We went to Lagos, Portugal
because of the pretty pictures we saw in the books. Um. You can't see
the wind in the pictures. Can you see it here?
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Living the Life of Holly |
Column # 132 Wind |
We went to Lagos, Portugal
because of the pretty pictures we saw in the books. Um. You can't see
the wind in the pictures. Can you see it here? |
|
|
www.livingthelifeofholly.com “The wind.” She cried out, shaking her fist at the sky. “That blasted wind.” Cool-guy and I laughed. She jumped up, waved her arms around windmill fashion and called to a waiter. “Come quick. The wind broke my glass.” Cool-guy leaned over to me. “I’d never order a drink in a tall glass out here. What was she thinking?” “They must be new. Just arrived?” The waiter ignored her. “Look. My drink fell. There’s broken glass everywhere.” She called again. “Too bad.” The waiter shrugged, half sincerely. He never would have ordered anything in a tall glass. She had insisted, thinking she was in the tropics. Cool-guy and I had been in Lagos, Portugal for several days. We had figured out the wind cycles. Essentially the wind NEVER stopped blowing. We were sitting out at the pool of our swank hotel where we were mostly protected. Yes. That was still lots more wind than you would expect. We had learned how to dine by the pool. Rocks were carefully selected from the gardens and used to anchor our placemats to the table. Our drinks never touched the table and were handed to a waiter the moment we were done with them. “I’ll expect the hotel to clean my towel.” The woman demanded. “There’s glass everywhere.” The waiter smiled a non-promise. “Take it to the front desk and talk to the manager.” Cool-guy took one Euro ($1) out of his pocket. “One Euro says they won’t sleep here tonight.” I pulled five Euros ($5) out of my purse. “Five says they’ll be home in London before dinner.” He put his money away. “I’ll figure out a way to win money from you yet.” The woman’s husband looked up from his book when his drink tipped over and broke in his lap. “That blasted wind.” He shouted and jumped to his feet. His reaction totally unglued his wife. “What do you think I’ve been shouting about? You sit there and read and I have to fight the wind myself?” Cool-guy was impressed. “A wind fighter. Why didn’t I think of that?” The waiter suggested they move their lunch inside where the wind couldn’t touch them. No. He didn’t care about their contentment. He had tired of their bickering. “But we want to sit near the pool.” The husband whined. “You can’t.” The wife screamed. “That blasted wind won’t stop blowing.” Cool-guy leaned over and kissed me. “I don’t think that she was ever sweet. I wanted to follow the drama to the front desk and watch my favorite sour-manager deal with them. But. Cool-guy was ready for the beach. I was too. Come on. The Lagos beaches were some of the most beautiful I had ever seen. We walked along the harbor, slightly bent over, walking into the wind. I squinted my eyes to keep the dust from blowing into them. Lagos was one of the cleanest cities I had ever seen, but I never saw anyone sweeping or washing sidewalks. We couldn’t figure out who cleaned the city. The cleaning fairies in the middle of the night? I had a huge epiphany. “I figured out how the city is so clean.” “Tell me.” “The wind carries all the trash away.” I said. “That’s why nobody has to sweep. The dust is carried away too.” He stopped walking. “You’re right. I can’t believe it. For once you’re right.” I laughed. “I want to figure out a way to instill this method of cleaning in my apartment. You know. Blow wind through my apartment. I don’t know. Huge fans? Wouldn’t that be awesome?” “As long as I wasn’t sitting in the living room at the time.” Someone ran up behind Cool-guy and grabbed his shoulder. I know. I immediately thought it was a mugging and thought they were smart to grab him first. “Hey. You. Are these yours?” We turned. He was carrying our towels. We had been carrying them around our necks. They had blown away and we hadn’t noticed. I laughed. “Yes. They are. Thanks so much.” “Ohmygod.” Cool-guy said. “Sour-manager would have loved to charge us the twenty five Euros ($25) per towel if we’d lost them.” “I can’t believe they flew away. Our towels tried to escape. They don’t like us.” “Ok. Cool-guy said, sadly. “I don’t care how beautiful it is here. That’s it. I don’t want to be a wind fighter.” I understood. And. I had to agree. Cause. Come on. It’s a horrible realization when you wake up and face the fact that your beach towels don’t like you. People in the city kept saying that it was never this windy here, and that any day the wind would lighten up and Cool-guy could go surfing. Yeah. No. “We could go to Spain.” I suggested. “It isn’t windy. It’s hot.” “I’m good with hot.” “Ok.” I said as I looked out at one of my favorite beaches in the whole world. “Bye Portugal.” “Yeah.” Cool-guy said. “Tomorrow we
blow this town.”
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