So, in our van, which the young hipster had dubbed the Black Jeep, we flew down to Fuseta. Young — because he's 3 years old, hipster — because irony, since we were driving in a white van, meaning the name was the exact opposite of reality.
My friends and I play a board game called Agricola, so the label cracks us up
The house manager, Paola, immediately explained that in Portugal it's customary to greet people by kissing them on both cheeks. Later, a girl we know from Riga who lives in Lisbon told us that this custom totally creeps her out, because for us northerners, personal space is several meters wide, and kissing strangers is a complete mindfuck.
Nevertheless, when in Rome, do as the Romans do. We were handed the keys, and we infiltrated our new abode. The apartment turned out to be absolutely gorgeous. I had almost concluded that the Portuguese, for some reasons unknown to science, weren't as much of slackers as other southerners, but nope — the apartment belonged to Germans. Figures.
I called dibs on the room with an en-suite bathroom. We rented the place through Airbnb, which Andrei usually uses. It often turns out cheaper than a hotel if you're traveling with a crew, but usually it's the other way around if you're flying solo. The apartment cost a mere €187.29, that's for 5 people and a kid, for 6 nights. That comes out to about 6 euros per adult. If you ask me, that's a steal for a place that's 10 minutes from the ocean, has decent Wi-Fi, and is super nice and clean. You could probably find something cheaper, but we always went for options where everyone gets their own bed.
The apartment was richly decorated with all sorts of wooden and metal figurines, antiques, and paintings. The furniture wasn't from IKEA at all; quite the opposite, it looked sturdy and solid, made of solid wood in the color of bog oak, which was nice.
You can see a terrace in the background. The apartment had as many as two of them! What's more, one of them had a grill, and you could step out onto it from both bedrooms.
Cute junk that I personally have zero need for, but it's spot on for home decor.
It turned out we were staying right in the center of Fuseta, and if you walked ten meters down, you'd hit a mini-square with a couple of cafes. In one of them, the patrons had faces that were downright carrot-colored from constant boozing. I ended up making runs down there for wine later, because the local shops closed really early. If, however, you walked a hundred meters up from our front door, you'd find a craft beer bar!
The weather, as I already mentioned, was slightly cloudy and even a bit rainy right when we arrived. Luckily, that didn't last long at all, and for all the following days we enjoyed the sunshine and temperatures ranging from 18 (during the day) to 12 (closer to the night) degrees.
Finally, just to amuse my dear readers, I remembered two fun facts: right below our apartment was a hair salon called "Paola", so we figured our landlady also runs a hair salon. The second is that addresses in Portugal aren't written with apartment numbers, but like this: "First floor, on the right" or like this: "Second floor, straight ahead". I figured this out from how the addresses were written on the apartments and on the mailboxes.
