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Published: October 20th 2006
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It’s been close to two months since I joined the site, and in Porto I encounter my first
CouchSurfing celebrity.
Gabriela’s managed to host a few dozen surfers in the months since signing up, quickly becoming something of a CS ambassador in Portugal (though not, it should be noted, an
official CS ambassador). Her network of friends is a complex web that stretches across Europe and the States, wrapping around the globe to Australia and New Zealand, where she lived for two years. During his three-month, around-the-world trip this summer for
The New York Times, the Frugal Traveler himself - Matt Gross - crashed on her sofa. Even though he gave her just a kind, passing mention, there’s no end to her delight when I dimly recall reading about her months ago.
It’s hard not to be swept away by Gabriela. After endlessly apologizing over email about not having time to write, she’s warm and chatty when I arrive. Before I’ve even plopped my bags on her floor, she’s chirping away about the CSers in Lisbon she’d like to hook me up with. But she’s quick to point out I’m in no hurry to leave. Many
of her surfers, in fact, have stayed for weeks on end, and with two spare bedrooms to her credit, there’s plenty of space to go around. I joke with her about what it must be like for some ragged 19-year-old backpacker to show up on her doorstep. After months of traveling across Europe, sleeping in dank, dimly lit hostels in Sofia, Bucharest and Skopje, they come to this palace by the sea - a sanctuary of potted plants, washing machines and four-poster beds.
“It’s a nice place,” she admits. “I just haven’t gotten around to
doing anything with it.”
It’s a funny point to concede. Even after two years with her installed in it, the apartment is still a work-in-progress. Most of the furniture has been cribbed from her parents’ house nearby; lightbulbs dangle from the ceiling, a few stray wires stick out of the wall. Ironically, Gabriela works for a high-end furniture company with stores in London, Lisbon and New York. In a perfect world, their elegant designs would grace the dining room and kitchen - the walnut coffee tables, the oak sideboards. But there’s something about committing herself to such handsome furnishings that she
just can’t manage to do. Of course, when we play a little guessing game on how much those armchairs and wardrobes go for, it’s not hard to understand why.
Gabriela’s struggled to really call this place home; in her head and heart, she’s always just a couple of clicks of the mouse away from flying off on her next adventure. CouchSurfing has only confused things. On the one hand, hosting these random wayfarers has done her a world of good, helping to stoke a flame inside her that, oddly, hardwood furniture doesn’t. But she gets restless, meeting all these travelers with their rucksacks and ‘round-the-world stories. She misses New Zealand. She misses the unpredictability of the open road. Work has been brutal these past few weeks, and you get the feeling that her pragmatic, managerial mind is balancing things on opposite sides of a ledger, trying to square her accounts before taking some impetuous plunge.
As a hostess she’s far more resolved. She comes home from work each night with her head full of ideas - a train ride along the Duoro, hiking in Peneda Gerês, hugging the coast between Figueira da Foz and Nazaré. She’s intent on
showing me everything Portugal has to offer, mostly undeterred by the fact that I’m too timid to get behind the wheel of a car. We visit a few websites for inspiration: exhibitions at the Museum of Contemporary Art, bus schedules to Trâs-os-Montes. Most of the sites are outdated or under construction, and Gabriela rolls her eyes.
“Soooo Portugal,” she says wearily.
I’ve heard it more than once during my first few days in the country - chatting with some students, with a young artist in his gallery. Despite the affection they have for their country, despite the fever-pitch pride, most young Portuguese just desperately wish their country could get its shit together. Things don’t always run smoothly in these parts, and while their parents and grandparents might accept such truths with a tired shrug, a 20-year-old with high-speed Internet access and MTV Europe is reared on a different set of standards.
At her age, Gabriela’s doing a sort of high-wire act between the two. She can look at her country from a curious perspective, equal parts resignation and dismay. One afternoon we watch a few construction workers putting on a keystone-cop performance along the river. A
massive hole has opened up in the road, and they circle it in reflector vests and shiny galoshes. There’s an animated debate that carries on for 10 minutes; an expert in smart shoes comes in for a consultation. One of the workers, all business, takes purposeful strides toward the crew’s van. He buries himself in the back and comes out with a lighter and a pack of smokes. Another emerges with a crowbar. Apparently, he wants to make the hole bigger.
In her living room, Gabriela’s voice swells with emotion. There’s so much she wants me to see, so much time wasted in Spain. She’s getting carried away when thoughts of work bring her swirling back to her own life - the bureaucratic bungling at the office, the tenants’ meeting next week. She looks at the cavernous empty spaces of the dining room, where an air-conditioning duct pokes through the wall. “I wish I
did have nice furniture and a 42” plasma TV screen and all that,” she says. “This way I could sell it all and go traveling.”
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