Algarve

Did you know that place names in Portugal starting with 'Al' are of Arabic origin? I didn't, but now I do. Niki and I went to the Algarve - which to Dutch tourists is well-known as the Holiday Haven In The Sun where one of the easiest things to get is 'Friet van Piet', as a large contingent of said summer slickers drive down to the Algarve to Get Away From It All and spend time with their friends, neighbours, relatives etc. etc. who also all go there, too, of course :-)

I'm sure it's not all as bad as that, but it is indeed a veritable tourist trap ... We went to the town of Albufeira (another 'Al', would it have something to do with the fact that the first continent across the sea to the south is ... erm ... Africa?) , where Niki had been asked to do a presentation of her new book, Hoola Hoop (an English language course for young learners in Portugal). It involved 60 or so people listening to a presentation, playing games, singing songs and (for some at least) actually Hoola-hooping ... Tess, Yarrow, you would have had a ball!














After the presentation we had lunch with one of Niki's co-authors, Cristina and her husband-to -be Ben, in a little marina (see photo) ... the icecream was Huge and Delish! A three-hour drive took us back up to Lisbon.











On return to Lisbon we spent a long time in a taxi to a hotel where we met with Vanessa Tenorio, a teacher/school owner from Brasil (see photo below), who Niki and I know from IATEFL. Vanessa was in town with her husband, the president of an organisation of Travel Agencies - however, the taxi driver had no idea where he was taking us. So we drove around for what seemed like an hour and in the end Niki had to direct the poor man to our destination ...There was a bit of a sad story behind this.

He had been in Lisbon for only three months. He and his wife had lived in a town called Porto and had recently split up: he decided to move to the big city. He was trying to learn where everything was, but found it all very hard. At one point he was happy to stop the meter as he wanted to show us he wasn't diddling us. We got there in the end and had a nice chat and drinks with Vanessa.