An Unforgettable Experience at Hotel D. Afonso in Portimão: Stunning Views and a Stay to Remember

## A Foreigner's Cage: My Stay at Hotel D. Afonso I checked in to Hotel D. Afonso. It's located in Portimão, a seaside city with almost excessive sunshine, where the Portuguese seem to have poured all their passion into the coastline. The hotel's exterior is quite grand, with white walls and a red roof, appearing particularly dazzling under the scorching sun. The lobby is covered with intricately patterned carpets, making footsteps silent, as if treading on something alive. At the front desk stood a lady with a professional smile, but her eyes were like two glass beads, devoid of life. She mechanically handed me the room card, her lips moving to utter a few welcoming words, but her voice was lost in the hum of the air conditioning. The elevator was old-fashioned, groaning as it ascended, as if struggling to carry so many unfamiliar souls. The room was smaller than expected. A bed, a wardrobe, and a desk, with nothing else to spare. On the wall hung a clumsy seascape painting, the blue excessively thick. I put down my luggage and found a hair on the bed sheet that didn't belong to me, curved like a miniature question mark. The faucet in the bathroom was a bit loose, making a piercing screech when turned on, the water flowing out brownish-yellow before turning clear. The window at the end of the corridor faced a construction site, where several workers were slowly moving building materials. Their movements were so slow that I thought I was watching a slow-motion movie. One of the workers suddenly looked up, his eyes meeting mine through the window. In that instant, I felt a strange sense of shame, as if I had peeped at something I shouldn't have seen. Dinner was settled at the hotel restaurant. The price of the Portuguese seafood rice on the menu was daunting, and I ended up ordering a sandwich. A middle-aged couple sat at the next table, the man loudly complaining about flight delays, and the woman constantly nodding in agreement. Their conversation was like a dull knife, repeatedly cutting at my patience. The waiters moved back and forth, wearing the same smile as the front desk, but their eyes drifted into the distance, as if their souls had already escaped this place. At night, the air conditioning suddenly broke down. The room gradually became stuffy, and I lay in bed, listening to the muffled TV sounds and occasional laughter from the next room. The walls were thin, and those sounds seemed to be coming directly from my brain. At 3am, a burst of urgent knocking woke me up, but when I opened the door, there was no one there, only a swaying window at the end of the corridor. Breakfast was included in the room rate. The restaurant was crowded with tourists from all over the world, moving back and forth with plates in their hands, like a group of foraging animals. The fruit was not fresh, the bread was hard and dry, and the coffee was as weak as water. I noticed an old man dining alone, carefully spreading his napkin on his lap, his movements solemn, almost ritualistic. Our eyes met briefly, and he nodded slightly, his eyes showing a mutual understanding of shared fate. When checking out, a young man had replaced the front desk. He was extremely efficient, completing the settlement almost as soon as I handed over the room card. "I hope you enjoyed your stay," he said, his eyes fixed on the computer screen. I wanted to tell him about the faucet problem, the air conditioning failure, and the unidentified hair, but in the end, I just nodded. Walking out of the hotel, the sun was still dazzling. I looked back at the white building and suddenly realized that beneath those glamorous surfaces, it was just a cage temporarily housing foreigners, and we, the passers-by, left only insignificant traces and a few crumpled banknotes. Hotel D. Afonso will not remember me, just as I will not truly remember it.