Tuesday, July 12th

So, remember when I said I thought I had a bad sunburn, mixed with dehydration making my skin (mostly on my stomach) a sort of scaly mess? Trying to be responsible, I bought some aloe Vera and continued to drink a lot a lot of water. The water wasn’t helping so yesterday I put on the aloe Vera before class and got an insane burning reaction almost immediately. My chest and arms were fine, but my stomach felt as though someone was splattering hot oil all over my skin. It was pretty much unbearable so at the start of class I asked my professor to be excused and went the hotel, took a cool shower, and spent the rest of the day with cold compresses on my neck and stomach to cool down. The heat wave was still in full force; Belgrade has been the hottest city in Europe for the past couple of days. It also has India and Cairo beat. Needless to say I don’t think my skin was suffering a bad sunburn if aloe made it even more unbearable. I believe I have a heat rash. Heat rash is an inflammation of the skin, making part of your epidermis irritated and swollen thus trapping in sweat. It basically disallows your body to cool down, and instead creates and itchy and burning feeling when you heat up.

And it gets better… Exhausted and starving from the excitement of the day (I only ate a banana and orange earlier in the day and by this time it was around 8pm) I tentatively left my room with cold compresses  (wet bandanas) around my wrist in search of food, preferably vegetarian. After being outside for about 5 minutes, I feel my stomach starting to burn. More than pain, it creates anxiety in anticipation of the unbearable “hot oil” sensation. I begin crying and shaking in the street. I make it back to the hotel and bump into one of my two angelic roommates, and seeing my in a hysterical panic she asks me what I need. I demand food of any kind and throw 500 dinar at her, while apologizing, crying and just being a hot mess (literally). After she leaves on her crusade (she’s seriously an angel), the pain and anxiety level up to a full-blown attack. I begin hyperventilating, shaking, and can’t stand. After being on WebMD all day trying to treat heat rash, I fear the worse such as heat exhaustion or heat stroke. Damn WebMD. Barely breathing, I call my other roommate and ask her to call one of our professors. Then, I somehow crawl into the shower and turn on the cool water. Have I mentioned our bathroom doesn’t have a shower curtain? This is totally normal at the luxurious Hotel Slavija and gave my whole situation that lovable Serbian edge. Now there’s knocking at the door and its either my roommate or professor, so I manage to put on a bathing suit for whatever dignity I have left, open and the door and it’s both! One carrying a grocery bag full of McDonald’s and the other looking at me like a hysterical female. After an awkward inspection of my belly, that is now a bumpy, red, but manageable, my TA arrives with my other roommate. We spend the rest of the night in the park drinking bottles of water, eating massive amounts of McDonald’s and telling Chernobyl jokes (which I didn’t know existed). The end.