Leaving on a Jet Plane

Wednesday and Thursday, October 29 and 30, 2025

Welcome, or welcome back, to my travel blog. We have some new readers, so I think I will go over some of the blog fundamentals at the end of this installment of The Traveling Blogcrastinator. 

About 3 weeks ago an unwelcome visitor made its presence known at our house. (This doesn’t have anything to do with travel, but stay with me. We will eventually get to the travel connection.) Our visitor hid in the garage for a while, but then found its way upstairs. If you haven’t guessed yet, it was a scream-triggering mouse. It scurried out of the kitchen one evening when I entered and turned on the light. I was outraged that this creature, that had no right to, had broken into our house and made itself at home. It brazenly sniffed around in our living quarters, popping up randomly to scare me. I stopped going barefoot, and had to sleep with a nightlight. 

The horrible little thing showed itself one time too many and we were able to sequester it in an unused bedroom. By the time the exterminator arrived, the invading mouse had nearly expired - due to lack of water and food, we think. For those three or four days while it was with us, I was feeling terrorized. And for a few days after, until we were reasonably sure the problem had been solved, I had a little bit of PTSD. We are now the proud owners of many mouse traps.

A few days later I flew to Boston to attend my 50th law school reunion. I don’t plan to blog about the reunion much, to respect the privacy of all the folks I interacted with there. I will just say that it was fabulous, and I’m so glad I went. Nearly everyone who attended the reunion has grown up to be a decent, honorable, thoughtful, and kind individual who has done much good in the world, and I am so proud of my class.

After a long weekend of awesome reunioning, I went to Cape Cod with several of the women from my class to spend some unstructured time together. Cape Cod is so lovely, even in autumn. It was a fantastic gathering, despite the fact that I came down with one of my trademarked super-bad-cold-plus-sinus infections.

On October 29, we all left Cape Cod, feeling a wonderful glow - and this is where today’s blog post really begins.

I took a Peter Pan bus from Cape Cod to Boston’s Logan airport, clutching a good-sized brown paper bag of OTC cold medicines, prescriptions, and Kleenex packets. The bus trip was convenient, cheap, and uneventful, and Ken and I met up at the airport according to plan.

After we checked in, we went to one of the airport lounges to wait for boarding time. As I relaxed in a comfortable chair to read an interesting book, I glanced up, and what should I see, but a nasty little mouse running right towards me from under the seats directly across from me. I scared the little creep away by screaming shrilly.

Shortly thereafter I decided it would be a good idea to leave the lounge forthwith and proceed to the gate. I mentioned to one of the lounge hostesses that I had seen a mouse. She was aware that there were mice there and said that there were many mice at the airport. (And there are also some roaches there - I know this for a fact.)   I was shocked to think that the airport had mice, but after thinking about it more, I thought, “Of course they have mice. How would you ever rid an airport of mice?”

I was so discombobulated by the mouse sighting that I left the lounge, leaving my cellphone behind at one of those little charging stations. A very heroic woman chased us down at the gate and returned my phone to me. This blog might have had an unhappy ending if not for her.

As we boarded our international flight we had to show our passports twice to airline employees. But, what made this flight different, was having to then show our passports to two Customs and Border Protection agents, who took our photos to compare them with the passports. 

Did you ever wonder why airplane water tastes funny?

The pilot (not the co-pilot) was a Portuguese woman. She did a nice job. We encountered a lot of turbulence over the Atlantic. During a lull, breakfast was served, but then it got rough again, and most of my coffee sloshed out of the cup and onto my tray. I was glad I didn’t end up wearing it. 

Along with the usual movies, there was a podcast called “Practice Portuguese.” I watched several episodes. It was fun and now I can say “I don’t speak Portuguese” in Portuguese. 

The plane was an A321LR. I didn’t like the configuration of the business class seats and I thought the service could have been a little more attentive. I don’t think I would fly TAP Air Portugal again, but it was a better value than Delta, and it wasn’t bad, just less good than it should have been.

At first they thought I had pre-ordered the beef dinner, but when I said I had ordered the ravioli dinner they were able to give me ravioli and it was delicious. It was listed as “ravioli with squash and kale,” but I am quite certain it was spinach, not kale. Ken thought his beef dinner was terrible.

Ravioli dinner

We landed in Lisbon at 5:30 a.m. and before long we were in an Uber on the way to our hotel in the Rossio district of Lisbon. The Hotel Avenida Palace is an elegant Old World style hotel, built in 1892 right next to a railroad station.

Rossio Railroad Station has some charming horseshoe arches at the entrance.

The staff was most welcoming and very efficient. It was not yet 7:00 a.m., so of course our room wasn’t ready. We were invited to partake of the breakfast buffet and were told they would call us when our room was ready and they would keep our bags for us. The breakfast buffet was excellent. I was excited to be able to try pastéis. A pastel (sing.) is a lovely little egg custard tart that is considered a Portuguese national dish.

Pastéis

After eating, we decided to go out and walk around. We also had a few items we had planned to buy in Lisbon. There weren’t too many people wandering the streets, so I decided that this would be a goood time to look for a geocache. There was a 5-stage cache that started across the street from the hotel, so I picked that one to do first. The directions were a little tricky, but I managed to get the first four stages (“waypoints”) done. I needed to go back to the hotel to study it more before attempting the final waypoint.

There is a lot to see here. I can’t wait to explore more of Lisbon.

One of Lisbon’s iconic streetcars

Two of Lisbon’s iconic tiled buildings

The iconic Santa Justa Elevator offers access to an upper neighborhood which can’t be seen in this photo. A walkway extends out behind the top of the lift and connects to the upper neighborhood. Yes, there are some very steep hills here.

The Castle of St. George - This fortification was built by the Moors in the 10th century CE and was conquered by the Portuguese in 1147 during the Reconquista.

We were in our room by 9:30 a.m. We started to unpack and organize ourselves.

That bed kept telling me I needed a nap, especially since I usually don’t sleep on red-eyes, so there was nap today. Eventually we started to feel human again.

During the cocktail hour, the hotel always has live music in their bar. We went down to relax before dinner and I had a peach daiquiri. It was one of the best cocktails I have ever had.

The bar at the Avenida Palace

For dinner we went to a Portuguese restaurant called Pinóquio. People here eat at 8, or 9, or even later. We had to wait 40 minutes to get in. We ate outdoors under a big tent or awning. I had cod with rice and prawns. It was a generous portion of a rather bland dish.

[Tip: In Lisbon it might be worthwhile to make a reservation for dinner.]

Today’s fabric is a soft wool or wool blend Filson blanket that I used on Alaska Airlines while flying to Boston a few days ago. The Filson company was founded in Seattle 1897 to outfit Alaska prospectors during the Klondike Gold Rush, and Filson continued to produce outdoor wear for loggers, hunters, and other outdoors types. 

Some Blog Fundamentals

This is going to be short. Maybe I will expand it another time.

1. Please feel free to comment through the Blogger app. I love getting comments.

2. This is a travel blog. I try to keep politics out of it. Do not assume I am unaware of current events just because I don’t mention them.

3. You are receiving this blog because you asked to be placed on my mailing list. If you wish to stop receiving it, let me know. I understand that reading about someone else's vacation might not be fun for you. However, before you quit, please look at “Why Do I Blog” for a better understanding of this blog.

4. Most of the photos were taken by Ken. I took a few of them. If someone else took one, I try to give them credit.