Thanksgiving Vacation 2011: Travel to Europe Day

The title of this year's annual Thanksgiving vacation is "Planes, Trains, Buses, Taxis, and Metros". I think we spent more time traveling than we did "vacationing". However, some of the travel time was unexpected and out of our control. I'll get to that later. The main destination this year was Madrid, Spain, with a side trip to Lisbon, Portugal. Our plan was to spend one day in Lisbon and almost three days in Madrid. We made our travel plans and reservations earlier in the year. Me, my brother and his wife booked a round trip to Lisbon, and then a separate round trip from Lisbon to Madrid. This was actually easier than making a "triangle" trip from London to Lisbon to Madrid to London. Since my sister had been to Lisbon before, her side trip was to Belfast, Northern Ireland, meeting up with us in Madrid. Unfortunately, her work had other plans for her. A few weeks before the trip, she announced that she couldn't make the vacation because she had to travel elsewhere for work. That was a big disappointment for all of us, especially my sister. But sometimes you have to make these sacrifices, after all, we are all lucky we have a job right now.

For the first time, I had to travel alone to Europe. I booked my flights through American Airlines, and my brother and his wife used British Airways. I was scheduled to arrive is Lisbon about four hours before them. I was a little nervous about flying alone to a new country, but what I really didn't look forward to was not having anyone to talk to or watch my stuff while taking bathroom breaks. What made the trip better was that I was flying business class on all legs of the flight. This game me access to the Admirals Club in each airport - San Diego, Chicago and London.

So on the Saturday before Thanksgiving, my alarm went off and it was time to start my vacation. My flight didn't leave too early, so I didn't have to wake up too early. I got to the airport and checked in with time to spare. So I went to the Admirals Club and took advantage of their free wireless Internet access to read my e-mail and check in using Foursquare. My flight was on time and I boarded the plane for Chicago. Since this was a smaller plane, I was actually in first class. The bigger seats with more leg room were nice. The flight was uneventful and  we arrived in Chicago on time. I had about a three hour layover, so I once again went to the club to relax and enjoy free Wi-Fi and snacks. As time got close, I headed to the gate to board the 767 to London Heathrow.

The seats in business class on a 767 have almost enough leg room for someone like me. If I put the seat in the "sleep" position I can almost stretch my legs, but not quite. Anyways, as soon as I was seated I was offered wine, water or champagne. I opted for champagne. About this time the man sitting next to me showed up. He had apparently been drinking lots of wine. I'm not going to say he was annoying or a jerk, because he was actually nice to me, but I was glad when he fell asleep two hours into the flight. I think he was German, based on his accent, and he admitted to me that he was going to drink wine until he slept. He basically yelled at a man for answering his cell phone while boarding, saying "I guess your cell phone call is more important than your son." Yes, the man with the phone did stop to answer it and in the process hit the guy next to me with his bag and held up other passengers, but...  Then, after we took off, he kept taking to me and as I tried to read the USA Today, he was reading over my shoulder and kept commenting on the headlines, saying things like "there's the car - that BMW. Great car.". So after dinner when he fell asleep, for the entire flight, I was glad.

They really feed you well on trans-Atlantic fights in business class. I had plenty of food and beer. For movies, I watched Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows Part I, which I had yet to see. It is hard to watch a movie on an airplane with some many distractions, so I can't say I really enjoyed the movie, but at least after watching it I was able to watch Part 2 - on the return flight. Once the lights on the plane were turned off, I did my best to sleep, knowing that in a few hours the lights would come back on and they would serve breakfast. I may have gotten about three hours of sleep, but that's the best you can hope for on a flight like this.

We arrived in London on time, however, we had a 30 minute delay landing due to fog. So we circled around until given clearance to land. Since I had a three hour layover, I wasn't worried about missing my connection. Once on the ground, I exited the plane and followed the signs to my connecting flight, which was on British Airways. Most of their flights leave from terminal 5, but the flight to Lisbon was from terminal 3, the one we landed at, making for a short walk. I still had to go through security again, and once though, I headed to the Admirals Club, where I took out my new netbook/laptop (this is the first time I've traveled with a computer) and let everyone on Facebook know I made it to London.

After a two hours, I left the lounge and headed to the main waiting area. At this airport, you don't know what gate your plane departs from until about an hour before. You have to look at the board to see what gate to head to, and depending on the gate, it may take 5 to 15 minutes to get there. As my departure time got closer I began to worry the flight was delayed, as many others were. Then the departure time kept getting later and later. Eventually I realized that my brother and his wife would be arriving soon. So I walked around until I saw them. They were surprised I was still there, as my flight should have already left. Turns out that the fog the delayed our landing was delaying all takeoffs. So after we sat for over an hour, they finally posted my gate. I was leaving three hours late. We arranged to meet in the lobby of the hotel at eight in the morning on Monday (somehow Saturday turned into Sunday by now). I headed quickly to the gate - just to wait another 30 minutes before boarding a bus that took us to the plane.

Once on the plane, the pilot announced that we would not leave for 50 more minutes! So we sat and waited. Now the flight was four hours late. Finally, around 8PM, we got clearance to leave and took off to Lisbon. The flight was bout 2 1/2 hours. This plane was an Airbus, and the business class section had more room that coach, plus I had a whole row to myself. We got a light dinner, and the flight was rather relaxing as I watched out the window at the city lights below.

We arrived in Lisbon on time. I was one of the first  people off the plane, and although I had no connections to make, I was walking my usual fast pace. The walk down the hallways to customs took about 10 minutes. I got my passport stamped with a Portugal stamp, and headed to the baggage claim. My one small bag was there, so I grabbed it, found an ATM, got some Euros, and then found a cab. There was a warning about cabs in Lisbon. They said get a pre-paid one form the airport, but I couldn't find where to do this, so I just went out to the cab line and caught the first one. Well, this was a mistake. Apparently she wasn't an honest cab driver, and I was charged 36 Euros for trip to the hotel, which should have been only 10 Euros. So what can I do? I  paid her and learned my lesson - check for a meter in the cab!

I had a minor problem checking into the hotel, since the room was in my sister's name and not mine, but eventually I worked this out and headed to my room for some much needed sleep. It was a Holiday Inn and the room was very nice. After a quick shower I crawled into bed and hoped for some sleep, as my alarm was set for 7:30 AM local time, which was who-knows-when Pacific Standard Time. My other worry was did my brother and his wife make their flight? I hoped so, but would know until the morning. So off to sleep I went - with the help of a extra strength nighttime Tylenol.