Day 20 & 21: back to Lisbon and home bound

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Got up early and packed up our bags since we had to bring our rental car back this morning. We also wanted to drop off our bags at the new hotel while we have a car and try the hotel to see if the room was ready early. Turns out we got lucky and a room was clean and ready for us. Anne and Camille went up to the room and got settled in and Cameron and I went to bring back our rental car. When we got there there was a big lime of people waiting for their car and no clear instruction on how to drop off. I wasn't interested in waiting in line so I grabbed someone and thankfully he was able to help us and check the car in. Saved a bunch of time we would have spent waiting. He did a quick inspection of the car and said everything looked good and made me pay and sign for the rental of the toll transponder and we were done! Nice. Hopefully we dont get a surprise email or bill in the mail. We Ubered back to the hotel and joined the girls only to find out that our room had a broken air conditioner. Great. If you laid down and didn't move it was bearable but as soon as you moved it was humid and sweaty. Not great for the price we paid. We went to the lobby to ask them about it and they said they'd send a maintenance man to take a look, but he never showed up. We went back to the lobby and they were surprised as the maintenance man told them he went and we said it was all good. Wtf! They said he was coming right now so we went back to the room, 15 minutes later, nothing. One of the receptionists finally felt bad for us and changed our rooms to an "upgraded" room (with a coffee maker and radio), and working air conditioner. Success! Finally we could head out for the day. We all took an uber to the Colombo shopping center about 15 minutes from our hotel and set out to do some shopping for souvenirs and clothes as they were cheaper than back home. The mall was 3 floors and really big. It was full if really good stores we were used to and also a bunch of mew stores we never heard of. Got our fill of shopping and went back to the hotel to try to make the last hour of the pool. We just made it and got about a 30 minute swim in. The eater was pretty chilly but still refreshing. It was interesting to be swimming with the planes flying overhead to the nearby airport.

We ate supper at the hotel to keep it simple and went upstairs to our room to organize our bags for the airport the next day. Early morning!

We woke up just after 7am to start getting ready and our flight was already delayed an hour. At least they told us in advance and we weren't sitting at the airport. We had to get some breakfast and find a store to buy some snacks and food for Cameron and Anne for the flight in case the meal wasn't nut free again. We did the hotel buffet, which wasn't great, and found a local grocery store and stocked up. All was good! We called for our Uber during checkout only for the receptionist to tell us we didn't return our pool towels. I told him I left them in the room but he said we couldn't check out before returning them. Urgh! Since the elevators were in high demand I decided to take the stairs. I ran up to the 9th floor as fast as I could and grabbed our towels and ran back down 9 floors. I gave the guy his towels back just as the Uber pulled in amd Anne and the kids were loading up. I had to take a minute or two to catch my breath and wipe the sweat from my forehead before getting in the car. All I could think of was i must be leaving a sweat stain on this huys seat, which were pleather or leather thankfully. My 5 star rating was in jeopardy! I know, i know, don't sweat it right!?

We got to the airport about 3 hours in advance and luckily the security line wasn't too big. We got through relatively quickly. We were a bit confused though as there was a second line to do a document check on our passports again, which looked a lot like the line when we left the airport. Wr kept asking if we were in the departures line, turns out we were. The flight back to Toronto sent pretty well. We were excited because the stewardess told us that on the way to Canada they put ingredients on the food and Cameron might be able to eat. Turns out they stamped the ingredients on a tinfoil container and they sere super blurry and not able to make out all the Portuguese words. Damnit! Oh well, Cameron had his hamburger but you could tell it bothered him. We landed in Toronto and we were told that we were in holding until the airport could clear out a bit but if you had a transfer you could show your boarding and get off. Sweet! Probably the fastest we got off a plane.

Went through customs pretty quick using the new e-kiosk and off to our next gate. Flight delayed about an hour, we got on the plane and it took time to get off the ground. We got in about 1.5 hours later than expected but we were home! It was an amazing trip but we're also glad to be home. It was really nice to spend 3 weeks together as a family though, even though there were moments where we bickered, overall it was a trip we will never forget and will be hard to beat. We were trying to figure out what our next trip would be- another European adventure or Carribean resort?

Oh yeah, the kids were a bit underwhelmed with Reese's reaction when they got home but she's been at Annes friends house and with Annes parents so she must also be a bit out of it also. Camille really wanted to see her friends even though it felt like 1am for us she went for a bit. We all wanted to stay up a bit so we could get back on local time and delete the 5 hour difference. I was nodding off at 10:30pm though.
Next morning- man have I missed our coffee!

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Photos

2127 km in 2,5 weeks !
The car only had 11 kms on it When we got it!

Our two small toothpastes lasted 3 weeks minus 2 days
Hotel gave us these mini mini ones!