During the height of Covid after being home for awhile, like others, B-Rod and I missed travel a ton. We lamented that not only could we not go anywhere, we also questioned if we had really taken advantage of the flight privileges we get from B-Rod’s job. We vowed if we were ever able to travel again, and he was able to get his flight privileges re-established we would take more adventures including going places we hadn’t been even if for short periods of time.
So, when B-Rod found himself with some unexpected days off, we took it as an opportunity to continue doing what we had vowed to do. This is a tale of two experiences . . . . a few days in Lisbon and probably an equal amount of time in airports and airplanes and airport hotels having issues with possibly every flight we took!
A Few Days in Lisbon
With Brian’s schedule freed up, we decided on a Friday to go somewhere and put ourselves on the list for various flights to get us to Lisbon, Portugal on Monday.
And . . . that’s pretty much the extent of the research we did! 😆 B-Rod had an idea of some places to stay that we might want to book once we got on flights. He was adamant that this was simply days off and not a vacation, and maybe I just simply went with that, or I had other things on my mind. Either way, we kind of went in with the attitude that we simply wanted to get a feel for the place to see if it’s a place we’d like to come back to, and to sample the food (a HUGE part in our travels!)
It wasn’t the best weather, and many flights had problems flying in the first day we were there because of heavy rain and winds, but it did clear up one day for our food tour (which was the only thing we had booked)
So, instead of telling you too much about the city (we didn’t have a lot of time to dig into the history), we’ll simply show you what we came across in our wanders.
Then of course, there was the food!
Otherwise, we learned a lot and got to sample different foods during our walking/food tour
Alheira was first made by Jewish people during the Portugese Inquisition when there was an order that Jews must convert to Christianity. They invented this dish to make it appear as if they were eating pork, making it seem as if they had converted.
On our last full day, it was pouring rain, so we decided it would be a good day to go to a famous monastery. We had to take a bus to get there, but at the bus stop, in the rain, we realized what a ridiculous idea this was. EVERYONE wanted to be inside on that day, and it felt like EVERYONE was at the bus stop waiting for the same bus. So, knowing that this was a recipe for one or both of us to go crazy, we chose to ditch that plan and walk a short distance to the cod museum instead!
Only a handful of people, I loved that there were props to dress up in, interactive displays, and it got us out of the rain without having to stand in any kind of line for hours. Win, win, win!
We enjoyed our time in Lisbon, but knew going into it that it would only be a very small snapshot of Portugal. Next time, we’ll definitely venture out of the city and seeing more of the beauty of this country.
Tales from the Standby Lane
Though our time in Lisbon was great, in some ways it was slightly eclipsed by how much bad luck we seemed to have with our standby flights this trip. We couldn’t really say it was frustrating because, well . . . . we know what we’re signing up for when we fly this way. But, we seemed to have problems/issue with almost every flight we tried to take this time. By the end, it was quite laughable and is an experience that definitely humbled us and prevents us from getting too cocky!
For those that don’t know, we have access to flight passes with B-Rod’s job. There are various types of passes we have access to, but we’ve always chosen the standby option partly because it’s more economical, but possibly mostly because there is a sense of adventure in the whole experience! Basically, if there is a seat on the flight, and we are next on the list (for the most part), it is ours. You’d think after having flown this way for so many years we’d get used to it, but . . . . . there is still often a range of emotions (anticipation, excitement, disappointment, defeat) that can go into any flight we try to catch.
Our first flight ended up changing plane types from a bigger one to a smaller one. So, thinking that we’d easily walk on, we ended up getting to the airport and then being left behind which screwed up our connections for the next flight which means we didn’t even make it out of Kelowna on the first day!
Our second attempt, the next day, saw B-Rod going to Calgary a flight ahead of me because there was only a “special” seat available that he has access to and none were available on the plane for me.
In London, we had boarding passes for our next flight to Lisbon. We saw the actual plane we were supposed to take and were excited that we were about to quickly step off one flight and onto the next. But, somewhere along the way, the signage got confusing, sent us out of security and these same boarding passes (which were gold a minute ago) wouldn’t scan us back through security, and we were unable to make up the time we’d lost to actually catch that flight.
On our flight leaving Paris, there was some issue with the app when we tried to check-in. This put us further down the list than we are comfortable being. We ended up missing that flight by possibly 1-2 spots (had we been able to check in earlier and been higher on the list, we would have made it)
Neither of us even noticed until well after we landed in Vancouver that, out of habit, B-Rod had listed us on a flight to Calgary instead of to Kelowna. We were able to change that flight, but ended up on a later flight to Kelowna which ended up further delayed by several hours due to weather.
In the end, the time we spent travelling may have actually been close to the same amount of time we spent in Lisbon!
Now, having said that, I will also say, I still LOVE the adventure of standby passes, I still LOVE flying, and I still LOVE hanging out in airports. Which is good . . . . because there is an adventure that is coming up for me very soon which will have me stepping back into the standby game and the whole range of emotions that come along with it!
