GOODBYE SPAIN  HELLO  PORTUGAL

June 17-22, 2004

We spent the last few days of our stay in La Antilla enjoying the sunny weather, the beach and the town.  We did a few auto excursions out into the countryside, but mostly just enjoyed the local scene.

On Sunday, June 20 Francisco and Yolanda and Paloma (their daughter), our exchangers, joined us for lunch.  We had such a good time talking and visiting and learning about each other.  We were sorry to hear that they had decided to cancel their trip to California, but we hope they will come soon.  Also, we were sorry to hear that they would be selling their La Antilla condo.  That is, until we learned that they would be moving into a larger, more deluxe condo on the other side of town.  We took a stroll by the Miramar and it looks fabulous.  They will have 5 bedrooms and 4 baths and a huge deck.  Maybe we can come back for another visit someday.

Tuesday morning Pablo, the boyfriend of one of Francisco’s daughters, came by and drove us into Faro.  We were able to leave our luggage at the reception desk of the medical clinic where Pablo works and then we went into the old town.  There we visited the walled part of the city, the old church, and the museum.  We stopped for a picnic lunch in a park and strolled through the pedestrian mall and shopping area.  Around 4:30 pm we arranged a cab to take us to the clinic to pick up our luggage and then on to the airport to check in for our 7 pm flight. 

We got to the airport in plenty of time and so I played monopoly while Don dozed.  When our check in opened we went to the counter and got rid of our bags and preceded to the boarding area.  By 6:40 we began to get antsy.  No boarding call.  Don began to worry that we were at the wrong gate.  At 6:55, still no boarding call, I wandered over to the TV monitor to check the status.  Flight delayed until 9pm!

There was not enough time to go somewhere, so we decided to tough it out in the waiting area.  Don got himself some overpriced food at the snack bar and we waited.  Suddenly a loud alarm went off!  EeeeAwww, EeeeAwww…5 minutes went by with no relief.  Then the signal changed to a louder AwwwAwww, Awww,Awww.  After 15 minutes of this someone was finally able to turn the alarm off.  We don’t know why it went off in the first place, but no one came in response and the few employees who where around just ignored it.

About 20 minutes later the alarm went off again and continued for about 2 hours.  We tried complaining to the check in clerks and they just blew us off.  Don finally went out of the boarding area, having his passport stamped as an arriving passenger and tracked town airline employees, airport employees, security, local police and anyone else he could find.

It turns out that this is a fire alarm and it was set off by a passenger who pushed it thinking it would open a door.  This, apparently, happens frequently, due to the location of the alarm, and everyone at the airport just ignores it.  It was annoying and stressful to sit there for two hours with the alarm going off, especially when we were grouchy about the delayed flight.  Someone finally arrived and turned off the alarm about 20 minutes before we finally boarded.

We called our Ireland exchanger in Sunnyvale to explain the flight delay and to tell him his father did not have to stay up until 2 am to pick us up.  Liam contacted his dad and then called us back to tell us where to find keys when we did arrive at his house.

It turns out the flight delay was due to a Russian plan which was taxi-ing down the runway on a 4pm departure and suddenly stopped!  They couldn’t get the plane started again and they couldn’t get it moved, so the whole airport was shut down.  No flights could arrive and our plane was kept in Dublin until the Faro Airport opened for business again.  What a disaster.

When we finally did arrive in Dublin, at 2am, we caught a cab, euro60, with a cabbie who pretended to be unsure about where our destination was.  In retrospect, we think he knew just where he was going, but was pretending that he didn’t in hopes of a big tip.  We felt that euro60 was plenty for the 15-minute drive!