There's no seaside in Evora

"Take your swimsuit, we're going to be by the sea" said my mom as we were packing bags to go to Evora in Portugal.

I know what you're thinking - hey, there is no seaside in Evora! Yeah, we kind of realised that after we drove around 100 km inland from Lisbon. Oops. On her defense, apparently Evora WAS on the seaside. Around 5000 years ago. Or more. A little mishap, but hey, it happens.

So the trip started with my first ever flight from Vilnius to Amsterdam where we took a plane to Lisbon. Now there was a fun thing in Amsterdam's airport. We checked to which gate we should go and since we had some time we walked around the duty free zone. We had to pass another security check. We were checked by a guy who started asking if we have any hair gel. I kind of think he's addicted to it as his hair had a biiiit too much of it. When it was just an hour left we went to our gates.

We had some kind of sixth sense that something is not right, so we decided to check the flight number. And you know what? WE WERE AT THE WRONG GATES. Let that be a lesson for you travelers out there - always check the flight number. We made it of course, but it was a nervous run.

We landed in Lisbon and continued by bus to Evora. One bad thing though - my ears didn't pop after landing, but I couldn't let that to make my mood go down. Our first night started with a culture shock. It was just 7pm, so we decided to go out to the city to eat. The city seemed dead. But the thing that surprised us most was that every bar and restaurant was full of men and no women were in sight. After a few angry glares and glimpses at us we decided that maybe we should eat in the hotel's restaurant and explore the city next day. Now here's the thing - Portuguese eat A LOT. And I eat quite a lot, I admit it, but I ordered a small portion of pasta and I was full after half of it.

But let's return back to the town. Evora is very nice, with palm trees along roads, beautiful houses, parks with peacocks (roaming free! I tried to catch one but it got away...) and churches. They are catholic, so you know there was a lot of attention put into building the churches. And the weather - we went there in November and in my country I already had to wear a winter jacket and here the temperature was above 17 degrees. You could almost sunbathe!

Oh and another thing - remember when I said that in the evening there were only men and no women were in sight? Well apparently all the women go out to the cafes in the morning where they have their coffee and cigarettes. Actually while exploring the town at various hours we noticed that at six o'clock town goes empty - there are no more children or women seen anymore. It was a strange feeling because Portuguese assumed that I'm local because of my looks and I kept getting angry glares probably cause they were expecting me to be at home after 6pm. But that's not how I roll. There was one night when every bar was FULL of people AND it was after 6pm. There's a very reasonable explanation: football.

Last thing I can add, that this was a great birthday present. Trips will always be the best present for me.