The one with Portugal, take two!

This weekend we had a fabulous adventure to Albufeira, Portugal.  It is a relatively small town on the coast, part of the Algarve region, and it is fabulous.  Masha, Marissa, and I left on Friday around noon because the bus schedule wasn't being very cooperative.  Our bus from Sevilla departed at three, but it was impossible to figure out when it was supposed to arrive.  Portugal is one hour behind Spain, and the tickets made no note of arrival time.  The website said six o'clock, with a five hour bus trip, but on Spain or Portugal time that didn't add up with leaving at three.  We finally arrived at around 6:20 PM, though still as confused as ever with how the return journey was going to go.   

We put all of that out of our minds and headed to our hotel.  We stayed in a nice plalce called Sol a Sul Apartments.  The apartment was complete with a bedroom, a private bathroom, balcony and a kitchen, though we didn't end up cooking while we were there.  After de-traveling for a bit, we headed out to find dinner.  We weren't that successful for a while. It is rather difficult to get three people to agree on a place that is also in the right price range, meaning relatively cheap.  We didn't mind too much because it gave us the chance to wander around a bit and see the beach.  We settled on a place, I think it was called Eddie's, and we actually had a fabulous time.  Our waiter was this young-ish guy from England, and he got a major kick out of us, probably because we are awesome.  Marissa and I shared a supreme pizza that was exceptionally delicious, though I can never understand why they put olives with pits on the pizza.  Eventually, we headed back to the apartment to wind down before bed. 
 

Saturday was the best day! We lied on the beach for most of the morning, after slathering up with sunscreen.  I read my book, listened to some music, and even got in the water a bit, though being the Atlantic, it was freezing.  As you can see, my facial expression says it all.  Eventually we got hungry and ate lunch at an over-priced restaurant along the beach.  After, we decided to walk the length of the beach to see what we could see.  The hotel owner had said it was a twenty minute walk, but it was more like 45.  It was fun to people-watch and see the different parts of the beach.  After making our way back, we stopped for some gelato; I got chocolate.  We whittled the afternoon away with more laying on the beach, reading, and swimming; I even went almost all the way under.  It was a peaceful, relaxing day, the kind of day where you finish and say, "After a long day of doing nothing, it feels good to kick back." One hundred points to anyone who recognizes that quote.  Not feeling up to making the decision on where to eat, we returned to the same restaurant as the night before.  This time I mixed things up and ordered fish and chips. I love me some fish and chips, and these were exceptional. I even treated myself to a beer and a second gelato, this time mint. 

 

Sunday was kind of an awkward day.  We weren't supposed to leave until late afternoon, but we couldn't track down the hotel owner to ask if we could check out late.  Ultimately we decided to spend the day relaxing by the hotel pool, so that we were out of our room but could enjoy the sun without getting covered in sand.  The pool was also really cold, but I enjoyed doing some shallow water aqua-jogging and cooling off from the intensity of the sun.  I was pleasantly surprised that I didn't get burnt at all on the whole trip.  It probably helped that I put on sunscreen like it was my job. Eventually we changed into our clothes and went back to the restaurant for a final meal before heading to the bus station.  Yes, Marissa and I shared another supreme pizza.   

Then the real adventure began.  Like I mentioned, we were having a terrible time with deciding what time zone the buses were using.  It didn't help that many people on line said that it was often the case that a bus would leave Portugal using the ticket time as if it was in Spain.  Because of this, we decided to show up early in case our 5 o'clock bus actually decided to leave at 4 o'clock.  We arrived and asked at the information desk when the next bus to Sevilla left.  The lady told us there were no more buses.  Then when we said that we had tickets, she said that the bus was at five, but you can't buy tickets from this bus station, which is why she didn't mention it.  Ok, weird. 

We finally got on the bus, but we were quite concerned how a bus leaving at five Portugal time was going to arrive in Spain (supposedly at 9 Spain time).  That leaves time for a 3 hour journey, which seemed impossible when our journey there took 4 hours and 20 minutes.  We were doing well on time until we hit beach traffic headed into Seville about an hour from our destination.  It was a real nail-biter, with us preparing to have one of us literally impede the bus to prevent it from leaving without all of us and our bags if necessary.  By some miracle, we made it the station at 9:55, five minutes before the bus to Zafra was supposed to leave.  Masha had to pee, so she told us to hold the bus and went bounding off into the darker end of the bus station.  I swear I thought she had gone to pop a squat somewhere, but evidently there was a bathroom that I didn't know about.  We finally made it on the bus and then on to Zafra.  This is why we usually try to come home early in the day, to prevent all this stress, but Albufeira was definitely worth it.