There and Back in an Instance

mirash talking on phone

Monday.
    Tomorrow is the big day. Tomorrow we are finally going to Portugal. I'm not feeling very tired, when I go to bed. Damn! I can not fall asleep! It is too early. What am I doing in bed already?
    The telephone rings. It is Tom. Well, I was not sleeping anyway, so why not. But tomorrow is the big day. I have to get some sleep. Is anybody sleeping anyway? Not robin at least. I see a flash and there I am, caught on a picture. But now I must get some sleep.
    Tomorrow is the big day.

Outside the airport the air is cooler than I had expected. Where is the heat, eh? We are in Portugal, right? This is not still Sweden or something? Nope, we are in Portugal. We meet our travel guide, Linda. She is chewing at some candy.
    "I was offered some Swedish candy and I couldn't resist," she says, just before she winks at some other tourist just stepping out of the airport.

At the bus Linda does most of the talking. She gives us a pretty clever trick on how to invert the Portuguese currency to the Swedish currency in an easy way. She gives out maps of Albufeira, some papers with text about Portugal. What to do and not to do, where to go and what to see etc, etc, etc.
    I look at the bypassing landscape outside the window. Everything looks so different from Sweden. All the houses are painted white. And the sand is red, red.
    Linda says the temperature in Sweden has been pretty hot green phonethese last couple of days, but Portugal has still been hotter. I would notice this the next day.

Our rooms are small and they all have this old, green phones. By some reason only the one in my and robin's room happened to be defect. I remember the first time that I woke by some strange sound. I ignored it, thinking it was something from outside till I realized it was the phone.
    "Didn't you hear the phone?" mom said surprised from the other side as I finally answered.
    "Yeah, was that a phone call?" I wondered.

The ocean was just outside our hotel, so we went swimming as soon as we had settled our things. The water was freezing.
    Great, I thought. No more swimming for me.
    But the next day was a hot day and lying in the sun can turn the beach out to be awfully warm. Maybe we got used to it, but after a couple of times we all felt the water had become warmer.
    We went to the beach almost everyday. The water was not that cold anymore, but the only thing that bugged me was the salt. Do not ever swallow salt water, mate. Cause if you have not got anything with you to drink, then it is over. Go home and drink or you won't make the day!

It is the last day.
    "I can't believe it has already been two weeks a woman says to her companion as we step on the bus. "It feels like we only got here yesterday." And it is true; time flies when you have fun. Feels like you've been there and back in an instance. But I was glad to be heading home. I had a great experience, but now I was looking forward to be back in Sweden again.
    There is no place like home.

mirash