Patio Girlz

Laundry day! The laundry mat is a few blocks away overlooking the river. With the 45 minute wash cycle we head over the river in search of a particular street with some interesting tile facades. According to the “Urban Geology and Palentology Guide (2016)” left in our apartment, there are exposed fossils in the door archways made from a grey rock, called ‘marl’. The two story facade is completely tiled with detailed decoration around the doors and windows suggesting a wealthy owner commissioned the work. There are other buildings along this street with beautiful tiles and doors and I happily photograph many of them.

Back at the laundry mat, during the dry cycle, we start chatting with a couple from Nova Scotia. They too, are spending a month in Portugal, all of it in Tavira. They talk about some of the highlights of places they have explored here. Gradually we talk of our respective provinces and specifically camping and exploring opportunities near their community of Shelbourne.

The shared experience of travelling is a gateway to meeting new people while you travel, many are happy to share their experiences with strangers in a laundry mat, on a train or bus, or while siting on a bench in a town square. Travellers are a curious bunch, a generalization I know, but I cannot remember a time when a fellow traveller didn’t engage, if however briefly.

Laundry complete, we move on, leaving our fellow Canadians with a promise that if we do come to Nova Scotia in the fall, we will look them up. Other than laundry and picking up a few groceries, today was a ‘no plan’ day. For a planner such as myself that spent a lifetime planning both professionally and personally, a no plan day can be a bit of a challenge. It is certainly a new and strange experience. It is not the first on this trip and each one becomes a little easier. Not having any plans allows us to go with the flow, see what the day brings. There is no expectation that we will seek out new areas to explore, or new experiences to try. We spontaneously take a new route home from the laundry mat and discover….

I am really starting to like these No Plan days!