Chillout Hostel: A Place to Chill with Some Bros, in Broken English

Our hostel in Portugal deserves its own post for so many reasons. First, it was named “Chillout” hostel, and they took their chillin’ theme pretty seriously. There was a large wall of suggestions of places where one could chill and activities with which to chill—including a write-up of a weird faux-far-Eastern-ware store called “Lost in…” and a long card on how to catch a ride on a Portuguese fishing boat. 

Still, the true test of chillin out were all the kooky employees of the place, many of whom were a bit too chilled out for their own good.

I’ll organize this post via hostel characters, in chronological order of acquaintance.

After the jump!

Linda

Linda was a nice person, let me start there. 

However, something about her seemed vaguely disturbing. 

There is this character in Europe: the hostel employee. Lost souls, may have gone to college and/or thought about it, but instead chose to move from hostel to hostel, working for 6 month intervals. 

Perhaps it is just this sort of transient lifestyle that created the foggy look of friendliness (or murderous intentions???) that was constantly on Linda’s face. Perhaps her regular interactions with non-native speakers of English lead her to believe that “What the fuck are you doing?” is a friendly statement meant to be utilized for all situations, all the time. Perhaps she is a victim of her own free-bird ways, and therefore has chilled out so much that she now inhabits a perpetual, impenetrable state of chill.

Whatever the reason, I felt oddly disturbed by Linda. And when—during our final, extended, awkward conversation about a tasty cupcake place in Liboa—she told me, glazed over as ever, “Yaaa, I alvays get da chocolate onez, yaaa, you may say that I am ey faaahking CHOCO-HOOOOLIC.” I was afraid, very very afraid.

Mayra

When Linda was touring us around the hostel on our first rainy Thursday afternoon in Lisboa, she opened the door to the living room only to have some belligerent girl sitting at the computer scream, “CLOSE THE DOOR!” very very loudly, out of nowhere. 

This was our first, and very symbolic, encounter with Mayra.

After a few days, we learned that Mayra was not really a student, but rather a wannabe-student who didn’t have her paperwork in order. She has therefore has been living in the hostel—very much so against the desires of all the employees of the hostel—for 2 months. Yes, people, 2 MONTHS.

I would diagnose Mayra's problems as a severe case of random belligerence and a general lack of awareness of others. I mean, her most beloved activity was sitting on the hostel’s public computer watching endless music videos and singing along loudly and badly to random pop hits (notably: Pink and Mariah Carey) as the other travelers waited for hours to use the computer. Also, she would often enter the room—seriously, any room, even the bathroom—and loudly announce/yell that she was “SO SORE” from African dance. When she got no response, she would repeat it again and again until Linda or some other poor soul would engage her in conversation.

When this photo was taken, Mayra was singing along loudly to "Raise Your Glass," at the computers on the left (not pictured). I feel like I failed via not chronicling her existence.

In short: Linda may have seemed unhinged, but ultimately she clearly had good intentions. With Mayra, I’m not even sure. Bitch was crazy, end.

Sonja

Despite the fact that Joe was not facebook friends with the hostel, earlier in the week he somehow had been invited to a facebook event simply named “Party” from Chillout hostel, scheduled for Saturday night. 

We actually didn’t find out until 9 pm on Saturday that the “party” was a goodbye party for their Austrian employee Sonja. What’s funny about Sonja—and/or any of the other employees who came to the party—was that none of us ever saw them actually working at the hostel. Linda was the one perpetual employee (... the Norman Bates of the hostel, if you will. Not kidding.)

In the end, it turned out Joe, Jordan and I were pretty much the only non-hostel employees at the party. And also, Mayra, if you count singing to Youtube videos in the corner as “attending the party.”

In true chillout fashion, all we did from literally 8 PM until 4 AM was chill out with the hostel employees: 70% of whom were either Austrian or Dutch. In this time, a number of tidbits made a big impression on me. Namely:

1) People in Austria don't even KNOW what  The Sound of Music is... (outside of those in the tourism industry in Salzburg, of course.) 

My attempts to sing the songs and therefore jog the deeply repressed memories of SOM-lovin' glory inside of their Austrian brains were fruitless! Blank faces errrrhwere. The only girl who had seen SOM had watched it with her American friend 6 months before, and she said it was,  “okay.” 

Ironically, they all knew and loved Mary Poppins. … WTF? My mom’s heartbreak manifested in her yelling “NOOOO. THEY MUST AT LEAST KNOW THE SONG ‘EDELWEISS’! AT LEAST!!!” over the phone, many times.

2) Europeans love the show How I Met Your Mother, despite the fact that you have probably never seen it. 

In fact, when you tell them that you are from Michigan, they will turn and whisper to each other excitedly before telling you a character form HIMYM is also from Michigan. (I Wikipedia’d it—he is actually from Minnesota. Good work, Austrians.) You will tell them Eminem and Henry Ford are not only from Michigan but also from your native city!!! Alas this will matter less than the fictional character on HIMYM (incorrectly) being from the Mitten, trust me.

They also love The Big Bang Theory, once again, even though you have never seen it. They will look at your incredulously when you admit the only shows you watch are Glee sometimes and also all Bravo reality TV shows all the time. In short, their knowledge of American media will trump you own. Thanks a lot, UChicago. 

3) Europeans consider Chicago “the city of the gangsters.” 

This has somehow actually been true across the line: a random old man from Brittany who didn’t speak English told me this in Paris, Linda and the Austrians spoke of this very passionately at the hostel... All I can say is: What European textbook producer is writing this shit? Trust me when I say that Obama being from Chicago will be less prominent in their minds than the gangsters. Yes, “gangsters.”

In short: hostels, always wacky.