Lisbon on a Whim – The Beginnings

Before Arrival:
So many people asked me “Why Portugal?” to which I just shrug. This adventure was a tag along experience with one of my best friends and I had no prior urge to visit this country. Throughout the week I learned so many reasons it should have been on my list from the beginning! But let’s take a step back.

A childhood friend (let’s call her M for ease of understanding and to save me from typing “my friend” a million times in this post) called me one day and said “Would you go to Portugal with me? I have wanted to go for years and have extra vacation days this year.” Now you don’t know me but I am always ready for a trip. I keep my passport in my wallet in case a friend asks me to catch a flight that day and I don’t have time to go home and grab it (slightly unhinged. I know.) With that obviously my answer was yes, no questions asked. Now planning the trip was a whole other ballgame. I am a “catch up on the phone every other week” kind of person. M is the busiest and most productive human I know. Luckily, the only thing you really need to leave the country is a flight and a place to sleep. Everything else can work itself out as you go.

Now for picking a time. Lisbon (Portugal’s capitol and most visited city) is where we had picked as our homebase on the trip. Now as a person that gets anxiety when the Walmart checkout line has more than 3 people, big cities aren’t the ideal vacation destination. So to the magical and glorious thing called Reddit we go. What month has temperatures that won’t make me cry, bugs still in hibernation, smaller crowds, and the city is ready for tourism. (I love how some European tourist cities literally shutdown in the off season- I did a British Isles road trip in January and so many of the towns were abandoned for the winter.) After a 2-hour phone call in the Dallas airport, we had a winner – early May. We booked our flights and the trip was officially official!

Next up: where to sleep. I am very much a budget traveler that would crash on a friend of a cousin’s neighbor’s couch. M on the other hand has this crazy thing called a survivor’s instinct. They requested we take a look at Airbnb (which as a side note I hate that the idea went from being exactly what I would normally look for to a commercialized industry that is stealing homes from locals and becoming as expensive as any other hotel booking. That is a whole other battle.) We managed to find a fairly reasonable apartment in Alfama – Lisbon’s historical district.

That marks the end of the planning that was done pretravel.

Travels:
I don’t think I’m the only one that gets the travelers high that comes with walking through an airport but if I am it is one of the best feelings. I have never tried drugs but if that is the feeling then I might be able to understand how addiction becomes a mass population epidemic. In the long run it is probably about the same price as a drug addiction, so I think I’ll stick with my traveler’s high.

I live in North Carolina currently and M is located in Indiana so we chose to just meet in Lisbon instead of fighting with the airlines to get on the same flight. My trip was Asheville – Chicago – Madrid – Lisbon. M travelled Louisville – Boston – Lisbon. Now I did not experience their flight, but I do have some feedback so take what I say with a grain of salt.

My flight experience: This was not my first trip through Asheville airport but if it were, it wouldn’t be much different than every small city’s regional airport. It had a very small number of gates, very few people, and little to no stress. I chose not to pack a checked bag (one week in a semi warm destination means my normal carry on was only half full). I did however arrive WAY earlier than I needed to but they had some of the most comfortable chairs I have had the pleasure to sit in and I bought a way too expensive acai bowl which gave my tummy some happy. Chicago domestic to international flights are fairly easy to navigate (unlike on the way back but we will get to that later). It is only slightly crazy to me that America couldn’t care less about people leaving but coming back in is like running a marathon on an incline. With obstacles. And maybe even a couple booby traps. They did one passport check before boarding the plane which is expected bare minimum. The flight was a red eye which is very literal for me. Sleep on planes is not something I have ever been able to achieve unfortunately. I have a list of things that I have been told help and I hope they work for others:
– eye mask that has “cups” so it is not flat against your face. This lets your eyes move and flutter as they do without rubbing on the mask.
– go through your nightly routine in the bathroom. Brush your teeth, wash your face, go to the bathroom. The bathroom is there to be used and it rarely is to its full potential.
– Take a melatonin or alternative sleep medication. You have nearly 8 hours on most overnight flights. That’s a long time to be restless.
– skip the meals. They are normally not very good and can throw off your schedule dramatically since they do not align with any normal meals.
When I arrived in the EU I went through customs and was smart enough to stay in the countries that are a part of the Schengen agreement. This is basically a paper that was signed in Luxemburg some 40 years ago that removed a lot of the borders in the EU. Countries have slowly been added, and it makes travel a lot simpler between them. If you get to pick airports to arrive, I would put Madrid near the very top of my list. The security was extremely fast. The slowest part was people hesitating because they thought it was too easy… Lisbon on the other hand is a whole other story. DO NOT FLY INTO LISBON IF YOU CAN AVOID IT!

M’s flight experience (cliff notes version):
Uneventful on the airport standpoint from what I understood. They had a 7-hour layover in Boston so took advantage of that and left the airport via the FREE one-way bus that takes you to the city center. They had to uber back to the airport after but I would say it was worth it with that much time to explore a new city. Plus, they ate a cannoli in Little Italy so how can you beat that? Their red eye flight was less red eyed than mine. M was able to sleep through both dinner and breakfast without being aware of it until the plane landed (jealous!) They landed about an hour before I did and decided to wait on the other side of security for me (bad decisions with reference to the prior mention of the Schengen area). It wasn’t until I landed that the realization hit that they had to go through customs to reach me… 2 hours later. I talked to some locals that had even worse horror stories than that (upwards of 4 hours to get out of the airport). Thy have a very minimal number of machines for E-check then you have a second line after to be physically checked. Less than ideal system…

Stay tuned for the rest of our adventures!