March 8th-
I decided it was time to leave Lisbon. Before I left the states, a friend told me that I should go to a place just because I liked the name. I had heard some people talking about a place called Evora, so I thought I would check it out. I had to take a late train and then a bus to get there, but it wasn´t too bad since it was sort of on the way to Faro, which is where I wanted to go next. I stopped at a supermarket and grabbed some salami, Brie, bread, and, of course, a 1 liter bottle of Portugal´s own Super Bock for the train ride. The beer definitely made the trip fly by.

I get near the town at about 9pm, and I enter the actual city. See, the main part of the city, or the old quarter, is walled. I had looked into the town before leaving to make sure there were hostels there, and there was supposedly a pretty cheap one there. So I´m walking around this town late at night, and I come across the place where this hostel is supposed to be. Of course it isn´t actually there. It´s an apartment complex now. Dejected, I start looking for another place to sleep. I find another hostel, but they are full, on a Wednesday for some reason. They direct me to another hostel nearby, so I head over. Of course this one is booked solid as well! I have no idea what is going on in this small town (pop. 40,000) that would cause this. I did notice that there were a lot of people in the streets for it being so late in this place, and that was at about 11. I then realized that there was a Portugal vs Liverpool game going on, and everyone has their TV´s on. I still don´t see how this would have affected the city, since it was pretty much in the middle of nowhere. But then at about 1am waves and waves of people start coming back into the city, perhaps from larger bars outside the walled area.

By this point I had already given up on finding a hostel, and I had found a small area in front of a museum where I could sleep. I pulled out my sleeping bag and crashed there. Unfortunately, pèople kept coming in pretty solidly until at least 2:30, and they were either yelling or honking. I was worried that I was going to be spotted at some point, and I was actually only 100 yards or so from the police station. Eventually my sleepiness overpowered any worries, and I fell asleep. Nothing ended up happening to me during the night, thank God. It was actually pretty fun, and i saved about 25€.

There are some photos of the train ride, the market, and a photo of the old Roman Temple there, if you scroll down.