Things often seem easier in the planning stage than in the actual execution. Just jump on a plane and get there – oh, sure.
This is was our plane, a – dare I say it – kickass one at that. It’s the Lufthansa Airbus 380, the world’s largest passenger jet, which flies from SFO to Frankfurt. it is so huge that it can’t fit on many airport runways, but we’re lucky at SFO to have it as one of our traveling choices. Even in economy, there is that all-elusive legroom, and again, as Lady Luck would have it, my sister and I, seated across from each other, had an empty seat next to us. We barely felt takeoff as we floated up in the air, and the whole flight was almost eerily quiet, with no jet engines hammering in our ears. The food was better-than-average, the liquor was fine, the staff was attentive and there was entertainment galore. I finished my book and saw a wonderful German film called “Toni Erdrich” which I highly recommend. My sister saw three great films (including “La La Land” for the third time) and also finished reading her book.
What did we not do? SLEEP.
We were also just a bit late, so we had a little over an hour to get to our flight from Frankfurt to Lisbon.
Frankfurt airport is also huge and we scampered through passport control, an airbus – twice as we took the wrong one the first time – another passport control, a boarding pass control, and security. I was stopped in security because it was thought I had a bottle in my carry-on. I said no. The attendant rifled around, upset all my items, found nothing, nodded unsmilingly and left me to scoop all up my stuff and throw everything back in the carry-on.
Tick tock.
We made our flight to Lisbon with minutes to spare but with no chance for me to visit the restroom.
This flight was a step back in time as we trugged our way up the stairs ( front or back of the plane? I chose front) and realized we should have gone in the back of the plane -oops, sorry- as we ended up like fish swimming upstream, with almost disasterous results for me with an unfortunate encounter with a rather harsh burly male German passenger with a bad attitude who pushed me and my carry on out of the way using brute force – what ever happened to chivalry? It was not the welcome I’d hoped for. Fortunately, my seat mates were kind people, a mother and teenage son from Germany. I, however, was in the window seat, trying to figure out a way to use the bathroom before takeoff.
I didn’t have to worry. We did not take off. Oh, we did eventually, but first we waited for the crowd of busy weekenders’ planes to go before us, then the thunderstorm hit, so we couldn’t move for a while. Tick tock. We sat an hour and a half. At least I was able to use the restroom. What did we not do? SLEEP
The view of Lisbon from my window seat just before landing made it all worthwhile.
We collected our bags, found our driver, who took us to our hotel, where our guide and group leader was waiting, with the group, to take on on a city walking tour and dinner. Did we want to join them?
Of course. We can sleep at home.
It felt good to walk after being confined in those flying tubes for fifteen hours. We met our twelve fellow travel mates, all perky and anxious to see the city.
This tour is from Overseas Adventure Tours, and we will be visiting two cities – Lisbon and Madrid, and in between we’ll be visiting the back roads of Iberia. In fact, that’s the name of the tour.
We walked down the main thoroughfare, took the trolley to the upper part of the city, and had dinner at a restaurant the guide’s grandfather frequented.
By that time, everything was a bit hazy. The food was excellent and not heavy – Portuguese tapas.
I took a goodbye shot of the delightful café next door as we were wending our way to the bus and a ride back to the hotel.
We got back to our new hotel room, tried to organize ourselves a bit, and dropped into bed after midnight, when the realization hit that we will be on an all-day tour beginning with a 7:00 AM wake up call.
Oh, my..
i slept three and a half hours I’m all perky, not able to sleep. This is called jet lag.
It is 5:24 AM Sunday Lisbon time and we have a big day ahead of us.
It all seemed so easy at home, reading the brochure, but have no fear, dear readers. We will survive. We will persevere. We may even thrive.
Tune in for our next thrilling installment.
Frankfurt.