Work with a side of Portugal

Monday morning around 4 a.m. Joan and I wake up and get ready to go to Portugal. I am somewhat excited about this trip because of the fact that it's not for pleasure, it's for business and I'm hoping we get at least an hour to see the city. We meet Anna at the airport, get a coffee and board our plane. The flight over, we all slept like babies and before we knew it we were flying over Oporto as the sun was rising. The city looked beautiful and my excitement level skyrocketed.

I know now anything can look beautiful 35,000 ft up in the air.

We land and get the metro to the city center. This was my first time on a metro like this or as they call it here, a "train". 30 minutes later we are at the hotel setting up for work. The morning goes well enough and the rest of the day would have gone smoothly except three things went wrong from the start:

1.We didn't have a plan

2. Sarah, the administrator was a witch and told the class to leave and not come back until 2 which messed up our entire day

3. No one had correct references.

I helped out when I could but I was there strictly as Joan's girlfriend and nothing more. I had time to observe the sheer stupidity of people, especially one girl. We shall call her Penelope. Penelope was a pretty girl but had funny ears, really funny ears. I never thought it was possible either but here we are. So she was pretty and thought that gave her the right to be stupid and get away with it. There are certain things you must do for a job, you must get references. Penelope had "references" on paper but when we called, none of them liked her, the professor she wrote down would not give her a reference because she failed all her classes and he didn't know her well at all. She just couldn't get that through her head.

It had been a long day, we had lunch at the hotel restaraunt, Paris Texas, and it was absolutely wonderful. The picture is above.

We ended up not being able to leave until after 6:00 and only having a few minutes to get a crepe and catch the metro to the airport. This is the part of the story that goes downhill.

We get our metro tickets and wait. Our metro is the last one so there is 10 minutes gone.

The airport is the last stop on the metro and we are 14 or so stops away.

It takes 35 minutes for us to reach the airport, the desk closes at 7:45;the exact moment we are arriving to the airport.

Realization: I am going to have to run a mile. I am wearing the 2nd highest heels in my closet. I also have been sick recently,the doctor said the humidity from the chance of temperature when I first arrived is stuck in my lungs making it harder for me to breathe so I shouldn't be running or doing strenuous activity. I am going to have to run a mile.

Joan gets the bags and such and is gone in the blink of an eye. Anna is already ahead of me. If I lose her, I won't know where to go so I stop, everyone watching me and take off my heels. I proceed to run throuh the Oporto airport which is huge and new and HUGE. I run up 5 escolators while kids laugh and point and businessmen stop chatting on their iphones and stare at me. By this point my lungs are slowly dying and Anna is still ahead of me. I get all the energy I can muster and catch uip with her, luckily we are at the desk. Joan is not.

2 minutes later he appears and we ask another lady at a different desk if it is possible for us to board the flight. She of course says it's not but will call and see.

5 minutes later a woman appears and says "You should have arrived here on time. You're late, you can't board."

Joan and Anna ask to speak with someone else so we are led to another part of the airport and we try and talk with three disgruntled employees of Ryanair. Joan asks them to call the captain and at least ask, if he says no, he says no but we have to try. Anna says that they work for Ryanair and work went longer than we thought. That we weren't here for pleasure but for business. The lady is a total witch but finally decided to let them on.

Them, as in Anna and Joan because they work for Ryanair and I don't.

How stupid is this? I have a seat on that plane, I came with them to work, It makes no sense.

"She's the girlfriend" said the bitchy attendant. Joan proceeded to argue with her until she said, "Ok fine let's all go."

We run again to the security check in, throw everything in a bin, I don't even put on my shoes and we run down two more escalators and I can feel the warm water fill up in my eyes. My lungs are in such pain, I can barely breathe. Anna is ahead of us and already is outside toward the plane. Joan is being such a good boyfriend and is holding my hand and going slow with me.

We run just a bit more and head up the stairs to the jet. When we sit, the passengers know something is wrong although I don't think the crew told them anything. Joan asks for a vomit bag and chatter ensues. We are always causing a scene.

We all feel sick from running and being stressed after awhile the excitement dies down and we enjoy our flight. Joan tells me that if we hadn't gotten on that flight, we would be stuck in Portugal until Wednesday night. We were so lucky.

That was my trip to Portugal. I don't care to ever go back.

Some advice:
Plan ahead
work out
always bring sport shoes with you to the airport

C.M.