Quinta (Farm)

The last few days have been rough... I've been doing hard labor jobs which I love but I've gotten beaten up along the way. I definitely have the wrong shoes! I've fallen down a lot and skinned my knees, got stung by wasps (so many here) and I woke up with spider bites (yuck!) But, it's just typical life here. No Problems! In the last few days I've learned a lot: how to mix cement and fix rock walls, how to build a canopy over cars (for example) which involved sawing but Papa taught me that, how to make bread ( so good) and there's more I'm sure. I accidently gave my best tank top to the cleaning lady. She was admiring it on the drying rack and I meant to say, "you like it?" but "you can have it" came out (in Portuguese). She was SOOO happy and in reality she appreciates it way more than I do... she doesn't have much... I feel good about it.

    Great news is I'm going to Faro tomorrow by train.. I haven't been outside this farm for.... 3 weeks! It's crazy. I almost didn't leave at all because the neighbor asked me to help her with her roof on my day off (tomorrow) and I almost said yes... she would pay me but I HAVE to see a city or I will get depressed... I feel it coming... so I'm out of here.... talk to you in a few days my loves!

9/11-9/12

The last 2 days have been spent cleaning  the cars, learning to iron and fold properly  for the Inn (not easy), picking mint for tea, learning Portuguese, taking the dogs for long walks, helping to serve breakfast, lunch and dinner and learning to add to and maintain the Quinta's website. Daniela is back so I haven't been cooking. Tonight I might try my luck at paddling across the lake to a fiesta on the dam!?! I don't know what the lighting will be like... and I'm not quite sure I can row in a dress and stay dry? I guess I could sail into the party but I think I'm more comfortable in the kayak, especially at night. Daniela is supposed to give me a lesson in her car (manual) so I can drive myself to the coast! I am definitely getting a but stir crazy here. It's  been 2 weeks since I've seen civilization. It was nice taking a walk on my day off and I saw some new scenery but it's still cork trees, water and dirt roads. I think I'll go to Lisbon. Maybe I'll be able to give up my breaks each day for 3 days off. We've been working 50-60 hours a week but no one counts them... it's just what you do here. The train only comes through Santa Clara once per day so actually, I'd only have 24 hours in Lisbon- it doesn't seem worth the effort and cost except it is... for my mental health! :) I haven't even spent money in 2 weeks- crazy! Oh and great news, Frank found me Soya milk in Santa Clara! HOORAY! No more black tea and coffee!! P.S. I'm picking up Portuguese a bit!! :)

9/7-9/10 Quinta

What a crazy 3 days! Daniela and Frank went away to Spain and left Matt and I in charge of the Quinta. Before they left they gave us some tips and tricks but mainly we were flying by the seats of our pants. We did all of the cooking and managed the bills, bookings and phone calls on top of our normal work, my promoting a yoga weekend at the Quinta in October, and Matt building a rock wall and watering of the grounds. We got a 30 minute break each day, with one of us always covering the phones. Initially I was terrified of cooking because each person was paying nearing 35 dollars American for their meal! But the guests said we did an excellent job and that the food couldn't have been lovelier. Thank God! 

Today is finally a day off but Daniela's 6 year old daughter returned from Northern Portugal and I'm teaching her to read English. She is incredibly smart. I think I already mentioned but she's fluent in German, Portuguese and English. Insane! Ok, well it's almost lunch time so write later!

Sunday at the Quinta

So far so good. It's 9:45 am and I've already done breakfast for the guests. I love making orange juice. This morning I picked fresh figs from the garden, cut them up with a peach and kiwi and squeezed some lemon juice on top w/ honey. 

Last night we didn't have to make dinner for the guests so after running all the sprinklers for the land Matt and I watched Narnia. It was a little escape from Portugal... an English movie with an English friend... a nice little treat. But back to Portuguese life. This morning I was able to tell Fatima (in Portuguese that I LOVE Cheese but I can't eat it because I'm allergic and that I LOVE dogs but I can't pat them because I'm allergic.) I'm getting better!

