On to Lisbon!
We loaded up our mountain of luggage and were happily on our way to the Madrid airport when the phone rang.
We had left a suitcase behind.
And, of course, it wasn’t just any suitcase. It was Kiya’s.
Around we went in the taxi, back to the apartment, where we grabbed the forgotten suitcase, loaded it up, and started for the airport again. Our little detour put us about half an hour behind schedule.
Once we arrived at the airport and started unloading everything, we realized something else was missing.
Kiya’s brand-new pillow.
Seriously?
I quickly sent Angel a message to let him know we had left it behind. Once again, he proved what an amazing host he was. He was incredibly gracious and found a way to package the pillow up and mail it all the way back home for us.
Kiya doesn’t know it yet, but her new pillow will be waiting for her when we finally arrive home in Montana. After seven weeks of traveling, I think she is going to be very happy to walk into the house and discover that her pillow made its own journey home from Madrid!
Gabe stayed with us at the airport until it was time for us to head toward our boarding area. Then came the hard part—saying goodbye. He went off to find his own gate and wait for his flight back to the United States, while Mom, Kiya, and I hurried to find our gate for Lisbon.
We had already missed our priority boarding.
Earlier, we had specifically asked the young man at the check-in counter whether we needed to put any special tags on Kiya’s medical suitcases or her transport chair. He told us we were fine.
Apparently, we were not fine.
When we arrived at the gate, there was quite the hubbub over Kiya’s transport chair. No one seemed to know what to do because it hadn’t been marked that she needed the chair taken all the way to the plane.
So there we stood off to the side while practically the entire plane boarded without us.
Finally, an assistance supervisor arrived and escorted us down to the plane.
By this point, Kiya was sound asleep.
I picked her up and carried her down the aisle, trying not to whack anyone with Kiya, my purse, or my backpack as I maneuvered past all the already-seated passengers.
The crew decided her transport chair wouldn’t fit in the cabin and would need to be checked. We hefted her medical suitcases into the overhead bins, settled Kiya into her seat, and finally sat down ourselves.
We departed Madrid at 10:25 a.m.
We arrived in Lisbon at 10:41 a.m.
Now that’s a fast flight!
Of course, there is a one-hour time difference between Madrid and Lisbon, but seeing those times still made us laugh.
The flight itself was wonderfully uneventful, which was exactly what we needed.
We had arranged for a transfer to pick us up when we arrived in Lisbon—or at least we thought we had.
Before arriving, our apartment management company had contacted me about paying the required tourist tax. I had already made the payment through PayPal. Apparently, however, €2.56 had been deducted somewhere in the transaction, leaving our payment short.
Because of €2.56, they wouldn’t finish processing our apartment check-in.
They also hadn’t arranged our transfer.
So there I was at the Lisbon airport, on the phone with management for nearly 30 minutes, trying to figure out how a €2.56 shortage was keeping us from both our apartment and our ride.
At one point, it sounded as though they weren’t even going to allow us to stay because the tourist tax hadn’t been paid in full before our arrival.
I sent screenshots showing the payment I had already made, explained the situation over and over, and eventually paid the remaining €2.56.
Finally, everything was approved.
They arranged transportation to their management office, where we could store our luggage until the apartment was ready.
We quickly discovered something about Lisbon.
It has hills.
Lots and lots of hills.
And naturally, the management office was up one of them.
Once we dropped off our luggage, we decided the best thing to do was find somewhere to sit, eat, and regroup.
We found a cute brunch restaurant and ordered a meal that included an açaí bowl, mini caramel pancakes, and a ham-and-cheese sandwich.
Everything was delicious.
There was only one problem.
Both the açaí bowl and caramel pancakes came covered in coconut.
I do not like coconut.
Apparently, our waitress noticed me carefully picking every little piece of coconut off my food. Without me even asking, she brought over a little fruit pancake without coconut—on the house.
It was such a small act of kindness, but after the morning we’d had, it meant a lot.
After brunch, we wandered up and down the surrounding streets for a few blocks. Lisbon immediately felt different from Madrid. The streets were narrow, the buildings colorful, and there seemed to be something interesting around every corner.
Eventually, we decided we’d had enough wandering and would simply return to the management office and wait.
Wouldn’t you know it?
Just as we arrived, we were told our apartment was ready.
We ordered another ride and set off across Lisbon.
Driving through the city was an experience in itself. Some of the streets are unbelievably narrow, and we were in a fairly large vehicle. There were moments when I wasn’t entirely sure we were going to fit!
Eventually we arrived, figured out all the door codes, and stepped inside.
What a relief.
The apartment was lovely, spacious, comfortable, and—most importantly—cool!
We were only about two blocks from the Tagus River and very close to the Time Out Market and several historic areas of Lisbon. It was going to be a wonderful location for exploring our final city.
The temperature change was also amazing. We had left Madrid at around 102°F and arrived in Lisbon to temperatures around 78°F.
What a difference!
We spent some time unpacking, figuring out the apartment, and simply relaxing.
Eventually we ventured back outside to explore the neighborhood, find somewhere for dinner, and pick up groceries.
Right on our corner we discovered a wonderful little bakery, so naturally we stopped and bought breakfast for the next morning.
Then we found a Mexican restaurant for dinner, picked up a few groceries, and headed back to the apartment for the night.
And can I just say how wonderful our beds felt?
In Madrid, Gabe and I each had extremely narrow single beds. They were the kind where you picked one sleeping position and stayed there all night because rolling over came with the very real possibility of landing on the floor.
Now I could actually spread out!
Kiya was also happily reunited with Mom for sleeping arrangements. She had slept with Mary in Madrid and wasn’t particularly thrilled about the arrangement, but she suffered through it.
LOL.
After a forgotten suitcase, a missing pillow, airport confusion, wheelchair drama, a €2.56 tourist-tax crisis, and hauling our belongings through yet another city, we were finally settled into Lisbon.
Our last first country.
Our last first city.
The final chapter of our seven-week European adventure had officially begun.
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