We made it!!!

Saturday March 3, 2012

We are here!!! We left yesterday at 1:00 PM from our place. Our good friends Nancy and Ron picked us up and drove us to the airport. They were on the same first flight as us heading to Halifax for our first leg of the flight, then they are off to Florida, while we headed off to Lisbon Portugal. Big relief to have the first flight over, ha ha 35 minutes in the air. We had loads of time to kill in Halifax so the 4 of us went to lunch or supper whatever it was then went our own ways as we need to head to the int`l terminal, yep there is one in Halifax, who knew. We were going through Newark so passed through customs in Halifax, how great, no lines. Uneventful flight to Newark except for the woman who fainted, there was a Dr. on board who looked after her and we were able to continue on, thank goodness for the poor woman. Not sure what happened, paramedics came on board right away when we landed and she got off the flight, we saw her later in the airport so looks like everything was fine. Next flight was a little longer, I think around 8 hours or so, direct from Newark to Lisbon. We had been moved closer to the front of the plane because my seat beside Andre was given away so we would have been both middle isle not close to each other, bonus it was, on this airline you have MUCH better leg room near the front, it was actually quite comfortable, we are even considering paying the 99.00 on the way back to upgrade, we`ll see how broke we are when it gets closer!!

So arrived in Lisbon around 8:30, luggage took forever to get here, and finally found where we go to get to the car rental place after a couple of missed turns, yep I can`t read directions very well, when I look at it again it is really clear... Off to the car rental place, but first I must say I read over our contract on the airplane to discover if you are non EU you need an International Drivers license, oops, did not read the fine print in time. Andre tells me I need to ask about it, no way lets just see what happens. So, phew, didn`t ask a thing about my Canadian license, big relief. So we get directions out of Lisbon and off we go. The airport and car rental place are actually not right in the city itself, and it is very easy to get going. Off we go, me driving a standard car, should have borrowed Jacinthes for a couple of weeks to get used to it again, we make it about 2 miles to the on ramp of this huge bridge and no power, yep nothing in 1^st or 2^nd gear so I pull over. Thank goodness it is a Saturday and not too busy. I had my phone from work so was able to call back to the rental place. Funny thing is when we pulled out of the rental place an engine light was on, the security guy letting us out couldn't speak English when we told him about it, and then it went off so we waved it off, urgh... So about 40 minutes later a tow truck arrives to pick us up. What an introduction to Lisbon, we had a lovely view of the bridge for 40 minutes, and because we were already on the start of the bridge there was no turning around when he got there, we had to drive the whole bridge, then go find a turnaround, this added at least another 30 minutes to our trip to nowhere! So now we are back at the rental place, same guy tells me he is giving us a bigger car, shoot, I don't want bigger I want something that runs! Turns out we have a Skoda... I know very very little about cars, except a friend from Carleton came to visit us in Banff with his Skoda and I think we went to the repair shop 3 times in the week that he was there, I'll keep you posted how it goes....So after arriving at 8:30AM we are finally on the road at 12:30 PM for about a 3 hour drive from Lisbon to Albuferia, with very little sleep the night before....and a car that I am afraid may be affiliated with the European version of rent a wreck....

Here is the view of the bridge we had for 45 minutes waiting for the tow truck

We made it. Just three stops. One to switch drivers and get a snack. One to switch back drivers. And one for oranges. The orange trees, amazing!!! When we pull into the town of Albuferia there are all kinds of stands along the side of the road, kinda like PEI and their potato stands. So first stop is a bag of oranges, 1.50 Euro, and I think if we hadn't stopped at the first one it may have been a little cheaper! Found our apartment that we have rented without too much difficulty, took a bit to figure out how to get into the gate, but we made it. We have the apartment for 5 weeks, it appears to be in a great spot, we have a “slight” view of the water, but it is less than a 10 minute walk to the beach, which is very nice.

Beach, a 10 minute walk downhill from apartment

Albuferia looks like a pretty hilly city, we are up on a hill looking down, and the actually have an escalator going down the last bit to the beach. I am hoping to lose some of this weight walking while we are here, even with the escalator it is quite a hike.

We dumped all our stuff in the apartment when we got here and headed straight for the beach. It is not really beach weather, around 17 today I think, but beautiful for walking. After our walk we decided to head for the grocery store. Another adventure, once again you never know where your GPS will take you? Albuferia has some beautiful homes with guard dogs, that lead to gravel roads with dumps! Geez so frustrating, but we did finally find the store. This store is the biggest around, and they have sales if you are a member. So off I go to take out a free membership, this is actually a great idea, when you use your discount card it actually only applies to you next purchase. So today we purchase around 65,00 Euro of groceries and we have a 10 Euro credit for next time we go back. Did I mention that the 65,00 Euro included 5 bottles of wine? Average under 2.00 Euro a bottle, yep we will be winos at the end of this 6 weeks.

Grocery stores in other countries – always an adventure. First is to figure out where things need to be weighed, we got in trouble with this before, I think in Belgium. There you weighed the vegs and fruit yourself before the checkout, oops went straight to the checkout, Joey would have been furious had she been a resident, she so loves waiting in grocery check out lines, just ask Mom about it. So here at this store in Portugal it is clearly posted that you need to have your things weighed in the produce section, what the heck does that mean?? Yep, there is one guy behind a scale weighing everything, I left that for Andre. So I went on a hunt for some salad dressing, 4 kinds of salad dressing to choose from, 100 kinds of olive oil, and 75 kinds of vinegar, guess I should be making my own. Then I went to try to find some canned tuna, found it but had no idea what to buy, but if you are into canned, or bottled hot dogs this is the place!! There were rows and rows of bottled hot dogs, and did they look appetizing, Nancy and Joey this is your dream gourmet destination (NOT). That done we head over to seafood, you pull a number for help here, one number machine is if you want cleaned fish, one if you don't. So funny. We never did find the deli section, at least we don't think we did. We did find rows and rows of yogurt, and a few different milks, we'll see how successful we were with our milk selection tomorrow when we have cereal for breakfast, we may stick to wine.

Driving in other countries – yup we`re figuring it out as we go along. Ireland honestly gave me nightmares,and there we had no option, I was the only insured driver so I had to drive, here Andre has been added as a second driver, just so he can experience the nightmares as well. It actually was a good day, just got honked at once, so pretty good start. But, the roundabouts, yep I will be a pro at the end of this holiday. This is right up there with Hemel Robin. Roundabout after roundabout after roundabout. I think I am doing OK, but haven`t quite figured out when I should take the left lane entry vs the right lane entry. I figure if I`m going by more than one exit in the roundabout I should enter on the left lane, is this correct, anyone...So happy we have rented a car, we have already seen a couple of little towns we`d like to venture into at some point, and tomorrow we have this exciting sausage festival to go to if Andre is up to it....

So we're off to a great start. The apartment it much smaller than we thought, but definitely perfect for 5 weeks for us. I don't think they get many people cooking too much here, definitely lacking in the pots/pans area, but we will do fine. Andre is snoring away right now on the couch. We have a lovely view of old town at night, lots of twinkling lights, and a pretty church.

View from apartment at night

 Hopefully Andre will feel better tomorrow, love to get some exploring done..Andre will update with pictures tomorrow. And, I apologize in advance for the pictures, we have a sunset view....