Bom dia!

I love Portugal.

I am now in South Portugal, or Algarve. I arrived in the capital city, Faro, this afternoon, but I have been killing time because the hostel check-in starts at 5pm(ridiculous!). I could have gone to the beach, but I think I will let my sunburned skin rest a day before I do that. And because it is Easter, everything is closed, so sightseeing isnt really an option today.

Lisbon was wonderful; I liked it much much better than Madrid. It has a very small town feel but it is big enough that there is plenty to do. It has one of the prettiest castles I have seen in Europe (and that is a lot of castles), and the water is that beautiful turquoise aqua color. There is a beautiful little district called Alfama that you would never mind being lost in, with hidden stairways connecting the streets that are picture-perfect frames of the flowers hanging off the balconies and the ocean. The food was delicious- cod(bacahlau) in every way you can imagine, shellfish, shrimp, and lots of sweets. And, most importantly, I found the people to be very friendly, which makes a huge difference on your impression of a city. Just this morning, I ended up at the wrong bus stop and when I asked a bus driver about it, he took me to the next stop for free. Nevermind that the Portuguese guy working at the hostel left me breakfast for the morning, since I would be leaving before breakfast officially started. I definitely got that "I could live here" feeling about Lisbon.

Traveling alone isnt so bad. In fact, its kind of nice. Sure, the eating alone isnt always fun, but Ive learned to carry reading material with me and I forget about it. I never thought I would chat up a random person at dinner, but I did one night and made a dinner partner for the rest of my stay. She was a French engineer on a break from work in Lisbon, and as we were the only two solo people in the tiny Portuguese restaurant, we started talking and ended up making some plans for the next few days. We met again for dinner the next night, which was nice, because apparently arroz com mariscos is much too big for one person.

In our discussions we made an interesting observation- girls seem to travel solo more often than men. Funny because you would think the opposite to be true, but sure enough when I looked around at my hostel that night, all but one of the solo travelers were female. Tiffany also told me of a 2-week walking adventure tour she did in Bali (can you guess what I am looking into next?) where ALL the solo travelers were girls. Just thought some of you might also find that surprising. =)