March 9th-
I wake up bright and early at 7:30, and the city is already awake. I get up and packed as quickly as possible so that no one sees me there. I made my way over toward the cathedral, and arrived there right as Mass was beginning. After that I grabbed some much needed espresso before heading to the Chapel of Bones. This place was built in 1810, but somehow wasn´t discovered until the 1950´s. There was an inscription over the door way that read, ¨Your bones will be joining our bones soon.¨ The walls and pillars of the chapel were lined with the bones of 5,000 monks! I have no idea how they got around the whole idea of a body needing to be buried in the ground, or respect for the dead. The place was insane. The walls were mainly lined with what looked like humerus amd femur bones, while the pillars had the skulls, and some smaler bones. I took a bunch of photos, so I will post them soon.

I went back to the center square after that. There were 3 kids walking around in police uniforms with a local cop. They were under 10, I am guessing. I took a photo of them, and you can see it if you scroll down a bit. They are all saluting, but only the girl is doing it right. The boy in the middle is doing a German salute or something, and the boy on the right is using his left arm. I think the boy on the right had down syndrome, and it made me think of my twin brothers and laugh when I saw him.

I hopped on the afternoon train to Faro from there. I was met at the train staion by an old couple who ran a local hostel, so I took them up on their offer for a room. I dropped my baggage off and went to call Jared from a payphone. In between calls to Jared, I was asked by a little Irish guy if I had a light. He was clearly intoxicated, but seemed like a good guy. I told him I didn´t. He heard that I spoke English and proceeded to ask me if I´m Canadian. I laughed and asked him if he was British. We ended up talking for a while, and he even bought me some beers. His name was Brendan, and he was from Kilarney. He was only 22 (I thought he was about 26) and had made some decent money in real estate investments. He was also travelling solo through Portugal, so we ended up hanging out for a bit. He was cool, and even let me use his phone to call Jared again.

About an hour after I met Brendan, some local drunk pops up and starts talking to us. He had a typical French accent and his name was Geoffrey. He was quite old, problably around 60. He was drinking port straight from the bottle (classic) and he kept referring to it as "nitro-glycerine." He offered us some of it. Brendan accepted, but I declined, as I had no idea where this guy came from. It turned out that Geoffrey was from Brittany, and had served in the French Legion in India. He was still quite strong, and had the tendency to get a bit close, so that you could clearly smell the port on his breath. Brendan, it turned out, was an amateur boxer, and he kept telling me to keep Geoffrey at a "left-arm´s length" or else "he´s liable to head butt you like THAT!" he kept repeating as he showed me the motion it would involve. I wasn´t really worried about this guy doing anything like that, as he was quite a joyful drunk. I stood there wondering what a sight we must be to those passing by. A drunk Irishman, a drunk old local with a strong French accent, and me, a, for the most part, sober American. Not your typical gathering.

Brendan wanted to go to a bar so we left Geoffrey and headed in that direction. We came across one and went in. I ordered 2 beers from a pretty cure bartendress, and sat down at a table. Brendan returned from the restroom and joined me there. He started drinking and noticed the bartender. "She´s really cute!" he said, and I would catch him staring at her every couple minutes just totally spaced out. When he noticed me laughing at him, he told me that he was definitely in love with her. We started talking and it was obvious that he was a man ruled by his passions. He told me that he felt that if he didn´t chase after everything he saw that he liked, that would likely be his greatest regret later on. He even called himself a player. During this conversation he called the bartendress over and oredered 2 brandies and a coke, I think just so that the waitress woudl have to come over. But then quickly after that he spilled his beer, so she had to come over and clean it up. I don´t think that one was intended. He started talking about happiness, so I busted out a little Nichomachean Ethics on him about virtue and happiness. He followed for a while, but I think he was pretty engrained in current ways, plus he was a bit drunk, so I don´t think he wanted to talk about that. Who knows though, maybe it will pop up in his head at some point in the future. He invited the bartendress to go to a club next door, but she had classes the next day so she said no. He stuck around around and ordered an espresso as we were leaving, so I decided to head back to the hostel.