The Quinta, Saturday

Today Daniela accidently slept in so I did breakfast with the help of Fatima, the amazing cleaning lady. She is so awesome. After breakfast I nearly finished my email database project I cleaned 30 or so fish (pictured here!!), learned to sail, saw a big snake, jumped off a cliff and it's only 6pm! I LOVE this place. I'm not going to lie though, cleaning the fish was disgusting. I accidently flung fish gills at myself and definitely gagged a few times. I didn't expect them to be so bloody! Eww!

Santa Clara, Portugal: Working at the Quinta

     *Remember click on pics to see them larger*

  So after saying Goodbye to everyone at the hostel and apologizing for my tears I hoofed it back to the train station and by hoofed it I mean ran. Mama was talking to me about what happened and wanted to make me sandwiches so I was held up a bit. I made it with 3 minutes to spare (scary!) and sat back and tried to relax. I realized that I was supposed to go through the city of Faro but I knew I wasn’t and I hoped that Frank, my soon to be boss would still be waiting for me in Santa Clara. I got off the train in some tiny, tiny town and used Caitlyn’s money for a little snack (thank God for her!) My train left an hour later and it was a beautiful landscape the whole way. It was filled with rolling hills and cork trees, which is a big but dying industry here. Only buy wine with cork tops- you’ll be employing people and using natural resources!! 

    Anyway, when the station pulled into Santa Clara a small white house was the only thing in site. I crossed the tracks and saw a familiar face, it was Frank. His red hair stuck out, he smiled and said in an English accent, “Hi, I’m Frank how’s it going?” I said, “ok and thanks for waiting as I was a bit late. He put my bag full of dirty clothes in the back of his truck and we zoomed off. He said he had just picked up a box for me at the post office and that he needed to stop in town really quick. He pulled up next to a quaint white building and I looked around. I could see a fruit store, a general store in addition to the one Frank was in, another small store with a few cork products in it and a very small church. This was Santa Clara, the only town within 20 minutes of the Quinta. Oh my God I thought, but perhaps we have a lot of neighbors. The last 10 minutes of the drive was on narrow dirt roads and Frank was driving fast. 

No one was around so it didn’t matter. When I arrived to the Quinta Frank brought me to my room. It was one of the guest rooms. He said I’d be staying here for the night and then if it was ok with me, moving in with another work exchanger, Matt. I said that was fine. I was hoping it really was fine… I hadn’t met him yet and it sort of depended. I set my bag down and Frank gave me a very quick tour and brought me inside the kitchen to meet Matt and Belinda (2 workers my age). They were very nice and I instantly knew it would be fine to share a room with Matt. He is 19 and originally from Boston but had been going to college in NY before he came. Belinda is from Australia and has been the assistant cook to Frank’s wife Daniela. Matt does more of the man jobs I’m told.

 I meet Daniela and she doesn’t seem too excited to meet me but she’s in the middle of making dinner and Frank says she takes some time to warm up to people. She is Austrian and she speaks German, English and Portuguese… impressive… and actually her 3 kids speak all 3 languages as well, including her 6 year old Carolina. She is the only one I have met so far, as the other kids are in France. The Quinta is different than I pictured it. First of all, there is no one even remotely close to us. I can see a small Inn across the lake but to get there you must go by boat and even then they don’t really have a bar. It is so deserted that most everyone who comes are couples seeking some alone time… so I don’t see myself hanging out with any guests. Let alone that a lot of them are Spanish or Portuguese. I learn quickly that Belinda does the cooking when Daniela is away and that Belinda is leaving in one week…which has now come and gone! L She was so sweet. She drew portraits of everyone, even me and gave us all letters. She was in the same boat as me only knowing English and a little Spanish. I add 2 and 2 together and realize that I will be cooking gourmet food for guests. This is scary because not only would it be stressful to cook for 15 or so people but the ingredients are in Portuguese. This will be a funny story when I’m old. Guests pay almost 25 euro for dinner here… that is like $35 American! I’m already learning so much about cooking and if it weren’t for being terrified of really messing up I would be totally excited about this opportunity. Belinda was always in the kitchen with her laptop reading recipes though so I can do that. I think. 

