I wrote this blog entry about 9 days ago when Cathy and I got home and never published it. After we came home, Kathleen and Erin continued their European adventure by traveling to Scandinavia. They got home about 10:00 Saturday night after spending time in Denmark, Sweden and Norway. They were able to meet up with their cousin Patrick, who joined them and a second cousin, Amina Tugan, who is living in Sweden. They both woke up Sunday morning with slight colds and tested positive for Covid.
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Cathy and I are home and as you would expect, we are exhausted and grateful. Exhausted because during our trip home from Lisbon to Green Bay we were awake for 22 hours. Grateful because all the bad things that could have happened - didn't. We didn't lose passports, we didn't get lost, we weren't robbed or pick pocketed, we didn't lose anything, we didn't have any health emergencies, all of our room reservations were great, the weather was good (did I mention Seville was 110?), we never had rain and our flights went as well as flights go these days.
I joked with the girls that we were leaving just in time. I was getting ready to grow a man bun, start smoking and I was even starting to refer to soccer as football.
People who travel (and I don't count myself among them), always say you have to be able to adapt. You have to be able to make changes as you go. Our day trip to Tangier was cancelled because the wind was too strong for the ferry crossing. We laughed at ourselves because we were so proud that we could adapt - by sitting on a beach for a second day instead of jumping on a tour bus at 5:30 a.m. Yup, we were real troopers.
To be sure, traveling has changed. For one thing, we seem to be dragging our rollerboard bags more than we used to. Today we had to go through security 3-4 times (significant lines) in Lisbon, then get on a bus, which drove around inside the airport for awhile, crossing at least two runways and then, after waiting to de-bus, climbed the stairs to get on our plane. When I got to the top of the walk way I wanted to turn around and do my best Nixon-like wave but it didn't seem appropriate. When we got to Newark, we had to go through customs, leave the security area, get on a tram which brought us to a bus, go through security then run to our gate because our departure from Lisbon had been delayed, only to find that the last leg of our trip to Chicago had also been delayed. This is travel in 2023.
Was it worth it? YES! It was truly a wonderful trip. The sights, the food, the company. Thanks for letting us share it with you. Obrigado.
