Europe 2011 - Getting Started

Saturday - June 11 - Day minus 1
A big thank you to Cameron for coming down to Sweet Home to pick us up in his pride and joy, his big blue Mercedes Sprinter van. 

Sunday - June 12 - Day 0
Cameron, Meagan, and Megan treated us to breakfast, then dropped us off at the Portland Airport for leg 1 of our journey, PDX to Seattle leaving at 1:30 pm. It only took an hour to check in and get through security and most of that was Alaska Airlines trying to figure out how much to charge us for the bikes since they were our connection to Icelandair.

Leg 2 - Seattle to Reflavik, Iceland - It was a beautiful flight and because it is mid-June the sun never sets along this route. It made it hard to sleep though we did doze periodically as we zoomed through the time zones at 39,000 feet and lost a night.

Monday- June 13 - Day 1There was a video screen on the back of all the seats and one of the options besides TV and movies was information about Iceland and about the flight itself. It told us where we were and how long the rest of the flight would take - very helpful indeed. We landed in Iceland about 6:30am their time and it looked pretty chilly outside. Since this was considered our entry into the European Union, we had to go through security again and this is where they stamped our passports. It made the one hour layover go pretty darn quick. Fortunately it is a small airport so we had no trouble getting to our next gate in time for Leg 4, Iceland to Amsterdam. 

Once in Amsterdam, we left the international terminal with all our luggage, including the bike boxes, which we were relieved to see were still in one piece and in the same place we were. It was a bit of a challenge maneuvering the cart through all the doors between the international and domestic terminals! We had to check in again with Transavia (KLM's discount airline) for Leg 5, our flight from Amsterdam to Lisbon. Our bodies weren't really sure what time it was by now except that we had been mostly awake for a really long time, so we both promptly fell asleep before the airplane even left the ground and woke up when the tires hit the tarmac at the other end.

Lisbon at last! We called the hotel for the shuttle only to be informed that they had stopped running at 7:30 pm and it was now 8 pm. The nice man on the phone asked if a taxi would work but none of the ones we had seen so far looked big enough for the bike boxes. He said he would meet us in 5 minutes just outside the terminal which he did. He took one look at this pile of stuff and zoomed off again, coming back in about 10 minutes followed by a very large Mercedes van (how ironic). That worked! He gave us a ride in his sedan listening to Elvis Presley and asking about the NBA finals and was very pleased that he had been able to help us............so were we.

Tuesday - June 14 - Day 2
This was our day to get our act together as well as the bikes. We took a bus to the Vasco de Gama mall to successfully acquire a cell phone; look for white gas, not successful; check out the ferry terminal and schedules, successful. We also ate our first pastela de nata, a small pie with puff pastry crust and custard filling that is very tasty. Forgot to take the cameras with us since we thought of it as a business trip.