Adeus e Obrigada, Lisboa!

Adeus e Obrigada, Lisboa. Goodbye and Thank you, Lisbon.

Sadly, my Portugal trip has now come to an end. I headed to the airport early this morning for my flight to Newark. I had heard through the grapevine that the airport would be packed today and I should make sure to arrive early. I couldn't understand why it would be so busy until I arrived. I was greeted by probably hundreds of soccer fans headed to Brazil for the World Cup. I knew that it was coming up, but it didn't occur to me that everyone would be heading down there today. 

No soccer fans were headed to the US, so I had a nice, comfortable flight. The flight to Newark wasn't quite as short as the flight to Lisbon, but it was good. United has personal TVs in each seat, so I was able to watch 3 movies on the 7 hour flight to the US. For meals, we got lasagna for the first lunch and another light lunch of a small sandwich shortly before landing. 

The flight from Newark to Seattle was not as pleasant. We started boarding late - even though our plane had been sitting on the tarmac for at least an hour. As it got close to our departure time, the flight attendant got on the PA to tell us that we wouldn't be leaving on time because people were still boarding...obviously. Here's an idea - maybe if we would start boarding on time, we would be able to leave on time. Once we were all on the plane, they closed the door, but we still didn't push out. A few minutes later, they told us that the weight had been miscalculated so they had to take mail off the plane. 30 minutes later, they said that now the bags needed to be redistributed, which took another 20 minutes. We ended up taking off a little over an hour late. Thankfully, we were able to make a little time up in the air, but it still got us into Seattle pretty late. It's always the last flight that seems to take forever, right?

While the actual traveling part isn't the most fun, the experience that you get once you get there makes the long flights totally worth it. 

Even though Portugal isn't on the top of the list for many American travelers, it has been one of the best experiences of my life and the country has made its way into my top 3 European countries I've traveled to. I can't wait to go back and will hopefully get to spend more time in each city. On the next trip, I would like to stay in Lisbon, Sintra, Lagos, Coimbra and Porto. Each city is completely different and has something different to offer, so it would be impossible to choose between them. I definitely would like at least 2 full days in each city to be able to explore more and also take day trips outside of town. 

I truly hope that everyone traveling to Europe would be able to experience Portugal. It is a bit more expensive to get to than other more popular cities, but worth going to. The country is full of beautiful sights, exceptionally nice people, great food and of course, really good wine. 

Goodbye Portugal. I'll be back.