Its Tuesday night and I’m sat with the sound of whistling ringing in my ears. The portugese love to whistle, when their happy, when their irritated and even just when their bored, they do it to express most sentiments us English waste our time composing a sentence for. Like ‘Excuse me would you mind moving a little please, your blocking my view of the surfing competition’ or ‘Oh look there is a set approaching, we’re probably about to witness some great surfing’ or ‘How exciting to have 10 times world champion Kelly Slater run passed us on the beach’. It does however lead to some confusion as when you hear a cacophony of whistles, which is every few minutes, you do find yourself inadvertently ducking down, checking out the back for an oncoming set, checking you didn’t just miss someone getting spat out of the barrel of the day, and looking up the beach to see who it in the next heat, which can get quite monotonous!
The Portugese do however absolutely love their surfing, they regard Tiago as a god, even awarding him his own tv show, which although im not aware of the scheduling of, or what is featured, seems it could have the potential to get a little samey.. if it is just Tiago surfing and chatting to camera, but hey, I've never seen it, it could be the best thing on TV. Matt Wilkinson declared in his acceptance speech for his expression session prize that Portugal had the best crowd of any of the events, although he also told me and my mate during one night out in france that if he was to win in Portugal he was doing it for us, but then denied any recollection of saying so when we asked him about it the next day, so im not sure we can believe a word he says. However I can vouche the crowd was massive, and the whole event was absolutely sick.
Since the rather depressing post yesterday my luck has turned around completly. After sitting on the forecourt of the garage for six hours yesterday in the sweltering heat, missing epic supertubes and just talking shit with my mate all day, we were told the van would not be fixed that day, nor did they know when it would be, nor did they know how much it would cost to fix, with the only thing I could get out of them was that they would let me know manana (or the day after). I was pretty bummed to start with, but then I discovered that on the bloody excellent European breakdown cover, that had already sorted me out a shitload, me and anyone I was with could comp a hotel while our vehicle was being fixed, as well as a taxi to it. As he was leaving I gave the mechanic a ‘take all the mananas ya need’ thumbs up.. although in hinesite maybe a whistle would have communicated the message better. After that I got straight on the phone and a lovely chap over at the RAC (the cover is with AVIVA and the RAC sort everything out for you- recommend the shit out of the both of them) and he sorted everything out, finding us a nice little bungalow (as all the hotels in Peniche were full) and a taxi straight from the garage to it. He was however a little nervous that the bungalow might not be up to our standards, offering me a nice hotel elsewhere as an alternative; however I reassured him that we had been living in a van for the last two weeks so it would probably be fine. Which it was. Sick little place with a pool right outside, warm shower, comfy bed, microwave; luxury. I have since also found out that my van will be fixed in the next couple days, and wont be costing as much as I first thought (an estimate based on nothing, aa no one would give me any kind of idea of a price). So that’s great news. The next day was very much in keeping with my new found good luck. Apart from a slightly harrowing hour long walk from our lodgings to the comp site, which included a 1 euro 30 can of fanta being totally ruined by the fish factory stench, as it seemed to mix together with the taste of the fanta in my mouth creating a cocktail I doubt we will soon be seeing on our shelves, the day was pretty perfect, with sun, sick waves and the final day of competition. Here’s a photo of Adriano in the final. Check back soon for more.
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