Europe Travel Notes | Part 1

1st Layover in Portugal  3-1-23

Chris and I have been planning for a while, to board a plane or a few and skedaddle across the ocean in celebration of our 25th year of marriage.

We need to make sure and pay attention to anything that is worth celebrating and when there are not reasons, lets invent reasons to celebrate! (This coming from a girl that doesn’t party hard.)

I must confess, even with the cheap tickets and some credits in Airbnb, we were debating on whether to cancel this trip a few weeks prior, due to lack of funds. Just because you’re an entrepreneur doesn’t mean you are loaded. In fact, business is often unpredictable. You don’t just get “owed” a pay check. We were encouraged to stick with it by some, so we did. We asked the Lord to provide and He did. The Lord provided some money through various, generous people. Through 5 different sources, (one who wanted to remain anonymous) God sent the amount Chris had secretly requested plus a few hundred bucks.

Over all in our 20 days of travel- We spent most of our time in the country of Italy, while making a few stops in London, England and Lisbon, Portugal.

Neither of us had been to London or Lisbon.

Chris was fortunate enough to find some tickets that that country of Portugal was sponsoring last August. They were about 100 bucks round trip for each of us. We had to enter and leave through Portugal and one of those stays we had to be there for 24 hours or more. Sometimes countries sponsor cheap tickets to get people to come and spend money.

We chose to stay in Airbnb’s rather than hotels with the exception of 2 nights. This is much more comfortable and cheaper. Although, it does take a little to get use too. It feels strange to roll into someone's apartment or home without talking to anyone verbally. We also prefer to make at least one of our meals a day ourselves to save on money and time so this also gives you a kitchenette option to make food in. Its often cheaper to stay in an AirB&B especially if you have several people.

I always breathe big before any trip, knowing an adventure is about to begin, and me not being an adventure lover. My husband loves to travel, I don't mind it once I am disconnected from home, its getting to the disconnected part that is hard for me.

Getting to the first airport in our hometown, we passed and older woman bickering with the security people on whether they should be searching her bag or not… Eye roll on my end. Lady, you need to get past it.

My 13 year old daughter seems to get enjoyment out of slapping stickers on my back, namely produce stickers. She sent me on my trip with a small yellow giraffe sticker on my phone jacket. I left it on for the whole trip, because why not? Also, my children enjoy making themselves the cover picture on my phone screen. My youngest daughter also made her picture the one for my trip. We have steadily trained our kids to be left without us and survive without having meltdowns. I think they miss us, namely because we aren’t there to make meals and help solve their problems… Other than that, they act like the house is owned by them. Lol! This makes leaving them much easier.

Now-Red eye flights- I dislike them, a lot. I already don’t sleep well, then add to that sitting upright all night and its really bad. We got stuck in the middle of the row with a person on either side of us on the 11-hour flight over. Horrible. Red eye flights are the flights that fly all night long. I'm certain all our eyes are very red when we disembark.

In my efforts to not over drink before getting wedged in, I didn’t realize I got dehydrated and started to feel sick about an hour into the flight. It’s an awful feeling, when you are wondering if you might need to puke and there is a stranger locking you into your seat and blocking you from the toilet. The thoughts start rolling, what will people think if I start puking? You know… “does she have covid?” Also, I was thinking, I can't get sick now! I happened to have had a travel Pepto Bismal packet in my purse… And the drink cart came through, I guzzled 3 small cups and took a chance that maybe I just needed fluid! Thank the Lord, that was the problem. My gut was a bit twisted up as dehydration will do to you, but the feeling of “I am going to puke" dissipated. Praise God. I highly recommend traveling with some of those Pepto Bismal tablets they have now.  

I don’t think the young woman next to me slept at all. Every time I woke from my lightweight slumber, she was watching a different movie. She ended up napping with an hour left of the flight- exactly when I needed to use the restroom of course.

For the plane I brought: slippers, an eye mask, earplugs, chapstick, a travel pillow. Which by the way, my friend Holly gave me and my husband each a travel pillow from My Pillow. I love them. In fact I used them all through the trip even in a bed because there wasn’t enough pillows for my comfort level.

