Sand Fleas are gross

As you may have gathered, I have picked up a few traveling mates in my short time in Portugal, Alice and Frosty, the Aussies and Jose, the birthday boy. We all headed to Lagos, a very chill little beach town on the southern coast of Portugal, with a very popular hostel called the rising cock, charming eh? We arrived late in the evening only to begin drinking pretty much immediately. Aparently the cock is a bit of a party hostel and as far as I can figure the days are spent in either sun-filled sloth on the beach or, in case of a rain, which by the way has been persistently stalking me around Portugal, movies on the giant flat screen in the common room to be followed by general drunken debauchery at the 3 monkeys bar, conviently located mere steps away from the hostel. Well sauced within literally minutes of our arrival, we spend the next day lounged on the beach drinking Calimocho, a spanish drink of coca cola and red wine. Seriously, it's way better than it sounds. Apart from the sand fleas that are making the sand shudder like its breathing and a poor albatross that decided to commit half succsessfull kamikaze suicide by flying headlong into a wall and then limping about all gimped up without succesfully managing to die, it's a perfectly lovely day. Well maybe slightly marred by the fact that I have forgotten my swimsuit at my friend's house in Italy, so I spend the day chilling in a tank top and my underwear- trust me it's a real flattering look. Though it is nice to swim in the ocean, in basically November, without fear of hypothermia. After some red wine fueled soul searching conversations (what am I, a college freshman?) we head back to the hostel to pre-drink and improvise costumes before heading out to drink some more at the Halloween party the bar is having. Let's just say a backpacker cannot come up with much ( i have like 4 shirts...what the hell am i gonna wear for a costume) so i went with a slightly trashy play on words, that was so wortht it for the 4 free shots it got me. I am one of the tamer drinkers at the hostel, imagine that, so much so that some kids end up staying on like three weeks , operating in some sort of sun and alcohol induced fog. Halloween is a riotous blur as always and literally the whole hostel spends the next day recooperating on the couch watching terrible American comedies. The owners' mother, an incredibly sweet portugese (by way of Connecticut, long story) woman who insists everyone call her mama, takes pity on our booze addled bodies and decides a giant pot of homemade soup is in order. I can see why people get stuck here