Finally a Chance to Relax! In Lisbon...

Sorry to worry everyone for not posting for so long!! Wow, so much has happened since my last post. I have just been very busy and seem to constantly be doing something new. Tonight I am finally just hanging out at a hostel in Lisbon, so I have some time.

After Essaouira, my dad and I got on a bus to Casablanca. That was quite an ordeal. The bus broke down about an hour out of Casa. We stood there in the heat for nearly 3 hours with no explanation of what was wrong with the bus or whether we were getting picked up. We ended up hitchiking into town, which was much easier than I would have expected. I think that may actually be the first time I have ever hitchhiked. The guy drove like a crazed lunatic though, like most Morrocan drivers. We stayed a night in Casa which was more than you would even need. We saw Hassan II mosque which is the second or third largest (depending on who you ask) in the world. It was really impressive, though we didn't go inside. We checked out a couple other sights, including Rick's Cafe from the movie. That was pretty much a huge letdown, just a tourist trap as you can imagine. Headed on the bus back to Marrakesh the next day. Stayed the night in the new town, had a really good dinner, I think it was Lebanese food. My dad took off for the airport the next morning. I really enjoyed our trip together. I am very lucky because I would never have gotten to experience Morroco like that without him!

I headed back into the medina to find the supposed rooftop terrace where you could sleep for 30 durhims. Finally found it and made my way up. It was pretty amazing, just like a hostel on a roof! There were about 30 or 40 people staying up there on little mattress pads and sleeping bags. I met a bunch of cool people and spent two days roaming around town, haggling over my new haircut (had my head shaved for about $3), and smoking some hash up on the terrace (hey, it's Morroco, I had to give it a try). It was crazy hot during the day, hard to even do much until the evening. I made it out to the airport with some English friends on my last morning and had a surprisingly painless Ryanair flight to Seville in Spain.

I met an Aussie named Cameron on the tram into Seville from the airport. He had been on the same flight and actually stayed on the same roof terrace though we hadn't met. I brought him along to the hostel I had booked and we are actually still travelling together nearly two weeks later. The hostel was really really nice with lots of friendly people. We quickly got a whole crew together and went out to a flamenco bar. It was pretty cool, though it was a free place and I am sure 'real' flamenco is much better. Walked around Seville the next day, saw the amazing cathedral, cool views from the top of the tower. Saw the palace too, which was incredible. Could have spent all day just at the palace and the surrounding gardens. Rounded up more people back at the hostel, think there was about 15 of us, to head back to the flamenco bar. Cam and I were the only ones that had been there before I think, but we failed miserably in our attempts to navigate. That city is very confusing, not as bad as Morroco though I suppose. Had a lot of fun there again, headed out to another bar along the river, met a lot of interesting people. Really enjoyed the hostel in Seville, especially the hammocks on the rooftop terrace!

Cam and I both had planned separately on heading into Portugal after Seville, so we decided to basically travel together. We hopped on a bus toward Lagos, a beach party town in the Algarve (the southern part of Portugal). Halfway on the busride, he gets a text from a couple French friends he met in Dubai months ago. They were apparently staying at a villa in Albufeira, which is on the coast east of Lagos. Luckily the bus was making a stop there, so we hopped off and Vincent and Clemont picked us up in their car. Turns out there were 14 guys total, all from around Paris, who drove to the villa together for a two week holiday. We got to the villa and I was stunned. It was gigantic, had amazing views overlooking the town and the ocean, and had an incredible pool out back with a huge patio. I think they were only supposed to have 8 guys staying there, but all 16 of us (14 French guys plus Cam and I) fit there pretty comfortably. The next four days are kind of a blur. The guys just party constantly. They are all pretty crazy. We spent each day at the pool or drove down to the beach. At the house it was basically a fraternity. They assign two guys each day to do all the cooking and cleaning. We all ate every meal together, Cam and I pitched in when we could. A lot of French kids have holidays in that town apparently, because there were constantly girls hanging out at the villa that the guys knew from home. Most of them were staying in apartments in town, but spent most days at the villa by the pool. Some of them cooked for us too, which was really nice. The first night we went to a club in town, the second night we recruited girls from the beach back to the villa for a pool party, the third night we went to see a DJ play at a club on the beach, the fourth night we barhopped through town. The night of the beach club was crazy and fun. A typical day where we ate breakfast at 12, lunch at 6, then went out to dinner at midnight! We ate at a really fancy restaurant owned by the guy who owns the villa. It was the most expensive meal of my trip, 30 euros, but worth every cent! It was a set four course meal with amazing seafood, grilled pork, 5 different cakes for dessert, and all the white sangria we could drink. One of the better meals of my life, easily the best of this trip. We didn't get to the club till 3 AM, there was a line of several hundred people, we somehow cut to the front. Got in, the main DJ got on at 4 AM and we danced in the sand till sunrise. What a crazy party. The whole experience at the villa and Albufeira was like living in a dream. We also hardly paid a dime, I think we gave the French guys 25 euros for the whole 4 days to buy some food and beer with. We offered more but they said no. They were all really nice guys and most spoke a fair amount of English. I learned a ton of French while I was there, though it was impossible to keep up at dinner when 3 of them speak at the same time, all way too fast with lots of slang. It was fun to try and speak with them what I could. As nice as they are, most of them are absolutely crazy. They got drunk and chased each other around the villa naked and into the pool just about every day.

