Portugal Day 1

So my trip to finally get to see Jerry after 2.5 months of separation began on June 5th. I had originally planned on flying out of Savannah at around 3:30 and then catch the flight from Atlanta to Madrid at 6:40. Well, after a quick look at the weather on Friday morning I realized I needed to get the heck out of Savannah earlier if possible. At the slightest hint of bad weather either here or Atlanta, and that flight is the first to get cancelled. It would not have been pretty had my flight been cancelled! So I called Delta on the way in to work and sure enough, I could get on the 11:45 flight to Atlanta (for what was supposed to be a $100 change fee....but they never asked for my credit card at check in!). I had to go in and do a few things before leaving the office, so Mom took Carrie to the Barnes & Noble to check out the books and get some Starbucks then picked me up around 10:30. Love flying out of Savannah - even if your flight is at 11:45 you can pretty much guarantee it won't be hard to get through security or anything. Of course, when I got there and got to the kiosk to check in, the stupid machine had no record of my reservation. Panic ensues (it's what I'm good at), but I finally flagged down an agent and told her what was going on. She was able to pull up my reservation and got me all checked in and ready to go!

By this time it was about 11, so I needed to scoot through security and get settled at the gate. Carrie was fine til I tried to kiss her goodbye and she lost it, which made me lose it. I'm walking down to the security line and I can hear her wailing :( I got through security with no problems, got my Java Chip Frappuchino and got settled at the gate. I called my mom to check on Carrie and she says "Oh yeah, she's fine now. As soon as we left you she spotted a dog in the airport and was totally fine." Gee, glad I'm so easily replaced!!

The flight to Atlanta was fine. Got there and had some lunch at Chilis while sitting next to a rather rude woman. She engaged me in conversation and, when I told her where I was going, she couldn't quite comprehend why on earth I wouldn't quit my job and move to Portugal while Jerry was there. Gee lady, as great as that sounds, I can't really abandon my job and uproot Carrie and all that. I just finished my lunch as quickly as possible and got the heck out of there!!

Let me say that I am spoiled for life now....anytime I fly anywhere as far away as Portugal I'm gonna want to fly first class. It was so amazing!! I actually slept on the plane, quite comfortably actually, and it was just a really nice experience. I mean, it doesn't really make me love flying by any stretch, but it did help the anxiety level.

Got in to Madrid around 9:30am their time (that'd be 3:30am east coast time), and had to do the whole customs/recheck bag thing and went to wait on my flight to Vigo where Jerry was going to pick me up. That flight was uneventful, and I landed around 1pm their time. I was SO excited to see Jerry that I managed to walk right out of the secure area...without retrieving my luggage. Great. I found Jerry and he was like "Um, glad to see you, but didn't you bring any clothes for the next 10 days?" So we had to track someone down that would take pity on the poor brainless pregnant woman and let me back in to get my bags. Retrieved my bags and we were off!

Jerry warned me about the rental car before we even got to it. It was a nasty shade of brown, so I'm sure you can imagine the nicknames he gave it. We piled in and started to head back to Porto. We did stop in one little town (Jerry - what was the name of it??) and saw a really pretty church on top of a hill that had great views. We also managed to see a bride while there. We were there for about an hour or so, then headed off to look for some food. These people eat at weird hours. I think it was like 4pm or so when we stopped at a restaurant and had some pizza. I was pretty impressed with Jerry's Portuguese; that is, until the waitress stopped him at one point and said "You can speak English." I think Jerry felt a little put off, but I think he was doing a great job :)

We made it back to Porto and I have to say his accomodations are actually pretty good. Good thing since he's been there for 6 months. He's got a kitchen area, a TV (with mainly Portuguese channels, of course), a sitting area, and then the bedroom is separate. We pretty much just dropped off my stuff then headed out to attempt to secure reservations on the hotel train from Lisbon to Madrid for 6/8. We got to the train station and that particular one had already closed their international counter, so we had to go one stop up to the next station. Got there, Jerry didn't have his passport so we couldn't get the Eurail passes validated. Go back to original train station to get Jerry's backpack out of the car which has his passport (all the while me doing the mommy thing saying "Why don't you have your passport on you ANYWAYS???"), go back up to the other station and get our reservations and then go back to original train station. Oy.

Then we go park the car at the hotel and start walking. Not really my idea of fun after a long day of travel, but okay. It was very interesting to see everything that Jerry's been talking about for months. We went to the grocery store which was an experience and an education all in one, seeing the different meats/fish they eat. After that we went back and had dinner at the hotel. By this time it was about 10pm! Very late to me, but apparently very normal. The only good thing was that this certainly got me on track for not having jet lag the next day!!