What had actually begun as a quiet morning turned into – well, you’ll find out soon enough. (Building suspense – Nailed it.)
It’s Tuesday, which means travel day to the On-Arrival Training in Braga.
After getting up, I wanted to quickly hang my freshly washed T-shirts out in the sun, since I was wearing the only one I had left. Luckily, we still had a few hours before we had to be at Lisboa Oriente. That was until Cristina knocked on the door and asked if we could leave. I almost laughed at her joke – until I realized she was serious. For two minutes I explained why we still had time. Four minutes later, we left the house.
My luggage now consisted of a medium-sized Aldi bag and a backpack.
During the train ride, it was confirmed that we would miss our connecting train and would now be spending an hour in Trofa. To be honest, it resembles a deserted island in the middle of the ocean. Just without the water. And without the sun. There’s no beach either. Actually, the only thing it has in common is that after a short while, you find yourself wishing you were somewhere else.
When we arrived at the hotel, other volunteers greeted me warmly in German – after their eyes went straight to the Aldi bag.
Up until that point, I had no idea what to expect from the On-Arrival Training. I only knew when and where I had to be (which, to my surprise, was actually more information than some other volunteers had received – a girl told me she had to pay for one night herself because she’d been given the wrong arrival date).
I was nervous and quickly escaped to my room, where, however, I was not alone. I met my roommate for the next few days. After a brief introduction, we sank into a comfortable mix of our phones and the cozy hotel bed.
Besides the freshly made bed every day and the pool you weren’t allowed to use, what I miss most is the all-you-can-eat buffet three times a day. Not only was it tasty and plentiful – it was, above all, free.
Oh, and one last thing. You might also find a few nice people. I was lucky enough to have a funny Frenchman as my roommate. In addition to the room, we also shared a certain dreaminess – though that didn’t stop him from going to the bar punctually with the others. He explained to me that he often doesn’t feel like going out and lacks energy – but that it’s almost always worth it, because you never know in advance how the evening will turn out. So I followed him…
After countless (two) bar visits, we decided to spend our last evening at the hotel. There, Pierre introduced me to the art of Quoridor – a strategy game improvised from the treasures of the hotel lobby: a chessboard and Jenga blocks.
It quickly turned into an addiction to defeat the other. The supposedly quiet hotel evening transformed into a life-or-death battle that – contrary to our original plan of going to bed early – kept us awake from 9 p.m. until half past two in the morning.
No photo of the fight itself – but this is what we did between the workshops