Although, I’ll have to think up 3 to 4 course meals. I’m sure once I get more comfortable with Daniela and her with me the pressure won’t be so bad. Actually, they are going away for 2 days soon and I will have to cook everything with Matt helping me. I will make sure to have the recipes ready! He’s not much of a cook but he’s a good server and has been here for 2 months so he knows exactly how to run the place. I’ve got the bar tending down and the booking system but I need to know Portuguese to be of any help on the phone. Luckily Matt has family in Portugal and has been around Portuguese since he was young. He understood it when he arrived but now he can speak it quite well. I’m very impressed with him. He draws well, he reads during his breaks, he works hard, he plays the guitar, he speaks Portuguese, he makes bracelets and he’s only 19. He is young but he seems old. It’s comfortable sharing a room with him. Sometimes we hang out and sometimes we do our own thing during our breaks from 3-6. 

Belinda left today which was really sad. I really liked her and it was nice having a girl around that was my age. Now I only have Matt and Daniela’s young kids once they come back to start school… and actually there are 5 dogs here. I am allergic but the company is worth my crazy sore throats and stuffy nose. So the dogs are all so different. I don’t know the types but I’ll take pictures with Matt’s camera soon. Their names are honey, sideways (because he always walks sideways and makes you fall), Mike Tilla (named after a war vet), Pesca (Portuguese for bird I think) and my personal swim partner, Molly.

  So the work here is varied. Frank always starts people off with a long tedious task so test them. Belinda had to tile the kitchen, Matt had to move a bunch of wood piles and I had to transfer 1,500 written emails into an excel database, add them to his established email contact list and then organize them into a Portuguese and English speaking list. I researched email marketing companies because Frank wanted me to send 10,000 emails 20 at a time so as to not get sent to the spam folder and I thought that was unrealistic to do in a week. He hired someone so YAY! My tedious task won’t be as long! I still have to separate the group into languages… is there an easy way to do this in excel?! I will find out- 10,000 is a lot.

Today is Friday and each week I will have Thursday and Friday off. Saturday-Wednesday I work 7:45am-3pm and then again from 6pm-10pm, that is about 11 hours a day. I wake up at 730, roll out of bed, put a dress on and head to the kitchen. I put silverware, plates, bowls, cereal, croissants and coffee and tea out for the guests and juice oranges for yummy fresh juice. After that I can eat with Matt, Fatima (the cleaning lady) and Dulce (the gardener). Fatima and Dulce are both amazing women who only speak Portuguese. I think Fatima understands me a bit. I told her my throat hurts and she made me the most amazing honey lemon tea. I want to learn Portuguese because I hate being limited in my conversation with them.

So after breakfast, Belinda goes off to do a lot of laundry and help Fatima, Matt builds rock walls and fixes roofs and I work on my tedious email list until lunch at 2. We all help serve lunch, eat ourselves and then usually get a break from 3pm until we have to set up for dinner at 6pm. During our break we can do whatever we want. It’s still hot out so I always go swimming and usually take the kayak or surfboard out for a paddle. I also like to fit in a few pages from one of the books I brought. I just finished my final day off until Thursday and I spent it sleeping on the dock, reading and getting sun burnt. It was great. Even though we have days off, we still help out. Frank and Daniela rarely get a day off so the atmosphere is such that we want to help. That being said I slept til 10am today and aside from talking with Frank about the email job and learning the booking system I didn’t help out until dinner time. I helped serve food and clean up. I have been dying to catch my blog up and I’m excited that it’s finally happening. Now that Belinda is gone I will assist Daniela by making dessert and or the appetizer and help her plan a meal and Matt will set up the intricate table, steam the silverware and glasses, make flower arrangements, slice butter and pick flowers to decorate it with, get the water pitchers ready, choose music and we will both take turns running the sprinklers. 

