Careful Planning vs Skill vs Luck

Portugal September - October 2013;
Sintra, Portugal
Upon arrival at the Lisbon airport, we boarded buses to take us from the tarmac to the terminal. Being our first experience with Portuguese drivers, our expectations were met. Our bus nearly collided with the other bus from the plane. Or at least that was our perception. I turned to John and said, "We DID read how bad the drivers are."

The Journey

Traveling week in and week out is very wearing on John. However, through that, he has obtained two "statuses:" a high level of frequent flyer at United and TSA Pre-check.

The former has automatic upgrades if available and he can upgrade a companion. Good thing I'm companionable on most days. We got upgraded for our domestic leg. Too bad he doesn't have Grand Poobah standing, otherwise we might have gotten upgraded on the overseas segment.

The second status lets John go through the same TSA security as the crew. It is how travel used to be and is very civilized: laptops stay in your bag, you can keep all your clothes on, etc. Unfortunately, companions are not recognized.  John, being magnanimous to only a certain degree, left me to stand in line with the general populous, including a Pomeranian in a stroller. TWENTY-FIVE MINUTES LATER John said, "I thought you'd been arrested it took so long."


Fifteen hours after that we arrived at London Heathrow where we did not have to clear customs, but did have to go through security. Their TSA equivalent wants to know how they are doing and you only need to be semi-literate. Should the U.S. adopt this? Would we need more than four emoticons?


Also, can someone explain this?

Careful Planning

Hertz gave us a very nice Peugot wagon, complete with GPS and air conditioning. The first thing I learned is I need to know GPS Portuguese for the street names as it could never find the street I entered. But, anticipating such issues, I carefully printed Google driving instructions with individual street view pictures for each turn.  As we missed one of our exits, which I recognized from a Google picture, I had to toss "careful planning." (Transportation engineers outside the U.S., in general, need lessons in signage.)

Incredibly, we drove straight to our hotel in 30 minutes. John said it was skill. I think luck had a lot to do with it.

Skill did play a major role in John being able to navigate the EXTREMELY narrow streets that have HUGE numbers of HUGE tourist buses and pedestrians in the middle of the road. Neither the car nor any people were damaged. I regret not having any pictures to illustrate this, but I was too focused on providing verbal cues when we got too close to a wall.  John said when he retires, he's moving here to start an organization to have the buses banned.

Food!

Our timing was off due to the travel and we wanted only a light lunch to tide us over to dinner. Sintra is very hilly and there are a lot of restaurants and shops up a maze of steep passage-like sidewalks. We found a very quaint little restaurant, Taseo do Xico, up one set of stairs. The waitress suggested an assortment of appetizers consisting of fish cakes (cod, prawn, and something else), a cod salad, and octopus salad. It was all very good and the octopus was my favorite.  At the end of the meal, we were given a little glass of Portuguese liqueur. I did not catch the name. It is dark brown and has a licorice in flavor, similar to Ouzo, yet a bit smoother.  More than one little glass might be a bad idea.
The photo below is taken from our table.  Not surprisingly, the further up you walk from the busy streets, the less touristy and more authentic the restaurants become. I prefer to believe the further up you walk, the more calories you burn, and the more food you can eat. 

A Rare Picture

Returning to our hotel to check in, a young couple asked us to take their picture with the Sintra National Palace in the background.  We visited with them for a while. The woman lives in San Antonio and her boyfriend is Romanian and used to live in Houston.  The world is just not very big anymore. In return, they took our picture. This is extremely rare because we are both in it. While not our best, I think we look darn good for having had no significant sleep in the previous 27 hours nor the opportunity to "freshen up."