Side note: There are still cigarette vending machines here! We've seen lots of smokers and many vaping as well. It seems especially odd that we've seen many serious bikers, stop for a break & pull out their cigarettes!
Next morning we were back on the fast train to Lisbon. It was actually our least favorite train ride as our assigned seats were facing the opposite way the train was going, our window was dirty & besides we were going so fast, it was nauseating to try to see what we were going by. But we did get to Lisbon quickly. Took us a little while to find the room we'd booked which turned out to be a dump. We'd been so lucky so far! So instead of being miserable, we called it a loss & walked down a block & luckily found a nice room available! After a couple glasses of cold water & an orange, we felt ready to go to the aquarium. It had a humongous center tank divided with clear walls into 4 sections…one for each of the Atlantic, Pacific, Indian & Arctic Oceans. We saw several species we'd never seen before. It was very well done and included a film about some of the outreach projects they are involved in both working with other aquariums & environmentalists. We got back to our room about 8 ready for a good night's sleep.
Our last full day here, we took the subway to the Jeronimos Monestery. After waiting in line for this #1 Lisbon attraction, we had to admit that though it was beautiful, it wasn't the best we'd seen. Jaded is the word to describe us. From there we took the train to Cascais, a town on the Atlantic where the waves were huge and the beach was full of sun lovers & football games. I enjoyed soaking up some of that sun! We walked the streets admiring unique & well kept homes & along the ocean walkway which gave us views of lots of sailboats & yachts. When we got back to Lisbon, we had a delicious steak dinner & headed back to our hotel.
We both woke up our last day of this 10+ week trip feeling very much like we were ready to be home. We kind of bummed around just riding the trolley that we happened to get off at near St. Anthony's Church which had an attached museum that supposedly was the spot he was born. The museum was filled with a huge variety of statues of him. Since St. Anthony is the saint of lost things, it was a lucky find. He was also the one my mother prayed to the most as she was always losing things! We packed up & moved to a hotel close to the airport around 3. Played cards, had a pizza & tried to get to bed early as our flight leaves at 6:15 am. We'll fly 3 hours to Munich, then 9 to Toronto & the final 1 and a half to Detroit.
Well—that changed! And this is not an April Fool's joke!
We missed our connection to Detroit as our flight to Toronto landed late so they booked us for a later flight which got us almost to Detroit before turning around due to bad weather and taking us back to Toronto. They did give us a voucher for the airport hotel and we crashed around midnight. We'd been up 26 hours by then. So here we are in Toronto hoping to get on the flight scheduled at 3 pm to day! We can only laugh and realize this is part of traveling too!
If all goes well, Dick & Nell will pick us up, we'll go out to dinner, pick up a few groceries and be home around 8 pm tonight…April 1st. Ben & Bek's family will be coming home from their spring break trips today also.
So that'll end this jam-packed trip to Gambia, Morocco & Portugal!
