Mondays.

Morning strolls with nothing but the direction of the wind to worry about. 

Seeing strangers whose faces can now be named and talking early morning story. 

Tracing foreign footprints down the rocky coastline before scaling the cliffs awkwardly to avoid incoming tides. 

Relaxing in the semi-sun before the cloud sets in, blending into the sand dunes and creating gloomy views across the stormy ocean. 

Fun, bumpy surf truck rides with Germans to middle-of-the-road bus stations with empty vending machines and glum grandmas. 

Keeping watch as the barren west coast idled by under the intermittent rain and road side markets. 

'Home' to familiar Lisbon with its people, smells, sounds and omnipresent sardine advertisements. Struggling to keep my knee caps in their sockets under the somehow increasing weight of my 'backpack de life' on the metro. 

Then, voila, Rossio and a bed. Nighttime strolls through hazes of rain and roasting chestnuts to see the ocean before the smell of a hostel doused in all-you-can-eat tapas. 

The nose still runs but so do I. 

Tomorrow beckons a clearer head (nose and throat) for a beach side trip to Estoril and Cascais and, fingers crossed, a dip in the ocean, board beneath.