A EUROPEAN HOLIDAY 2017-18 VOL.2

TO INFINITY AND BEYOND

The trouble with travel is travel. There's virtually no way to anticipate the unanticipatable. The first major portion of our travel across the pond was our flight from JFK to Rome with a transfer stop in Lisbon. We were flying TAP, Portugal's premier airline.
We had planned ahead for a car service to get us to the airport. Our plane was to depart at 11:35 in the evening. I figured leaving around eight was giving us plenty of time.  Emmy thought nine was going to be okay. Lucky for us I won out on that one. When our car pulled up in front of the apartment we lumbered down with our traveling necessities: one large checkable suitcase for each of us, one carry-on again for each of us and our personal items we decided could include backpacks large enough to hold a small pup tent if we needed it. This did point out one of the major flaws we were going to have to deal with further down the line. Our car taking us to the airport was a decent sized SUV yet it could barely hold our driver, our selves, and our cache of luggage. Our rental cars in Tuscany and the Netherlands were both economy sized. We're clearly super-sized travelers but now was not the time to worry about that.

Apparently several thousand other passengers had the same idea for an early check-in. The line for baggage check-in was miles long by the time we arrived with our assorted containers of clothing we'd never wear and personal grooming items we couldn't go without.
Once we had reached the luggage counter to deposit the largest of our bags a full hour had transpired but that wasn't the longest of the lines we'd have to navigate including the one requiring everyone to pass by a rather large ominous German Shepherd who sniffed your legs as you went by him scaring the bejesus out of several old ladies in line ahead of us. By the time we reached our gate we were down to minutes before boarding was to commence.
The flight from New York to Lisbon was mostly uneventful assuming you're okay with trying to get a bit of sleep sandwiched between dinner and a breakfast snack that didn't seem to follow any normal eating schedule. Who eats dinner at two o'clock in the morning?

Arrival in Lisbon required another set of long lines but for us it also meant an eight and a half hour lay over. Once again, the best laid plans. We had pre-reserved space in the TAP Lounge so we could relax in comfort for those eight and a half hours. Our tickets were printed out showing lounge access. I had our online printed receipt but when we got to the lounge there was a barricade with a notice the lounge was under construction and wouldn't be reopened until December 23rd. Pissed? You betcha.

The saving grace was the ANA Lounge a few doors down the hall from the TAP Lounge. A little secret: this is the best bargain going. For twenty-five euros per person you can stay the day.

All the food and liquor you can consume is included. They have beds, clean showers and wifi. What more could you ask for? A momentary blip in our thought process had us thinking we might try to venture into Lisbon proper for a little sightseeing. We were too exhausted to try to figure out the metro system and we didn't know what to do with all our carry-on luggage so we made the best of it. Lisbon would have to wait for another trip.

Our flight to Rome left on time. We rolled into our hotel through the empty streets of Rome at one in the morning on Tuesday after leaving New York on Sunday.

The trouble with travel is travel