Cascais - A Day at the Beach

It's a holiday weekend here in Portugal. Friday was Camões/Portugal day and Monday is the Holy Ghost's Monday.

I'm pretty sure you've heard of the Holy Ghost. But if you don't know Camões, he's the nation's most famous poet. He wrote some amazing things, but his obra prima was Os Lusíadas, which is an epic poem, much like Virgil's Aeneid or Homer's Iliad and Odyssey.

If you want a reason to love Camões, here's my #1: While living in China (after running away to not pay his debts) he was working on Os Lusíadas and was shipwrecked near Cambodia on his way to answer some accusations. Get this: he managed to save his manuscript, but not his lover. That, my friends, is dedication.

On that note, here is a statue dedicated to him:

I took this pic on Thursday when Amy Ollerton, older sister of my friend Dema Ollerton, stopped by for a few hours during a layover on her way to Rome. Good times.
Today I celebrated by going to the beach with some friends. And I made a few new ones along the way. We grabbed a train at the Cais do Sodré station and headed as far as it would go. Which puts us in Cascais, Portugal, a beautiful little city with lots of beaches. We chose the Praia dos Pescadores (Fishermen's Beach).

It looked something like this: (note: the Brazilian guy at the very end of the clip is my first mate Filipe, who needed like ten minutes of coaxing to get in the "cold" water)

Spent some time jumping off the docks. It was nothing high, but it was fun.

Can't visit Portugal without at least one day at the beach.