Airport stopovers
Getting myself back to Guimarães, to take down my exhibition, I was going to arrive very late in Porto, which meant I got accommodation at a hostel within walking distance from the airport.
There, I had a chat with an inebriated Pakistani, who shared an excellent home cooked dinner with me, and talked like the meme of two Indians shouting abuses at each other, each sentence containing either a ‘bloody’ or a ‘fuck’, and most containing both.
A thing that struck me was this; I was staying at a hostel, this one popular with pilgrims on the Camino, occupying a dorm bed. Next to the airport, the hostel is also popular with those who arrive late or leave early, like myself. For those that have time in the morning, a communal breakfast is served, a pleasant rarity.
Now, the average age of the patrons appeared to be only marginally less, if at all, than my own. Where are the youth traveling Europe?
After another pleasant visit to Guimarães, I flew on to Holland.
Now on a very early flight, I stayed at the same hostel. It had been raining for a few days, and I arrived early the day before my flight, then walked to a supermarket to get some ingredients to cook up dinner.
Brazilians like their fried snacks. And there are plenty of them. Fresh breads, on the other hand, don’t come in a wide variety. The ubiquitous freshly baked bread is a mini baguette, appropriately called ‘French bread’ in Brazil. It’s good, and even better when they make it with a rich slice of cheese on top, which is sometimes called ‘pigskin French bread’, for its texture.
In the Portuguese supermarket I got my dinner, I found the same mini baguettes. Here, though, they were called ‘Brazilians’.