Prickly straw pokes my bare skin as I taste God only knows what while sipping Sangria out of a handmade ceramic mug. Little did I know, today was not the day for shorts or a weak stomach. Pushy Portuguese crowd my dinner table. Communal, crowded yet colorful, Portugal still manages to muster up medieval times in a modern world. While in the Algarve region of Portugal, with high-rise hotels, resorts and drones of beach bums crowding every inch of sand, for me, it wasn’t time to park my pasty self on a towel and bake in the sun, but rather find the only patch of shade no one seemed to want. Continue Reading