Day 12 in Portugal

Thursday-Friday 5-6 February 

We enjoyed a leisurely breakfast in the hotel with Richard and Pauline. While the staff of the hotel were incredibly friendly and yet very professional, we had gotten to know rather well a young woman on the breakfast staff. She was always there early every morning, always smiling, friendly, willing to help and was professional in the bargain. She even sang Happy Birthday in Portuguese to Richard! Catarina is her name so if you have breakfast at the hotel ask for her.  

Afterwards our friends went out to explore parts of Porto unseen by us, while Susie and I prepared to leave for Lisbon. We were pretty much all put together last night and had to tweak a few of the packing cubes this morning. We had a midafternoon bus so we hung around the hotel and caught up with Richard and Pauline one more time before we had one more round of hugs and said our goodbyes. 

The Uber to the bus station was quick and smooth and it was our first time with a female Uber driver. Anyway, we had to wait for just a short while before our bus left for Lisbon. The trip back south was uneventful except for passing through a couple of torrential rain storms, which had apparently caused one car to flip over. We saw lots of flooding in the lowlands and of course much damage to whole swaths of trees caused by the recent wind storm. 

Once we got to Lisbon Oriente train station -- where we had previously picked up our bus for Porto - we grabbed a taxi to our hotel. It was rush hour and  15 minute trip took 45 with occasional drizzle (outside the car not inside). 

Walking into the hotel we made our way across a black barrenness; the floor was glossy black stone and reflected the lights from the ceiling which made it appear that you were looking through glass through the floor. The lobby had no sitting furniture and it was dimly lit. 

Anyway, we took the elevator to our floor and were straightaway struck by how much the hallway looked like a prison. 

The room itself was goofy.  The bathroom was walled off by black glass although some of the panels were clear so you could see right through from the larger portion of the room right into the bathroom! Weird.  

But we enjoyed a glass of wine in the bar, and ate a light meal before turning in, having an early call Friday.

The next morning we took a taxi to the airport -- a 15-minute ride -- and began the very long process of returning to the United States.

Lisbon airport is, in a word, a mess. They are poorly organized, poorly signed and a maze of general confusion. We checked in and made our way through security -- one of seemingly a half dozen times we would go through security on this trip.

But our flight to Newark was uneventful and as usual the food nearly inedible. There was a nice and quite friendly young man sitting at the window seat in our row, next to Susan, with whom we had a long and very warm conversation. That went a long way to helping the time pass!

Arriving in Newark we had to pass through passport control, pick our bags up and then recheck them -- something that makes no sense to us although it went smoothly. But it was finding how to get to our connecting flight that was a puzzle. We finally asked a policeman and then a airport staff member for directions and then made our way through security once again for our connecting flight to Grand Rapids. 

Truth be told we were in no rush. We had (hold for it) an 8-hour layover and so we cooled our heels. We did have a light, exorbitantly priced lunch - whipped feta with cucumber and pita for Susie and roasted Brussel sprouts for me, along with a small glass of beer for each of us. 

After hanging around the bar, which was comfortable I must say, we made our way to the gate. Here's where the fun began. Our boarding passes from Lisbon listed gate 72 but my United app said 111. So off to gate 111. After a while our gate changed to 81, then 80, then 86, and finally I got a text from United saying our gate was 135. Fortunately all of these were in the same terminal, and frankly we didn't mind the exercise so much. But the airline's confusion remains puzzling.

We boarded on time although the plane had to be deiced before we could depart. We usually travel in warmer months so we had never seen this before. Anyway, we both agreed it was quite fascinating to watch how they bring up two large trucks one on either side of the plane and spray the plane down. Whatever they did worked and we made it right on schedule to Grand Rapids.

Our friend and neighbor Don Trap was there to meet us, braving the late night cold and we were home by a little after midnight and in bed by 0100. We had been up for nearly 24 hours and had eaten little. On top of it somewhere along the travel line I picked up a cold or some sort of European bug, which seems to single me out. . .