It has been several years since I have had to travel, or TOUR, with my wife. For me the travel ban due to Covid has been a blessing. The Covid-19 pandemic started in March of 2020. And our first trip was in July of 2022. On August 1, the Oceania cruise line said negative Covid test results were no longer required to board the ship.
Well, with the restrictions easing, and my step-daughter, her husband and two dogs moving into our house while they remodel theirs, my wife wanted to get the heck out of Dodge. So she planned a trip to Portugal and a Mediterranean cruise to Morocco and Spain. The trip is about three weeks.
Our first warning was Heathrow Airport requesting people avoid their airport. They are short-staffed and thousands (and I mean thousands) of suitcases are stacking up in the terminal and not getting to the intended destination.
Well, of course we are booked through Heathrow, so we packed an emergency carry on with necessary toiletries, medicines, and a change of clothing. We lucked out and things turned out fine with our bags arriving with us in Lisbon, Portugal.
We were easily able to get a cab at the airport and it took us directly to our hotel, the Avenida Palace. This is a beautiful hotel located in a great part of the city. It was walking distance to many restaurants, cafes, and the river with more restaurants.
When we checked into the hotel we used our passports. All hotels and trains require passports to check in or buy travel tickets. And this hotel also provided a wonderful buffet breakfast included in the room charge.
On the first morning at breakfast we are sitting at a table overlooking a lovely busy street when the server comes over with a makeshift cake. It had three pancakes with Nutella spread between each, and on top was free cut fruit and a single candle in the middle.
The server said this was a birthday greeting as he looked at me. My first response was, “It’s not my birthday.” And then it hit me; yes, today is my birthday. They must have noticed the date on my passport when we checked in.
We had a very similar experience in Paris, France about 15 years earlier. We were in the hotel, it was around dinner time, we were tired, but we were hungry. I offered to go out and bring back some food.
There was a nearby McDonalds and I brought back some hamburgers, and that was our dinner.
The next day as we are getting on a tour bus I noticed the date on the ticket was the date after my birthday. We realized we both completely forgot about my birth day. It only comes once every 365 days or so, so it’s easy to overlook.
And that explains my comment to the server in Lisbon that brought the makeshift cake, “It’s not my birthday.”
After breakfast we walked about a 100 yards and purchased tickets to the Hop On, Hop Off bus. If you don’t know how those work you purchase a ticket and it’s good for 24 hours. They have about six to ten languages that explain the city you’re visiting. There are about 15 or 20 stops where you can Hop Off and explore something in more detail, a museum, castle, palace, zoo or whatever.
When you are done with your visit you Hop On the next bus that arrives and continue your tour of the city. The full loop, if you don’t Hop Off, is usually around two hours. You get the history of a city anywhere in the world with these bus tours.
WiFi
Unfortunately, or maybe fortunately, I have a lap top computer that will not connect to any unsecured, open WiFi network. While that protects my computer from anyone able to easily hack into it while it is in use, it also prevents me from using it to reply to emails and file them in my customer relationship management (CRM) program.
I am only able to reply to emails on my smart phone, and need to keep them all until I return home and can save them to the correct client, tenant or customer contact records.
After three days in Lisbon, it was off to Porto, Portugal, and that will be the next blog post.