Already I have had tours of all the major airports in Portugal. Well there are only two, Porto and LIsbon. Porto's is brand new and almost empty. Lisbon's is bustling and modern. Let me bring you back a little. I was in New York City.
I gave myself three hours to get to the airport from my hotel. Despite the little "airplane icon" on the map at Grand Central Station, I had to take a shuttle and subway from there to Penn Station to get the train to Newark Airport. Security went smoothly. The part of the airport where I sat, the TAP Portugal wing, was tiny and reminded me of the Palm Springs, California airport. As I sat down to wait for the plane I hear the distinctive "Shhhw" sounds of Portuguese. Families sat around me. Then a young lady sat next to me and asked if I could get an Internet connection. I said, "Only if I pay for it." We started up a nice conversation- and my sincerest apologies if she reads this, but my first impression was that she was about 13 years old. I said as much to her and she said that her mother looked young and she thought that it was a good thing. Miranda studies art at the technical college in Rochester, New York. Often she visits Portugal with her extended family. She said that this summer her dad is playing drums on a cruise. "That's the kind of gig that I want." I said.
As seems usual these days when I arrive at the airport very early, the plane is late. I'll spare you the details but we left Newark about 9:30 PM, an hour an half late. TAP left the lights on for about the first two hours and fed us. I watched "Alice in Wonderland". (no comment) The plane landed at 9:15 AM, just 15 minutes after my connection to Rome left. As I walked toward the passport check in Porto, I was approached by two TAP agents. "Mr. Lynch, we've made a flight change for you. You will take this plane to Lisbon. Then from Lisbon, you will take another plane to Rome." "Lisbon!" I said in disbelief. "I'm sorry there are no other plane to Rome from here... Also we have provided you a breakfast voucher."
The 10:30 plane was uneventful. Well, I have been eating well on Portugese airlines- dinner last night, breakfast on the plane, breakfast with the voucher, lunch on the plane to Rome- a hotdog this time served with your choice of wine.
The view of Lisbon was gorgeous- a big beautiful city on hills by a large bay, like San Francisco's. The plane from Lisbon was not to leave until 2:40 PM. My chief concern was to contact my host who was to meet me at 3 PM in Rome with the keys to the apartment. Stop here if you are not into hearing about telephone and Internet problems.
I first tried my European cell phone. Riccardo had warned me that the chips automatically stop working after several months of non use, and so mine did not work. I tried a couple of public phones that ask for change or a credit card. Our US credit cards do not work with these phones. My Euro coins were buried deep in my "man purse" somewhere. I decided to try the Internet. First I paid 2 Euros with a credit card to get a half hour of service. I wrote Giuseppi and email. Then I tried to use Skype. Everything on Skype seemed to work well, except when it came for paying for the call. My little laptop screen made it difficult to put in information to pay by Paypal or credit card- and the last thing that I remember is a spinning ball and lock icon with the words "contacting the account of Edward Lynch". After 20 minutes I gave up and shut down my computer. In desperation I went to a TAP ticket agent, since they were the ones who got me into this. The agent said that they could not call because they were all internal phones. But she came up with an idea- buy a phone card and so I did. After some jiggling with the payphone I finally managed to contact Guiseppi. We would meet in front of the apartment in Rome at 8 PM.
And so it happened. I am here in Rome.
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