Post-apocalyptic airport, red pickup truck named ‘Kangaroo’ and my unemployed self in Portugal
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It’s empty in Lisbon Airport’s Terminal 2 (yep that’s the one where Ryanair flies to). Well ok, I’m there — all sweaty and breathless and thinking oh how I’m going to miss my flight this time. Quick look at the clock, there’s still one hour and a half to go. This calms me, but the airport that looks post-apocalyptically deserted does not. No sound, no movement, nothing. After looking around I finally notice a lonely man in the corner under the Ryanair sign. When asked if I can check in my backpack, he casually nods and asks for my ID and ticket. And then it finally clicks — I forgot to print out my ticket and my wallet is nowhere to be found. In the end I fish my passport out of some back pocket, find the ticket on my phone, but the wallet is still missing.
I message my friend Andreas with whom I stayed in Lisbon — he gets a panick attack and I understand that my wallet is in some other pocket. Laughing at myself I march into the post-apocalyptic emptiness that is the Terminal 2. I don’t meet a single soul while crossing it and the officers at the security check put their coffees away to open the station for me. Makes me feel like a superstar. For about half an hour I believe that I will be flying to Ponta Delgada as the only passenger on the plane.
Why the hell am I telling this story? Probably in order to better understand myself at that time — stray thoughts, emotions scattered all over the place (most likely together with all reason that was left). When leaving Lisbon, I had no idea what or who was waiting in the middle of the Atlantic.
I learned about the hostel from my friend Alex — she stayed there during her trip around the São Miguel island. According to Alex basically everyone working there came to Açores under the Workaway programme. I was looking for something similar at the time and thought.. why not? After a few unsuccessful calls out of Moroccan desert (ok, almost desert) the manager of the hostel told me that they are looking for someone to start as soon as possible — in exchange for bed, daily meals and some pocket money. Next day I was already packing my stuff.
After landing in the Açores I was greeted by my 26 y.o. manager-to-be Rita, who was sitting in a red pickup truck named Kangaroo with wild long hair and a sweater a bit too big. The feeling was not bad at all — it was midnight and it was drizzling, I threw my backpacks in the back of the car on some unknown objects, put the canvas on, closed the rusty and wobbly doors and just like that we were on our way to the town.
My first impressions didn’t disappoint— the crowd in the hostel was like a bunch of characters from a strangest book.
My Russian counterpart, who has been here the longest, was responsible for event planning and cooking — she would feed everyone every night with world’s most delicious pies, not forgetting to keep us at knife’s point if someone was crazy enough to say no. There were three more people. One of them on the very first day asked me to sign on a piece of paper and from my signature read into my soul and told me the meaning of my life. Marc was a philosopher by nature, who always had something to say no matter the occasion. All of his life advice usually started as something like this: “So, Vilmantė, I see that you have something on your mind, comentemos?”.
The complete opposite of him was Jurre, a political science graduate who spoke perfect Brasilian Portuguese, had a strong interest in the old Portuguese discoverers and wanted to get into the most prestigious university in São Paulo (and he did). When fed some wine, his mysterious aggressive french accent would put on a show.
About Pauls, a quiet guy tattooed from head to toe, I learned so many curious things, but only at the very end of my stay in Açores. From his concert venue in Latvia that apparently is quite famous to a random application to the art academy in Riga. During the entrance exam he stepped away from his drawing to better look at it and started laughing — all the other students came up to check it out and started taking pictures as they “haven’t seen a drawing as bad as this in a while”.
Getting used to another manager — Filipe — took me a while. He is one of those people with a bit of a weird sense of humour. I could never understand if he was joking or being serious. Enjoys attention and likes to verbally poke those who are not too comfortable about it, but also has no problem taking the whole team for steaks and paying the bill. Hostel dad with a soft voice and a tone that lets you know who’s word is the last one.
First page of my strange book of dreams. Two months of adventures in the middle of the Atlantic.
