Sports Nutrition and the Mediterranean Diet / May 20th: Faro (Portugal)

We woke up at around 9am and checked out of the hostel. There were 2 middle aged people sitting on the deck, I talked with them a bit. They were from a suburb of London, and were backpacking through Spain. I saw a lot of backpackers on our trip to Portugal. I really enjoyed my experience at the hostel because someday, I might want to backpack through Europe and this is the kind of place backpackers stay at.

After checking out, we took a walk on the beach, then went to a restaurant for smoothies and juice. I had strawberry juice and the woman running the restaurant went to the fridge, grabbed a bunch pile of strawberries and juiced them right in front of me! It was almost as good as the orange juice. We took a 12 oclock bus out of the beach town to downtown Faro, the historical district. We walked around and took pictured of the beautiful architecture and streets. 

We saw a huge motorcycle gang with about 200 motorcycles, all wearing jackets that said France or Portugal. We had lunch outside at a very classy restaurant. Every restaurant we have been to set out olives and bread. Instead of tipping at this restaurant, each person was charged about 2 euros for the bread and olives. I have become a huge lover of olives! The olives today had garlic on them and were so good. After lunch we went to the bus stop and got on our bus back to Sevilla! They didn’t ask for our pasports on the way back. The views from the bus ride was so pretty. I had no idea there was so much farming in Portugal and Spain. We saw so many orange groves and olive orchards. When we got back to Sevilla I stopped at a market to buy oranges because seeing so many of them growing made me want some! So delicious! We got back to the house around 9:30pm and waited for our family to come home. Today was Lucy’s (oldest child) first communion, so they had spent the day celebrating! We had dinner at 11pm. Tomorrow we are meeting the class at 11am. We will be meeting with Spanish culinary students and learning how to prepare Mediterranean food! Maybe I can try to make it again when I get home! From my time in Portugal I learned that they get annoyed when you try to speak Spanish to them. They would rather you speak Portuguese but don’t mind when you speak English. Most people in Portugal spoke English. In contrast, in Sevilla, English is about as common as Spanish is in the US. In Sevilla, when you try to speak Spanish, the locals get very happy and encourage you! It is clear that Portugal wants to be seen as unique from Spain by the way they don’t appreciate Spanish. Another difference is the people in Portugal dress much more casually. I thought this might only be at the beach town, but even in downtown Faro, T shirts and shorts were common, even by the locals.