Portugal Diary
On seeing everything, stadium bathrooms, strangers, and Queer Eye
Last month I went to Lisbon, Portugal with my mom. We’re good travel partners, my mom and I–our rhythms compliment each other. She wakes up hours before I do. She goes to get breakfast and reads and often befriends a stranger. She comes back up to wake me before breakfast closes, sometimes with a coffee. I go and eat while she does her admin (she is “retired” and always working). We finish getting ready together, struggle to get out the door together, and walk towards some decided-upon destination together.
Lately, she has me make most of the travel decisions. It’s partly because she’s up for anything, but I think more so because she’s burnt out from doing all the travel planning for our family for over 20 years. Now it’s my turn. It feels like exposure therapy for an aversion to decision making, which I have.
I am afflicted with an unfortunate combination of not liking to do research before visiting a new place, and having anxiety around not seeing “everything.” The furthest I’ll go with research is Googling the most interesting neighborhoods. I lead my mom and I to these neighborhoods (or I try to, with my shaky sense of direction) and from there, I try to take us down the most interesting streets. By interesting, I mean lively, cultural, and not touristy. Of course, all these “interesting” neighborhoods end up being a bit touristy.
A few days into the trip, I got very sick.
Mom had gotten us tickets to watch the Sporting soccer match at the stadium on the outskirts of the city. We’d had such a good day–we found the interesting, beautiful streets, the cool shops, the little locals-only restaurant. We took the train to the stadium, where the energy was electric, full of die-hard fans that shouted Sporting-specific songs and stood up from their seats to scream at the ref.
A few minutes into the game, I told my mom I had to go to the bathroom. I fought my way through a long row of spectators, thinking, Oh no. No no no no no no.
I spent over an hour in the stadium bathrooms, the muscles in my stomach clenching, my body heaving. Mom coaxed me into trying to head home when I thought I’d hit a lull. I hadn’t. On the way out, the trash can was too tall for me, so I puked next to the trash can.
“No, no no no no!” I heard, but it wasn’t in my head this time, it was a security guard who thought I was drunk. We almost got into a physical altercation when she tried dragging me outside (Mom really almost got into a physical altercation). Once outside by my own volition, I heaved some more, my knees in the dirt, for another 3 hours. We called Uber after Uber–the cars kept arriving, and then departing when we couldn’t find them (there were too many people, the intersection was too busy). Mom had to almost shout at me to get me to move.
Then, she changed her tune: “Rachel. DO YOU WANT TO GO TO THE HOSPITAL.”
I groaned, hoping it sounded like: “I don’t fucking know.”
A man stopped to check if we needed any help. Mom told him about the Ubers. We called another and passed him the phone. He couldn’t find them either. As I struggled to keep my eyes open and felt my body shake, I wondered distantly how I would explain the absurdity of this situation to anyone tomorrow. It was so crazy that it was funny, but I couldn’t figure out how to make it sound as funny as it was, because all the concrete details were so bleak. It needed to be a movie. Someone make a movie out of this!
I did not end up going to the hospital. At around 11:30pm, we took refuge in a pharmacy, where the pharmacist explained that I’d be waiting in the hospital for hours. She gave me some hydration electrolyte packets and a cup of water. I stopped puking, and we finally made it into an Uber.
Luckily, our hotel room was lovely and comfortable (Mom had gotten a deal with American Express–classic), because the next day I had to stay in it. Mom ventured out to buy me potatoes and instant rice from a market. I drifted in and out of consciousness as the day darkened around me. I couldn’t do much of anything, not even scroll on my phone. The light hurt my eyes.
When Mom came back, we watched two episodes of the recently-released final season of Queer Eye. She had been suggesting that we watch at some point on this trip. Mom loves Queer Eye. “Any time I’m feeling down, I put on Queer Eye, and it cheers me up,” she says. “How could it not?”
I don’t know what to watch anymore. I’ve watched a lot of bad reality TV the past few years–shows my mom describes as “really intellectual, hard-hitting stuff.” Love Island, Bachelor in Paradise, Love is Blind, Secret Lives of Mormon Wives. After watching the America’s Next Top Model documentary that came out recently, I feel a little bad about watching reality TV. The documentary shows how hard the show pushed storylines, how these storylines put the girls into real, physical danger, crossed their boundaries, ruined their lives. ANTM was especially bad because the girls signing up weren’t wannabe influencers. Many of them were looking for a ticket out of their hometown, out of their current realities, and they believed ANTM could be it.
Queer Eye felt refreshing. It’s just a show about helping people.
For the rest of our evenings in Lisbon, instead of being out in the city, which I did not have the energy to do, I ate baked potatoes and we watched episodes of Queer Eye. And I was so excited to watch it every night.
If you’ve never seen Queer Eye, it’s a reality show starring five gay men who specialize respectively in fashion, beauty, interior design, food, and “culture” (read: therapy). They give a full-life makeover to someone who’s been nominated by their family or community.
For this final season, each episode ends with one of the members of the Fab Five giving a little shpeal on what the show has meant to them. In the final episode of this final season, here’s what Antoni (food expert) says:
“When we started this journey [in 2016], a lot of people were experiencing fear. And we’re ending this journey with a lot of similar feelings. I think a big epidemic in this country is this notion that we are alone in our experiences. We might have different struggles, but we’re all suffering. […] Anything can change if a person experiences real love.”
With Mom asleep next to me (she always falls asleep in the first 10 minutes), tears rolled down my face.
As Americans in Portugal, my mom and I were expecting to be hated. But we weren’t. Pre-Soccer Game Incident, we made friends with a guy working at a vintage shop. I went to try on a pair of jeans and came out to find him posing in a fur coat, my mom trying to convince him that he needed it. One night, we met a group of Canadian tourists in the hotel’s sauna; they told us about an audio-guide app that we needed to tour the city. Another night–Valentine’s Day–we found ourselves caught in a Carnival party happening in a plaza, a raucous mass of people pulsating to a live band. People donned with tutus and angel wings and devil horns, their faces smeared with sparkles, smiled at us and danced with us, made space for us in the tight crowd.
Post/during-SGI, there was the pharmacist, there was that man who tried to lend a hand when I was throwing up, my knees in the cold, wet dirt. That man must’ve spent at least half an hour with us at 11pm. People working at the hotel baked us a potato. One of the strangers my mom befriended at breakfast kept checking in. She brought me tea bags she thought would settle my stomach.
From all these people, there was no judgement, only empathy.
I spent most of my time in Lisbon resting in a hotel room, but I felt revitalized after my trip. I didn’t see everything. I had gotten to be in a beautiful city and breathe different air. In this beautiful, far-away city, I had met people, connected with them, and felt cared for by them. I had gotten to watch Queer Eye with my mom.