It is very dry here so every night at 8pm we have to start 6 sprinklers; which are quite far apart and then shut them off at 845pm and then start sprinklers 7-12 and run them until 930pm. I’ve been doing it a week and still need a map and still get soaked. A lot of them go around in circles and you really have to run fast and know the land in order to stay dry. Matt has been here 2 months and he still comes back wet so I don’t feel bad. He runs through the bushes but I did the flower arrangements the other day and noticed the huge spiders so I stick to the rock paths… which makes it nearly impossible to stay dry. Anyway, dinner is served when the gong is rung, around 8-830. We serve bread and butter and the “entrada” (entrée in English) which is confusing because to us, the entrée is the main course. In Portugal, the entrée means appetizer. After the appetizer comes the ___ followed by the pudding, which is dessert to us. After dessert we pick fresh mint from the garden and make fresh mint tea which is so good after a long days work. We clean up the kitchen and Matt (and Belinda until tonight L ) head to the area known as the kid’s room to relax with our mint tea and watch television from England. We only get like 3 channels but even that is a welcome treat. Matt and I both fall asleep within an hour of watching and eventually make it to our room.

After my emailing job, which sort of blows since I’m inside all of the time I will have a few roofing jobs and some rock wall jobs. Matt and I will likely work together on these ones so that will be a nice change. I really like learning new things so I am happy that the work is varied. I haven’t spent a lot of time in the garden but Dulce will be off soon so I will be tending it a lot more. We get a lot of the food from the garden but Daniela is from Austria. The cuisine here is certainly international and heavier than I thought it would be. For breakfast we eat toast with butter or jam, lunch is buffet style with multiple veggie salads (like shredded carrots with apple, cucumbers with tomato and onion and tuna salad with olives and main things like Shepard’s pie or pizza… both made gourmet style (with lots of goat’s cheese and rich things like that). I’ve had a tummy ache nearly everyday but I haven’t stuck to my lactose free diet either. I didn’t want to make a fuss about anything so they don’t know that I need to eat lactose free or that I am allergic to dogs. I’m getting more comfortable so I’ll mention it at some point! Oh and I’m allergic to Tide and that’s what they use to laundry detergent… you should see my poor rashes lol! It’s funny at this point. I feel like I’m always telling Matt about some new problem! What can I say I am a sensitive girl!!

  Anyway it’s 1am and I have finally gotten a lot of things out and I’m happy about it.  The internet is really touchy here which means no skype or gmail video chats! L That is a huge bummer but I am happy that there is at least internet sometimes! I hope you are all doing well and I will try to give updates more often!  Love you all. P.S. They call me “Mel,” short for Melissa but also in Portuguese it means “honey”… sweet huh

Holy LAGOS!!!! >>Portugal<<

I met 3 particularly great people in Lisbon whom I did the majority of my site seeing with, Maria, Angel and Simon. Maria and Angel were heading to lagos so we decided to take the train together. Angel and I had an impossible time finding a hostel to stay in so we booked an expensive guest house type thing but upon arriving to Lagos and bringing Maria to her hostel, "Mama" said she could fit us. I had read about this hostel, called "The Rising Cock," "Mama" herself and the crepes she makes every morning with her famous lemon tea. Mama insists on being called this and is like your mother whilst you’re away. I was skeptical at first but she was really there for me when I needed her- more about that later. 

The hostel is infamous for crazy 24 hour parties but it seemed quite quiet. I could hear a movie playing in the background and few people were going in and out. It was mid day and super hot so I figured most people were at the beach. Mama had a double bed amongst a room for 8 for Angel and I so we took it without a question. It was so much cheaper than our other option and we were already there with our heavy packs! Yes! Maria was also placed in the same room so things were good! Angel and I had already developed a brother/sister relationship so it wasn't even weird. Once we got settled we went straight to the beach and from there waited in line at a restaurant for hours!

   We didn't get back to the hostel until 11:30pm and everyone from the hostel had already left. We decided to take a look around just the 3 of us and went to the most famous of the bars called, "Monkey Bar." It is insane. The bar tenders act like they are on speed! They run around taking shots themselves, giving people funnels and weird things to drink from and not one was wearing a shirt. Within 5 minutes of being inside I got burned by a cigarette twice, got a beer spilled on me, got stepped on and then hit on by a midget. No judgments here but it was all a bit overwhelming. We had the distinct feeling of being too late for the party to catch up and thus way too sober for this so we went home with the intention of getting back to the hostel earlier tomorrow night in order to meet everyone and go out from there. 

