Thursday I went to the beach with Margo, my friend from France. I can't believe I lived my life thus far and have rarely spent time on beaches. I'm starting to become a warm weather convert. Well, not quite as you will find out.
But being at the beach is just great. Under the sun, getting a tan, when it gets too hot you can just go into the water. And here that water is really cold! The Atlantic is just cold, wherever you are. But perfect when you're lying under 30C heat.
Thursday was really the perfect day. Lots of sun, then afterwards got back to the apartment and shortly after went out to dinner at the bottom of Bairro Alto at a traditional Portuguese restaurant. Eating out here is fantastic. You generally have an amazing meal with drinks etc. for about €10. After dinner we went up into Bairro Alto, the party district on a hill, and well, did what you do at Bairro Alto (described in a previous post). This time it got quite sloppy again, as they have this XL Mojito deal for €4.50. So that was the name of the game that night.
We had a lot of fun. We were a group of 8. Me, Frederic, Margo, Pauline, Cecilia, Anne, and 2 German girls who were friends of friends of Frederic. Wow, were these conservative catholic village girls. I would feel so sad to be so dull. The shame of it was that they didn't look bad. They were kind of cute. To me it's the biggest shame when an otherwise good-looking girl does not develop her personality. Well, I suppose any person, but personality is the ultimate complement to female beauty. No, it's a multiplier. No wait, I've got it. I suppose I 'evaluate' beauty as follows:
Men: Beauty = looks + personality (for women I think they add + wealth :p)
Women: Beauty = looks x personality
Discuss.
Anyway, lots of fun that night. Home at 3am. Drank at least a litre of water before bed.
When I woke up Friday, I felt what I thought was hungover. A little out of it, and strangely my leg muscles were really sore. I thought "Can I possibly be so out of shape that walking up and down a hill a few times could leave my leg muscles in a state like this?" As the day went on, I wasn't feeling any better at all. We (Me, Freddy, Margo, Pauline) had gone to a very beautiful beach across the river, south of Lisbon. It was amazing. Went on for kilometres, had a boardwalk, places to eat, etc. Amazing. The whole bus ride there I was thinking "this isn't right. Am I getting sick? damn, I'm getting sick."
As we arrived at the beach we were shocked to find the whole beach covered in fog, and the temperature was like 22°C. It was otherwise ok outside, but the fog at the beach was such a strange contrast to all the weather I had seen thusfar.
We all took a nap on the beach. It wasn't hot out, there wasn't direct sunlight. I still couldn't explain why my legs were so lethargic, sore, and worn out. I thanked god we brought a beach umbrella, because when the sun did come out, I just instinctively thought I should be under it, and not lie in the sun, and not go swimming, and not do those things that I've enjoyed doing at the beach since I arrived. I'll fast forward a bit. Due to the previous days of beaches and parties, I had developed heat exhaustion if not heat stroke. But this wasn't clear to me yet. Well, it never was clear.
Anyhow, on our way back, the others wanted to do food shopping for the evening. I had to bow out. I was exhausted. Standing was difficult. I felt terrible. I came home to lie down. I joined up with the rest later to eat barbecued shrimp. I felt a bit better after talking to Rui, who said it sounded like I had been too long under the sun. So I drank about 3L of water after that, and did start to feel better, although my legs were sore all day.
Well, I still don't know whether I had heat stroke or just a poorly timed flu. That night I couldn't sleep until 3am because I had a fever, but then eventually slept. It broke in the night then I sweat quite alot. The next day I felt ok I suppose, but decided to take it easy all day and read my book. I will write about these shortly. In the evening I noticed I felt 'ok' so decided to join the neighbours for indian food, and possibly an outdoor concert after that, depending on how I was feeling. Indian food was great. I was strictly no alcohol or coffee until this mess is sorted out.
The concert was a very pleasant surprise! There was a very large stage and about 500-700 people there I'd say. It was essentially 2 bands playing together, in a fusion of Flamenco and Indian music. Now it's easy to see how these two styles have a common root. As the history goes, Gypsies originated in Northern India, and Flamenco music has been "gypsy" music (think Gypsy Kings). What a concert. It was really special. And again, for me, a total accidental occurrence. Basically, get to know good people, and good things happen.
I felt ok. I thought, cool, it was just a bit of heat exhaustion, I've had 5L of water today, as well as the 3-4L yesterday. Mission Accomplished. Nope. In the night I had a fever again, then sweating, then fever, then sweating. All of yesterday I was in bed, with a sore throat, really swollen glands, and I was kind of dizzy and disoriented. I lay in bed for most of the day and watched Entourage on my laptop. I decided I would do absolutely nothing. I was still convinced it was heat exhaustion or heat stroke, so in addition to water, I knew I would also need some salt. I disgustingly mixed salt into a glass of warm water and had strong salt-water shots. I ate a large bag of potato chips (with Mom's famous old totally simple chip dip which I modified to be healthier: plain yoghurt with onion soup mix. Mom used sour cream. Getting the proportions right is key.)
I felt crappy all of yesterday. Today I feel significantly better. My throat doesn't hurt. My lymph nodes are not sore to touch. I still feel maybe a little dizzy and sometimes I feel slightly feverish but it goes away. I still woke up sweating today however. But I don't think I'll die, and I don't think I'll need to go to the doctor, thank goodness. No joke, Germany has traumatised me to any situation involving anyone behind a desk that will at some point need to give you forms. I avoid that more than anything. The only way I'll do these things now is if a local will go with me and help me with all of that, because in Germany, there really is no human side to such interactions. Those situations in Germany make me feel that if people really treat each other like that, life really has no meaning, so why do any of us bother living at all?
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