Dear Europe,

This is the first time i ask for the complaints book. Once in Worten I bought a dehumidifier that did not dehumidified but I felt ashamed. This time is worse. I’m afraid I have a defaulted European country.

I was promised Portugal, a meditarrean country with nice weather but since Gil Eanes crossed the Cabo Bojador that we haven’t been in the mouths of the world, except for that one time a guy on a skateboard yelled “Out of the way, Guedes!” and was trending on 9GAG.

There must have been a mistake. The rest of Europe is mostly normally functioning: The French entertaining themselves with Le Pen, the Brits with Brexit and the Spanish still a bit sore for not being a part of the famous English anecdote pattern that includes a Portuguese, a Brit and a Frenchman.

Here in Portugal,  we are unstoppable. As regards to soccer we are champions of Europe. We have the best soccer player in the world, the bets in indoor soccer and beach soccer and I suspect that if there was orchard soccer, if we had two Nespereiras as balise, the best of the world would be ours too.

Something is wrong. I suspect I was given a country in second-hand, because now this kind of titles are not only being given by games you play with your feet.

We won the Eurovision. We organized the biggest event on enterprising  in Europe. The NOS ALIVE was named the one of the best music festivals in Europe. A Forbes gave a shout out to a Vhils. We have some of our Portuguese colleges leading in the Financial Times ranking. Even our traditional cakes (“pastel de nata”, which is only ours is spreading across Europe so we can finally claim that ours is the best of Europe.

We suspect that our country has expired. That it’s state would change 3 days after Eder scored the winning goal but 10 months later and it still there’s no mold.

Everyday, Guardian publishes a new article saying how Lisbon is the coolest, how Porto is an epicenter of culture, how Algarve has the best sunsets and sunrises.

I don’t know how your devolution policy works, but I would like to trade our county for something like Bulgaria or Croatia.

I only asked for Portugal, but I was given the best European country instead.

Original Link: https://goo.gl/FRIHL0
Chosen & Translated by: Luisa.
Revised by: Daniela. (Luísa did an excellent job. I didn’t change anything.)

I chose to translate this article, because as a Portuguese citizen i do appreciate to see my country having the recognition it deserves even if only on cultural and sport events like the ones we have been winning. Portugal is a small country but only in size. And we all feel that these constant recognition given by Europeans are welcome and important for making our culture known and appreciated because here culture is valued, for example regarding the results of Eurovision 2017, we’ve always stayed faithful to our language and most of times, to our style of music too. It is an honour to see articles like these, that remind us to appreciate the country we live in, awards or not, winning or losing.