The next day we went to the beach of course and discovered some really, really beautiful ones! They had amazing rock formations and really cool caves. Lots of people were jumping from ledges and added to the cool, free atmosphere. Everyday we went to the beach with more and more people. Everyone would go out and drink together at night, eat Mama's crepes in the morning and maybe watch a movie before going to the beach. It was so chill! The hostel was not a crazy place this week because everyone was in Valencia for the famous tomato fights. The boys at the hostel were a bit disappointed with the odds, 3 girls and like 15-20 boys, but they had a good time anyway... and there were no shortage of girls at the bars. Lagos is known to be a crazy party town where crazy things happen! It is quite small and most capital is brought in from the fishing industry and tourists.  

There were a few notable bars... one was Inside Out. They had fish bowls [scorpion bowls, aka loss of memory in liquid form] that are best shared between at least 4 people. Two girls in my room tried to share one and lets just say our room was a gross disaster in the morning. So one night we went out with the hostel and shared one... everyone had really strange nights that night. I woke up on the beach alone at 830 in the morning and returned to find Angel in the bed covered in blood. He still doesn't know what happened and Maria was quite naked in her bed. Everyone ate crepes and spent the next couple of hours piecing our night together. I had gone back to the hostel and told people that I wanted to write and draw and took my notebook. There was nothing in my notebook the next day. Hilarious! One guy remembered dancing in his underwear in a chair at a bar and one girl still wasn't home. We again went to the beach and took a boat tour through caves. It was fantastically beautiful and I am super tan! 

The next night a great girl I met, named Sara (from Australia) and I decided to make our own fish bowls for the hostel.. but much lighter this time!! Everyone gave us 5 euro and we ended up with 100 euros and made 4 tasty fish bowls! I even managed to get Inside out to give us free huge straws! After drinking them some people went out early and some of us stayed. I stayed with Sara and some Australian boys to play some card games. When we went out we were stopped by this funny little guy and he invited us for free drinks, apparently that's what it takes to get people to his bar. First of all, it was called, "Smiles" and it had smiley faces everywhere and a stripper pole and seriously NO customers! The bar tender having nothing else to do decided to give me and a couple of the boys some lessons. It was so funny and so difficult, by the way. I am NOT sexy on a stripper pole but she said I did well because I have some upper body strength. Afterwards we found part of the group and had a good night dancing and talking until we left the bar at about 4am. I immediately spotted a beautiful white horse. The man must have noticed my instant love for the thing and motioned for me to get up on it. So this was random but amazing! He was an old man with a black suit and top hat. He put his hat on me and let me take the horse around the block by myself and didn't charge me a thing! My camera is pretty broken so the pics I have now are from other people's cameras. We all extended our stay a night (including Angel and Maria) and spent it at some other bars and restaurants. We went to the Nah Nah Bar every night for dinner... it was right across the street from our hostel and it served the best burgers I've ever had! 

Another night that was random and funny was a night we went out and had fun but came back relatively early and went to bed. Sara and I woke up at the same time and both wanted to take a walk. We left in our PJ's (Mom, I was wearing that funny Animal t-shirt you gave me haha) and we stumbled across a foam party! A foam party! And we went in, of course. They didn't charge us anything. We walked in and it was like a crazy dream. People were drinking, it was 5am and they were completely covered in soapy foam, except the girls tried to keep it off their pretty make up faces. Everyone looked RIDICULOUS and some were taking themselves and their foamy dance skills seriously which made Sara and I laugh so hard. We decided that this was insane and since we had an early night and the rest of the group hadn't and actually went skinny dipping we were up for the foamy craziness. We were both really sleepy and for some reason thought that since the foam looked soft that it actually was and decided to wrestle in it... we stopped when I pinned Sara and realized that actually the floor was covered in water and I almost drowned her. LOL The foam kept getting above our heads and was almost suffocating but so funny at the same time. We saw one guy from our hostel and apparently he had been there for hours. We decided to bring the foam party back to the hostel and loaded are arms with foam and then put it on people's faces and jumped in their beds... I hugged the guy at the front desk.. he spent the rest of the night wet but said this was not even a little bit surprising or weird compared to the things he's seen. The poor guy! He turned out to be as awesome as Mama... again more about that later. 

