhile since we last posted, and we don’t actually have all that much to report. We’re finally settling into somewhat of a routine, just in time for Christmas and our trip back to the states to shake it all up again. We thought that we would post some more pictures of our little world here in Coimbra and talk about some of the good and the not-so-good things about living here. On the whole, I think we’re both enjoying it here, and we were saying the other day how lucky we were to have picked Coimbra, considering how little we really knew about it when we decided to come here. It’s a good size for us - big enough that there are things to do, but small enough that we feel like we kind ... read more

A Beautiful Sunny Day Ends Our Stay in Lagos More Grottos and Beaches Today we got up and decided to head back to the cliffs. Thanks to the rain on Friday we had ended our cliff experience about half way early, therefore; today was our day to finish that leg of our adventure. After the mile or so walk back to where we ended our last hike we started walking/climbing the trails along the cliffs. Shortly after out trail hiking started we found the precarious steps down to the little grotto that was a nude beach. We decided to head on down despite the possibility of nakedness. After about ten minutes we reached the bottom and thankfully there were no naked Brits lying about (they tend to be pasty and usually not the prettiest naked ... read more

Raininess Makes Me Lumpy Lazy Jacks...a strange meeting place We stuck around Lazy Jacks last night after posting the blog. There's live music every night so we figured we might as well stick around and listen. Kel talked the cook into making us Nachos despite the fact the kitchen had closed. There were pretty special nachos...made with doritos (up near the top of Kel's favorite foods). As the live music ended (near midnight) one of the local characters Peter the Swed came up to us and struck up a conversation. Despite his broken English and drunkenness, he was quite a nice guy. Told us this was the absolute worst time to be in Europe. he kept saying something along the lines of, "In Sweden right now...no coffee....no fun...just work and hockey...like Canada...stupid Canadians...absolutely no fun...you ... read more

After saying goodbye to the "temporary" friends I had made in Porto, I hopped on the 12:10 train to Lisboa. The train ride took about 3.5 hours which put me into Lisboa around 4. I walked out of the station and set off to find the hostel using the map one of the people in Porto had given me. On the way to the hostel I was approached twice by people trying to sell me drugs. I think they see male backpackers and assume they're interested. I've talked to a couple of girls who have been through Lisbon and they were never offered drugs, but most guys were. I was also a bit surprised to see them openly displaying their product. I was offered hash first, which he showed me, and then he suggested coke, which ... read more

A Rainy Day Won’t Stop Our Fun A Night of Fabulous Food Last night we finally got a moment of down time to focus on our finances. After posting yesterday’s blog we went back to our hotel and Kel worked some Excel finance magic. She created a spreadsheet that allows us to tally our daily costs broken down by food, living, transportation, etc. The spreadsheet gives us a daily total, a monthly average and a yearly average. This yearly average, in true Capital One style, gives us a Green/Yellow/Red status on what we expect our average daily expenses to be. Thus, after calculating our expenses thus far, we were able to figure out that we had a decent balance left for the day, which lead us to splurge a little for dinner. Our guidebook suggested ... read more