Bill&Theresa: Blending work and fun! Days 1-3

We have come to realize we do not live normal lives! (Some of you may have concluded this long ago!) When Bill was asked to support a work related project in Lisbon, of course the first thing we did was say “How can we make this a family trip?” And we answered that in traditional “You did what?” fashion.

Countries =

Countries + 1

Since Bill was traveling on “the company”, there was rather limited options on how to get there. Theresa got to choose her routing, but also “got to” pay for it. So, we did some juggling and came up with a plan. On Friday, Bill dropped off Theresa at the airport on his way to the office. She flew to LAX, then 2 hours later to London Heathrow (Business Class, thank you very much!), and after another 2 hours, on to Lisbon, Portugal. She slept a bit, watched some movies, and enjoyed a very nice dinner. Bill, after a few hours in the office, headed to the airport to fly to Madrid, Spain (coach), and then a few hours later, on to Lisbon. He did not sleep, watched a movie and a half, actually did some work, and made nice with the cabin crew, and got an “upgraded snack”. Amazingly, Theresa got to baggage claim about 10 minutes before Bill. So, we grabbed an Uber to our hotel.

Decisions, decisions, decisions....

I might be going coach, but I'm preparing in style!

Obviously, this belongs here!

Welcome from Marriott...not sure what the drink is.

At the hotel (Marriott), we checked in, and got ready to head down to the lounge (for drinks and hor d’oeuvres). We managed to stay awake through a beer and some chorizo rolls and a mushroom stroganoff with peas on rice (yeah…you read that right). Back upstairs, we tried to stay up until 8:30, but by 7:50 it was clearly a futile effort.

The view from our room.

We were right across from the "Catholic University" in Lisbon.

Sunday we woke up at 6-6:30. We grabbed a nice breakfast complete with mimosas (ok, one mimosa…for Bill; minus the orange juice). We caught the 9AM bus to Fatima. The bus station was a mere 20 minutes away (mostly downhill)(mostly cobblestone). 90 minutes later, we were in Fatima and started checking it out. For those who don’t know, in 1917, the Virgin Mary appeared to three young shepherd children six times. It has since become a pilgrimage site with millions of visitors per year.

Sure, it's the wrong color, but it's still gorgeous, right? :-)

The central plaza facing the Basilica

We stood in the central plaza for Mass, and then explored the basilica and the grounds. There was a large pyre, and hundreds of people were lined up with candles to apparently light and throw into the fire. We weren’t sure what that was all about, but after a few hours, we were pretty much done and the line had died down to a dozen. So, we bought a few candles and lit them. We kept 3 to send back to certain people, and placed the others in the fire.

The procession. We didn't do enough research to know the details
but obviously they process in with a statue of the Virgin Mary.
And yes, there is the Bishop on the left.
And no, he doesn't just move diagonally!!

The recession...there were a LOT of Priests!

Proof we were there!

Who doesn't like curvy colonnaded galleries?

Inside the Basilica

Curves. Colonnade. Whoop whoop!!

They haven't long...

By then, we were getting hangry. So, we headed to our second pilgrimage. Bill’s goal of eating McDonalds in every country was notched up by one! The booth was…not clean. So, Bill picked up the fries’ container left wedged between the booth backs and tossed it into a “receptacle”, and used the table tent number to push crumbs off the end. Our food arrived!! They had soup as one of the sides, so Theresa tried that. It was…not hot. After our culinary exploration, Theresa noted people seemed to be leaving trash on the tables, but Bill being the thoughtful sort of person, gathered up our trash and headed to the receptacle. It was a rather small round hole, and difficult to get all of the trash in, so he diligently fed the trash in a handful at a time. Only at the end, with just the paper left on the tray, the attendant came by and opened the trash chute to put the paper in. At that point, it was more evident that the hole was for recyclables. Whoops!! Time to go!!!

It's hard to argue with a $1.81 bottle of wine!
(Yes, it's hard to argue with ANY bottle of wine!)

The bus ride home wasn’t eventful (notwithstanding the woman across the aisle who talked non-stop on her phone for the whole 90 minutes). At the bus stop, there was a grocery store, so we got some provisions, and then we hiked back (uphill) to the hotel. After a pit stop in the room to shed some sweaty clothes we headed down and virtually collapsed at the lounge, decompressing over a couple of “cervejas” followed by some wine. Back to the room, we noticed they gave us a turn down service. (Yikes, maybe we should have cleaned up a bit? Oh well!).