SOL: A Day of Sickness in Portugal

In 2008 I went to Portugal and Spain with an ex. We rented a car and we drove all around Costa Del Sol and drove over to Faro, Portugal and to the Straight of Gibraltar. It was an amazingly beautiful place.

Everyone was really nice, or so from what I thought since I did not understand a ton. When we drove over to Portugal, this was before my knowledge of Portuguese,  we stopped to get some food, and could not read a single thing on the menu. What was going on?! This was not Spanish…. I understood Spanish!

Unfortunately, I did not have a Portuguese dictionary with me like I had carried the Spanish one like a bible. We guessed on what to order and I ended up getting something like a cold soup. It was really awful!

At the moment of awful food, I thought I would feel better. I had a headache and then a stomach ache and then a really bad headache and then delusions! I needed to get to a bed right NOW!

I slept through the night barely. Of course, the first time I get to Portugal, I am super sick and no clue what is wrong with me. I had the craziest dreams, I really was delusional, and I could not grasp the difference between reality and not being awake – its was seriously crazy.

The ex found a doctors office and we walked there, what seemed like 5 miles away in the middle of an alleyway. They told me in English I had tonsillitis. I literally had not idea what they were talking about, how was that even possible? They said it was a really bad case and gave me some medication, that was in Portuguese. They said I would be better the next day if I took the medicine. At this point, what options did I have? I was so upset that my time in Portugal was spent in a bed dying of a very high fever, but I had to take the medicine, whether I could read it or not.

Oh what the hell?

The next day we leave to go back to Spain. I am better. But my time in Portugal is lost.

 

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