Portugal is a wonderful place. How do I know? Well, there are about 10 times as many dogs wandering the streets (to their credit, a vast majority are collared) there than in Scotland (I think I’ve seen one in 9 months), and yet there is NO dog shit on the sidewalks (background note: NOBODY cleans up after their dogs in Scotland). I find that to be a sign of a truly superior people.

And speaking of shit, I was attacked by seagull excrement this morning. Above our balcony is a seagull nest, and the mother is none too happy that we’ve moved in downstairs. She caws and caws and finally this morning she made a couple of swooping gestures at as, gloriously accompanied by a large amount of falling, liquid bird poop. At first, I thought someone had tossed a glass of water out a window above us, such was the *splat* it made. This was followed by some more angry cawing, before our feathered harasser finally went back to her nest to settle on her eggs.

Thus, we started our day. We woke up rather early to enjoy some sleep out on our balcony while still in the Portuguese early-morning sun. Jonmikel took himself on a mission to find take-away coffee, which doesn’t exist at all here (at least it exists in Scotland, even if to-go cups are wussy, and the coffee is watered-down espresso). So after a fruitless effort, he just had a somewhat bemused girl pour espresso into plastic cups. This way we had at least a little coffee to go with our early morning relaxation regimen.

As the late morning showers rolled in, we headed out for a nice meander around town. We had explored the caves and crevices on the east side of town yesterday, so today we decided to head to the west, out to the marina, where we hoped to book a boat tour for tomorrow. So we… meandered. We walked along the coast until we hit fisherman territory, big signs that said “Professional Fisherman Only,” only in Portuguese, so it was something about “pescadors” or something. We also managed to find a fascinating sign showing a car falling off a cliff into the ocean inside a large red circle with a line through it. I felt that “No Driving Your Car Into the Ocean” would have been a given, but I guess it never helps to have a handy informational sign. Tourists, you know.

We ate lunch over-looking the ocean and watching people play with cats, and dinner over-looking parts of old town and watching girls in stilettos navigate the cobblestone streets. Our waiter for dinner was keen on practicing his English, and explained to us that he’s even learned a bit of German, but that Dutch is a killer. He was also, incidentally, very proud of his scooter, which he let a girl friend of his borrow the other day. Like a true woman, and much to our waiter’s chagrin, she crashed it into a wall. He spent the whole dinner lamenting his decision to loan it out and declaring “Never Again.”

The rest of the night was calm. We booked a trip tomorrow on a pirate ship. So rock on with that. We also had desert at a place right on the street, a very large and very good-looking (I think the reason we had to eat on the street: nothing brings in customers like good-looking sweets) banana split. We also managed to hit up some GIANT cocktails from a bar with street seating. They love their tall drinks here. I had a tasty Blue Lagoon (I’m having a continuous love affair with Blue Curacao) and Jonmikel went with a traditional pina colada, all served in foot-and-a-half long glasses with plenty of flair decorating the top. We even saw a couple get some drinks with sparklers in them. Rock on alcoholic beverages with fireworks. They seem to be a perfect match, things on fire and booze. Indeed.

We also sat for a while and listened to the music in town. Apparently, the big thing here is professional karaoke. All the bands/singers just do covers of good, old fashioned college-bar songs (you know, old stuff you can sing to while drunk, like the “Summer of 69” kind of genre). It’s fun, because you can tell none of them actually speak English; they just mimic sounds they hear, like the guy last night. So basically, professional karaoke. Some of them are fairly talented singers, if they could only get the words right. Though nobody seems to care much. Sun shine, sea air, and plenty of cheap wine will do that, I suppose. Everybody just sings along appropriately.