Syracuse to Detroit to Paris to Lisbon

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After our trip to Spain last year, we were very excited to hear that the Syracuse Center State CEO was running a trip to Portugal. So my mom and I signed up and never looked back. Our trip started today at 3pm with a flight to Detroit. We met up with our friend Kaye in Detroit and grabbed our last American meal at the airport. We boarded our flight at about 6:30 and we on our way shortly. The flight was somewhat uneventful, except for the ladies next to us that wanted to talk all night. My dirty looks and evil stares were not getting thru to them, so I was happy when the woman ahead of us said something to them. "The Biddies" did not respond...so the woman called the flight attendant to address the situation. The flight attendant tried but the woman apparently do not take direction well and continued to talk. I was able to sleep a little after the lights were turned out. I woke up as we were landing in Paris. The Paris airport is very modern and beautiful. We grabbed a croissant and a slimsy (I had to do it Amy) for breakfast. The people watching in the airport was great and our layover went by rather quickly. The flight to Lisbon was about 2 hrs and we were served a sandwich for lunch, which was unusual given the short flight. I was pleasantly surprised that Air France provided some old world nostalgia. The stewardesses were required to have their hair up and had a calm demeanor about them. We landed in Lisbon and found our luggage waiting for us. (Thank goodness.... has the lost luggage curse ended?) We quickly found our guide Andrew and after a quick bus ride we checked into our hotel in Cascais. The hotel is about a block from the Ocean. After a quick nap, we met the group for our orientation meeting and dinner. The food was delicious and the red wine was amazing. We found that there is three mother/daughter combos on the trip. One of them is a Nottingham grad who is close to my age. I sent some quick emails and tucked into bed to watch a movie in English (dubbed in portuguese). Lights out at 10:30 to prep for our day touring Lisbon tomorrow.

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Comments

[Amy K]

Diet Coke ("Slimsy") is a perfectly acceptable breakfast drink
it is LOADED with Niacin...and we all need that, right? Sounds like the trip is starting out fantastically! Wish I were there instead of bubble wrapping and boxing up all my stuff here in DC. have fun and keep writing!