The beauty about Lagos is that there really isn’t much to see aside from the beaches so I didn’t feel that pressure to see all of the sites, there were none. The group I had been with had to go to their next destinations on Thursday but I didn’t need to be at work for another day so rather than pack up my stuff and find a city closer to my work location for one night I decided to stay in Lagos. The Australians from Smiles, 2 guys from England and one Spanish guy were the only people left that I knew so I went surfing with them in a city about 30 minutes away on the coast.  We left in time to see the most beautiful sunset ever in another town that the Spanish guy, "Toba" knew of. It was nice to be in a car again driving on an open road, as opposed to always being on a bus.

  That night we all went out. I ran out of cash so I brought my debit card to get a little money out for some drinks, big mistake! We had a good night out and one of the Australians and I went to the beach because we heard cool music. There were tons of hippy people there playing instruments and camping out on the beach w/ their dogs. It was really cool- they sounded great. Upon getting back to my room I noticed that I didn't have my debit card. I got online and cancelled it immediately and then realized that I had only gotten 30 euro out because I didn't want to walk around with a bunch of cash in case I lost it. Well, that didn't work out well. Now I had about 23 euro and I still hadn't paid for the 2 extra nights I had stayed. I owed 60 euro and still hadn't paid for my train ticket to get to Santa Clara, Portugal for work and I didn't have money for food. All of a sudden I was in a bad place. I decided to freak out about it in the morning. I wasn't ready to except that all of a sudden I was up shit creek without a paddle! 

 So, in the morning I had crepes as usual and went downstairs to tell the hostel my problem. The guy at the desk Nick said he'd have to talk to Mama about it. He walked away and I was really embarrassed. I felt like I was taking advantage of them not making me pay when I added nights and I was a bit scared that I was to get 4 hours away by train with no money. What if I missed the train. I knew I had to take 2, so if I missed the connection I wouldn't have any money to stay anywhere or any money for food. My cell phone was dead. I was all alone. Ahhh!! So obviously I cried! It was a bit overwhelming, being in Europe with no money. Mama, bless her, let me pay like 18 euro and said it's ok because she knows I will be back again. She let me keep 5 for the train fare. I walked the 20 minutes to the train station and was pretty upset. I had 5 euro and I wasn't even sure that I would make this train let alone the connection. When I arrived I paid the train fare and had trouble understanding when my train was leaving. Finally I found someone who spoke English and they told me I still had an hour and a half so I conjured up all the Portuguese I knew and asked if I could leave my bag at the station so I could go get food. Well, in reality I didn't have money for food but it was the only Portuguese I knew. What I really wanted to do was go back to the hostel because I left so upset that I forgot to say goodbye to the Australians and Toba, the Spanish guy. Also I needed to call home to get my debit card straightened out. They let me leave it there which was great. That meant I could walk a bit faster and not sweat bullets- it was 100 degrees after all. 

When I got back a girl who works at the hostel had heard about my situation and gave me 20 euro for my trip. I told her I would pay her back but she told me not to worry about it because good karma would come back her way. This made me cry too, because it was so nice of her. Actually, everyone was really nice and said that I'd be ok. I found the Australians and lost my shit again with them. I began to realize it wasn't just the debit card situation that I was upset about. I was ending a chapter and beginning a new one and that's always hard for me. Transition. Ew. I was worried about the train transfer because Angel (from Cali), Maria (from New York) and I had been waiting for our train for 30 minutes in Lisbon to go to Lagos and it stopped so far up the track from where we were standing that we had to run with our 30 pound backpacks to catch it. It was so close that my bag actually shut in the door... my heart was beating so fast that I thought I was going to die. Also it was difficult understanding which platform to be at... and on top of everything I didn't know what to expect with work. I hadn't thought about it at all. I was living in the moment the whole time and didn't learn any Portuguese, did no research on the area and didn't read the Quinta's website as well as I should have. I was scared and I was sad to leave my friends. They split up in 2 groups, half went to Sevilla, Spain and the others to Lisbon, Portugal... and I was headed to small town Portugal which it turns out is WAY, WAY smaller than I thought.