You Probably Don’t Have it as Bad as Sockless Hobo Bob

Location: Porto, Portugal and Madrid, Spain

Sunday June 6, 2010

Our smaller group decided to stay and sleep in the hostel for the handful of hours before taking a cab out to our early-ass 6:30am flight, since we already made reservations for that night anyways. The other group decided to go via metro at midnight, because they had bought a 3-day pass on the metro. When it was still dark, we said a quick goodbye and thank you to Ismael (one of the other girls in the other group even gave him an unopened bottle of whiskey she bought duty-free on the way to Porto. Maybe if we had actually went out… that wouldn’t have been a problem…) before getting into our cab. During our weird-smelling cab ride, Lauren, Selina, and I listened to Kevin converse with the driver in Portuguese from his shotgun seat. We could pick out a few phrases, because they were so similar to Spanish. After the ride, Kevin told us that it was one of the most awkward Portuguese conversations he has ever had, because the driver had to make sense of his Brazilian Portuguese while he had to make sense of the driver’s Portuguese Portuguese. The driver wanted to talk about the United States but didn’t exactly know how to do it. He asked about Bush and Obama. Then he said that the Towers were beautiful before they fell. How do you reply to that? But I guess that’s more than any regular American has to say about Portugal.

Turned out, it was a good idea that my group stayed in the hostel. We found the other group huddled in towels and whatever thin sweaters they brought on the floor of the ticketing area. Some had tried to sleep, but it was either too cold or there was “Portuguese people” (actually Spaniards) talking loudly the whole time. They were complaining about how they were starving/uncomfortable/homeless. Oh, traveling. A lot of it depends on what mindset you have. But I think with that group, once one person starts bitching, it snowballs into a shitshow with everyone bitching. Then pretty soon everyone’s miserable.

Before going to Porto, Lauren and I talked about going to El Rastro (she hadn’t been) that Sunday after getting back to Madrid, since we would be arriving so early at 9 am. That definitely didn’t end up happening, since we all passed out in our homes until lunchtime. And the Spaniards eat lunch around 2 or 3pm…