A short TR from a few weeks ago
I had to attend a 2day business conference in the UK but was in the mood for some sun and beaches so I recommend it should be in Funchal Portugal, they came back it can be only within a hour from Lisbon Airport, so I obviously jumped on the idea!
So from one minute to the next I searched for tickets and the best itinerary I came up was lga phl lis with us airways, so I booked Monday afternoon to PHL then had 2 hours until departure 8:45 pm to Lisbon.
I actually enjoyed tsa pre (thanks to global entry) and really like phl airport (compared to JFK and LHR) the AA lounge next to my gate was small but empty with some kosher snacks and drinks,
Time for boarding the flight, those small 767's that us airways fly to Europe without flat beds in business or video monitor's in coach, reminds me of the 90's but for a night flight I really didn't care that much.
The meal served was from broenstein absolutely disgusting (I'm actually wondering how come no one has taken him on and opened a competing company)
I took a few shots of Scotch and went to sleep on those angle flat seat's sleeping on and off every half hour because It was extremely uncomfortable to put it mildly (just the thought of the guy next to me shelling out 5k for his ticket was nauseating) about an hour before landing the lights went on and they served a breakfast from the same caterer I just took the drinks and didn't bother to eat anything else and we are almost ready to land the view out of the window was absolutely gorgeous. Landed a few min early 8:30 am (same time zone as the UK)
Lisbon Airport is a total mess, queues all over that didn't move anywhere, luckily I have a new gb passport with a chip so I basically just went through straight away skipping the lines, but had to wait a while for my luggage (a box of food from Pomegranate) to come out.
I waited for one of the other guy's that flew in from London in the morning to show up and we took out a car with National served by Europe car (renting in Portugal is expensive and automatic transmission is even more expensive) but we got a brand new BMW 5 series and off we were.
I went to Lisbon to visit the sharei tikva shul a stunning breathtaking old shul and we prayed there.
We were on our way to the hotel that we arranged Marriott paria dei ray it's located in obidos a hour drive from Lisbon,
More to follow