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RTW: Princess of a Portuguese Palace
I think I spoke too soon last week when I ran through the tips for splurging on a private room. By this point, I thought I'd seen it all but this is a new one. Little did I know that a stroke of luck would land me in my own private Portuguese villa overlooking the ocean for 14€ a night.
OK, it's not really a villa. It's still a hostel, but it does overlook the ocean, and I do have the place to myself. Maybe it's because Europe is getting into its low season and all the backpacking students have gone back to school, or maybe the economic woes of the world are finally catching up with the backpacking world, or maybe no one else happened to have the genius idea of visiting a beach hostel in a little village 25 km outside of Lisbon at the same time as I did, but no one else is here. This has never happened to me before and I had no idea I'd enjoy it so much.
I met a guy in Berlin a couple weeks ago who had been travelling for about six weeks and said he was burnt out. It all started to go downhill when he stayed in a hostel and was the only one there. I was a bit shocked; I didn't think that actually happened. Not in Europe. This is the land of endless backpackers. Hostels are too full, not too empty.
When I arrived here, the owner showed me around, told me there were no other bookings until the next day, and told me I could do whatever I wanted, to call him if I needed anything and left with, "you're princess of the palace." I was barely able to hold back my excessive smiling until he shut the door behind him. I couldn't decide between throwing an immediate solo dance party or running through the whole place, high fiving the walls. Turns out you can do both simultaneously.
I've got two levels of terrace to watch the sun set from, a flat-screen, satellite-fed TV, a stack of DVDs, two computers to use (plus free wifi for my own), a wood-floored, rainshower-headed private shower, a rack of surfboards, a bike, any one of 11 bunkbeds to choose from and a housekeeper to clean everything up every day. Oh and someone left some fresh brie and prosciutto in the fridge.
So I did what I think anyone would do in this situation. I went into town, spent 4€ on some pasta, bread, vinho tinto and chocolate, came back, made myself a feast and watched the sun set in its various shades of purple and orange from the terrace. While I didn't laugh out loud throughout all this, I did laugh on the inside a lot.
No one showed up the next day, and today, my third day here, the owner came by to say that the other 6-person booking was cancelled, that he's never had just one person here before, and that he could bring his dog by if I wanted some company. I reassured him that it was just fine, it's been perfect and tried to explain that after eight months of travel, this is pure luxury.
Don't get me wrong, I really like the social atmosphere of hostels and I couldn't handle this for too long, but I've never been so content to have no one around to interrupt the sunset. Or my dance parties.
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