I am always ready to get off that plane at the end of the sleepless night. I suppose everyone is ready. Coming into a foreign place always makes me a bit uncomfortable. We landed in Lisbon, Portugal. The part of the airport we walked into was long and empty. We tried to use 2 different restrooms, both of them were either closed or being cleaned. It smelled like Mexico. I will not describe that. The walls were covered in small tiles of blue, made into designs. We walked on, found other restrooms, they weren’t the nicest, but at least we could use them. Then we funneled through a security checkpoint.

The security is different in all the different places. Something that is fine to carry through in the US, is not fine to carry through in Britain… Some places have signs to take off your shoes, but then you watch as most people do not obey the rule, and no one enforces it. I loathe the security check points. I know am not guilty of anything, but somehow I still feel guilty of something.

My head full of bobby pins always sends me to the “extra check” security line, so I either do my hair before coming to the airport and endure the extra checks, or plan on doing my hair after I get through. It is always a quandary for me. I really hate being searched extra, but I also want my hair done!

After getting through the security check, we walked into a lovely, daylight lit shopping and eating area. A lot of people were in this space, which was probably the heart of the airport. We had about 7 hours total to dwindle after landing. I felt groggy and overstimulated. Chris is always up for the adventure, but I take a little longer to adjust, and usually want to do that by just being still and observing. People watching at airports can be most fascinating. So many different cultures are represented.

There were 3 fast food restaurants from the US. KFC, Pizza Hut, and McDonalds.  Everything else looked much better, with sandwiches and tiny cakes, pastries with cream and things that light up our eyes like a Christmas tree. I love anything with cream or filling. I feel like I have to lose weight ahead of time just so I can gain weight while on these trips. I have a hard time eating the anything with Gluten in the US. But in Europe, its much better on my tummy. Eating in excess can still do a number, but it doesn’t affect me quite like the US food. They don’t mess with or spray their food in Europe like they do in the US. What is wrong with the U.S.? Can we get it together already on not spraying our food with poison?

We beat Jet lag. We did a few things to prepare for the trip, sleeping schedule changes and These Jet Lag pills…Seriously, I should have links for everything I am telling you about and earn some money by selling it!

We had to go through a Passport check to get into another section of the airport for our flight to London. No one was in line, the Security guy let us right through, as if we had nothing to hide… Which we didn’t. I always wonder, do I look like that dumb picture on my passport? I hope I do and I hope I don’t. You aren't supposed to smile on the passport picture so everyone looks like a terrorist of some sort.

In the Lisbon airport, They have these glass rooms around for people to smoke in. People smoke like chimneys here. Even their ads for fashion have smoking in them. Also, there is a lot of dogs in the airport. There are pet relief areas to take them potty, but not on the plane. IN San Francisco Airport, This one lady, from an Asian country, she had a little dog or puppy crammed into way to small of a bag. I felt bad for the dog having to endure that long of a flight like that.

We took a total of 4 planes in 24 hours. Boarding the plane from Lisbon to London was the last one on this leg. The flight was about an hour and a half. We landed in London about 10:30. It was dark out, so we only saw the sparkling lights from above. Heathway airport is nice but later in the trip we would find it large and a bit tough to navigate on short amounts of time.

I was tired and so ready for bed. Any bed, as long as it was clean. I didn't need any more stimulation of adjusting to a new place, but here we were anyway. I was already a fan of England when I saw their bathroom people figures. The Women had like tu-tu dresses on them! We collected our bags, went through a machine with our passport, the little doors opened, and we walked to where we thought we were meeting our Uber ride to haul us into the city. After some trouble of finding him, we realized we were on the wrong level. So, he charged us a little extra for making him wait. The guy was of Arabic descent. He didn’t talk to us the whole 30 min drive to our apartment. We felt welcomed and highly loved.

Coming into Britain for the first time felt comfortable. It was late, and we had been traveling for over 24 hours. Chris got us an apartment in a historic area and huge building that was shared with a hotel. The apartment itself was very tiny and had probably 16–20-foot ceiling. The bathroom was a very tiny space and had old heavy doors, that I felt like every time I opened it, I was stepping into a ship locker. We prayed over the space, flushing out and binding all demonic spirits and sending them packing. I highly recommend you do this whenever you go somewhere to stay. Just like we clean our homes physically, we should also do this with the nasty spirits in our homes regularly. Sleep came easy to me, despite the foreign bed and place. I was done for the day.

~Prudence