Our alarm went off bright and early at 5 a.m. I could hear Ray and Brenda moving around in the other room. I got up, did my bathroom stuff, got dressed and finished packing up my suitcase and backpack. I grabbed the rest of the snacks we bought at the store and packed those up too. Ben got ready and finished up his last-minute packing as well. We loaded up the car and started our 2.5-hour drive north to Lisbon. Ray tried to see if we could get a shuttle, but they were too expensive.
Along the way, we ate our donuts, yogurt, bananas and oranges for breakfast. We chatted off and on, through an array of topics, while we drove. Ben fell asleep a few times when I noticed he stopped eating his breakfast. I worried that we were not going to have enough time to get to the airport, check in, drop our bags off and get to our gate in time. But then, I always worry about stuff like that.
We went over the Vasco da Gama Bridge and into Lisbon. We were making great time until we came to a standstill a few miles from our exit. It was morning traffic gridlock. I started to get even more anxious. Uh oh, were we going to make it in time? We got closer to the airport, and the traffic started to line up in the right lane for the exit to the airport. It inched along. We were so close.
We eventually got off the freeway, made our way through several roundabouts and followed the signs for the departures. Ray found a place to pullover, but it was so crazy, we grabbed our luggage from the back, made sure we had our backpacks, hugged them through the windows and thanked them for letting us stay and spend time with them. I told them that we would see them in June when they come to Spokane for Matthew's college graduation. I told them we would update them along the way and rolled our luggage towards the entrance to the airport. They drove off in their little white car back down to Pêra.
Ben and I went inside, made our way to the check in area for Delta. We got our bags checked; Ben got his fragile sticker put on his bag and the clerk gave us our boarding passes for both flights. I should have asked if our bags were going all the way through to SeaTac, but I guess we will find out when we got to Boston. We had to wait in line, went through security. I texted Liz to let her know we were on our way back home and asked if her surgery went well. My bag had to be screened further, luckily it was quick and nothing was wrong with it.
We grabbed our stuff and looked or our departure gate. We hiked to that one while we did the adventure lab inside the airport. We found our gate, set our stuff down and relaxed for a bit. Before it was almost time to go, we both used the restroom and they set the area up for passport control. It was odd that they did it at the gate. We got through passport control and got in another line to board the plane. We found our seats and got comfortable. I let Ben sit at the window seat since I had it on the way to Europe. We had an eight-hour flight ahead of us, but least it wasn't a 10-hour flight like it was on the way over. Our flight left late due to congestion on the runway.
Ben watched movies while I needed to read my book for February. I was behind on my reading because of how busy we were in February. The last time I was at Costco, I had purchased another Freida McFadden book called The Crash, because the price was a steal! They fed us lunch, which wasn't that bad, and Ben had some gluten free options.
For the next five hours of and on I read that entire book. It reminded me of the Stephen King book, Misery. I also dozed off a time or two. Ben did several times throughout the flight.
We finally arrived in Boston. You could see the airport as we descended onto the runway. We pulled up to our gate, and we were patient getting off the plane.
Once we were able to, we went into Boston-Logan and meandered our way through the corridors to the international arrivals. We waited in a long line to enter back into the US. While in line, I adjusted my phone, so I wasn't on my international plan anymore. I noticed a text message from Liz, she said that surgery went well, thankfully, and to have a good trip home! I responded that it was great to hear her surgery went well and that we were in Boston, getting ready for one more flight.
This was the quickest passport control we went through the entire trip. They scanned our passports, asked us a few questions and welcomed us back home. Ben and I had to go pick up our suitcases and check them back in, luckily, it was done right there with the clerk, so it was a fast process. Now, we had to go through security again, ugh! Thankfully, it was a speedy process and none of us or our bags had to pulled aside for extra screening. We walked to our gate, and it seemed to be far away from everything.
We got onto an escalator, went up, and at the top a Buffalo Wild Wings Go welcomed us to Boston (and our gate, lol), it was meant to be! We checked to see where our gate was and then walked back to BWW for an impromptu date night. We had roughly four hours to kill before boarding started. We ordered our food, sat down, ate our food and enjoyed the afternoon. Now I can say I've had Buffalo Wild Wings in Boston, Massachusetts. It was awesome!
While we were checking where our gate was, I noticed a Harpoon Brewery, could this day get ANY better? It sure can! Harpoon Brewery had my favorite beer of all time, UFO Wild Maine Blueberry! I was so stoked! I haven't had any since the fall of 2022 at the Cheers bar in Boston. When we were done eating, we wandered on over there and ordered myself a pint. Ben got a different beer to try, hoping it was a good idea. We sat at a vacant table and enjoyed our beers. Ben tried a sip of mine and agreed that it was delicious.
We finished up our beers, used the restroom one more time and headed back to our gate. Boarding was about 15 minutes or so away, so we just chilled until it was our turn to get into line. We boarded, found our seats and I was next to the window this time. This flight was a little over five hours long. Most of this flight, I wrote in my journal and dozed off and on. At this point, I was so tired, I had no idea what time or day it was. I could not wait until we go home for a shower and to sleep in my own bed. At one point it was too dark to do anything, so we just slept until we were about an hour away from Seattle. Ben watched movies and dozed off.
We touched down in Seattle, we got to our gate, I turned my phone on and was glad to be home. I enjoyed the honeymoon, Europe and my time with Ben, but it was for a shower and sleep! I texted my family's group chat and Trish to let us know we made it to Seattle safely. We patiently waited for our turn to get off the plane; we used the restroom and made our way to the luggage carousel. We waited for my obnoxious orange suitcase and Ben's rollie bag. He was anxious to see if his expensive bottle of alcohol made it the 5,000+ miles from Portugal to Seattle. We grabbed our bags and let Josh know to come get us. He was parked in the cell phone lot. He rolled up, we threw in our bags, and we left to get onto I-5 south towards home.
Ben and I have been up for over 24 hours through several time zones. We were tired. We chatted about our trip as Josh drove. We got home just after midnight, took our luggage in, Ben gave Josh his whiskey and thanked Josh for driving us to and from the airport. We unpacked some of our stuff, got in a shower and went to bed around 1:30 a.m. For reasons beyond me I got up at 8:00 a.m. the next day. Being halfway around the world for about two weeks messes up your internal clock. For the next several days, I was getting up at weird times and going to bed at weird times.
I finally made it over to Europe and I want to go back to experience different countries. Hopefully it's sooner rather than later.
Some notes:
We found 54 geocaches in 5 different countries.
We got a FTF in Portugal and found the oldest geocache in Europe (GC43).
I have now been to 11 countries.
This was Ben's first time out of the country besides Canada.
We drove our rental car 1,521 miles.
Next Adventure: Ben and Grandma Karen's Birthday Party
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