Cam and I finally pulled ourselves away from the villa and Albufeira after four days. It wasn't even by choice, it was because that was the final day for the guys, they were heading back to Paris. We got on a bus to Lagos, our original destination. Turns out Lagos is a lot like Albufeira, a crazy summer party town with even more people and wild nightlife. We showed up in town late in the evening with no plan and no hostel booked. Had to wander around the city for awhile until we met a couple of girls that showed us back to the place they were staying. It was a guesthouse, kind of like a hostel. It was actually attached to the most popular hostel in town so we met a lot of people staying there as well. We planned on two nights there, but everyone we met said everybody ends up staying in Lagos longer than they plan. The town gets pretty repetitive, so here is what I did on one day, all four days were almost identical: Wake up about noon, make breakfast at the guesthouse, complain about the heat, get down to the beach late in the afternoon, meet up with people from the previous night on the beach, go swimming and cliff jumping, back to the hostel to chill, finally shower and get ready to go out at 10, go to Casa Rosa or the Fat Monkey Bar, pay 10 euros to get a full meal of food plus a Power Hour: all you can drink beer for one hour, hop from bar to club to bar, hanging out with friends from the guesthouse or the hostel, hopefully make it home before sunrise. The town is just packed with tourists, and for whatever reason more than half the people there are from Australia. That is really not an exaggeration, I eventually walked up to some random people and asked them which suburb of Melbourne they were from. About 75% of the staff at the bars were Aussies too. I don't know how people could spend so long in that town, the beach/bar routine is pretty tiresome eventually.

After four crazy days in Lagos (which followed four crazy days in Albufeira), Cam and I got on a bus to Lisbon where we arrived tonight. This city seems really nice so far, I think I will go explore it tomorrow. We found an OK hostel here, but there is another one we like better which was full tonight, so we are going there tomorrow instead. So far, I have not been planning anything, just been showing up at the bus station, showing up at hostels, and it has worked out really well. I am getting very used to talking to strangers to get info. Yesterday though, Cam and I got the idea to go to La Tomatina next week, so we have been planning that. That is the tomato throwing festival near Valencia, Spain. Three of our friends from Lagos have booked an apartment in Valencia for three days, so we will head there to stay with them on Monday. I am planning on painting a bulls eye on my head or chest or back or something. It should be a lot of fun. After that, we might head out to Ibiza, it is an island off the coast of Spain famous for its nightlife, its really expensive and lots of celebrities go to the clubs there. Might be too expensive, not sure yet. I don't really have any plans beyond that. Cam is heading back to London at some point after that, I might head to Italy then. I will probably meet up with him again in a month at Octoberfest.

Well, I will try and upload pictures tomorrow. And I will try and post more often so I can give more details. It is tough to remember all of this stuff! Plus I have to type forever! I might do another post in the next day or two to fill in some details of the last two weeks which I have forgotten. I just have so many stories to tell! Time for bed, one of my first nights in a while I should get a decent night's sleep.