Three days into working again. After the shock of the first day it has now started to feel almost normal again. Just the surroundings are somewhat different than at home.
Brain softened by five weeks of holiday
Monday was a bit tough, I have to admit. The longer than usual summer holiday really did what it’s supposed to. I was absolutely out of the routine. On Monday it took me almost half a day to go through my emails and Teams messages (no, I don’t read them on my holiday). There were also some new things I needed to read about and plenty of curious colleagues who wanted to know where I was and how the trip has gone so far. After the first day things started feeling more normal again.
I’ve been working mainly from inside Naranja so far, but yesterday I moved out after lunch. I would have done it today too, but I ran out of time when I used my lunch break to do a supply run (fill and empty the water tanks). The temperature has been more or less bearable inside too so far.
The hippie park
This parking spot is really cool. At least I think it is. But as you may see from the comments from some other people, not everyone agrees with me. It can get loud here and it really isn’t very clean. But it’s a bit like a family here somehow and I feel very safe here. I haven’t been all too social here, but I’ve been making a few friends here.
Most of the people here are surfers of course. Some have real life jobs and are here just on holiday and some try to earn here a little. Lots of crafts are being sold and surf lessons offered. There are at least two tattoo artists here as well. And yes, I believe there might be a few guys who get a little income from selling weed too. More or less every time I walk to the beach, I smell it at some point on the way.
Interesting fact about Portugal is that they decriminalized the use of drugs more than twenty years ago, but selling them still is an offense. Depending on the interpretation of the results so far, it has been a big success or not one. It really seems that nowadays everyone has their own truth…