We didn’t get back to our hotel til late that Saturday night, and then we had to wake up early again the next morning. It was time to go back to the states! We had to return our rental car and weren’t sure where that would be, so we wanted to make sure we had plenty of time. We dropped off the car, took a bus to another terminal, and then eventually found our gate. We had enough time so we wandered around the duty-free shops, buying a few more treats to take home to our families. We did NOT buy this:
Nevertheless, Erick was very excited about it. The first leg of our trip was a short hop, skip and a jump over to Lisbon, Portugal. We took THIS PLANE. The photo does not accurately portray how tiny this thing was. It was only slightly larger than the Toblerone.
The flight probably cost about the same amount as the Toblerone, too, which is why we took said flight. The flight was actually fine, despite being shuttled on and off the tarmac in a bus instead of going down a jetway, but it was actually the stop in Lisbon that was the most challenging part of the trip.
Not only were we changing planes, we were also changing airlines… and we weren’t exactly sure how our getting our luggage onto the next airline was going to work out. I don’t even remember exactly what we did (Erick and I sat down and tried to remember together, but apparently both of us have blocked this episode from our minds). It involved standing in long lines again, getting redirected to lots of places that weren’t right, going through customs twice and getting the side-eye from their version of TSA, and then somehow navigating our way back into the departures terminal of the airport to find our gate–in a time crunch. Yeah, it was kinda stressful and really confusing. Fortunately we found a lady who literally wrote directions through the airport on the back of our boarding pass. Bless her. And, if I remember right, once we got to the gate, we found that flight was also delayed so we ended up having plenty of time, which gave us more than enough time in the end. Oh well, the things we’ll do to save a few hundred dollars, right?? :)
We spent the rest of our Euros buying snacks from the vending machine (they have awesome snacks in Portugal!). Then we were finally on our way back to the good ol’ USA.
And then we had to go through customs AGAIN… which took FOREVER… and then we had to get our luggage…. which took even longer than forever… And then we found my parents and were on our way back to New Hampshire!
We spent just one night back there, opening wedding gifts and cards, and packing up everything to head back to Tennessee the following day. We were exhausted, but very happy to be back safe and sound, and very blessed to have had such a wonderful honeymoon experience. It was a perfect way to start our married life together–one adventure after another!
Whew! Finally done with honeymoon recaps–and not a moment too soon… since we’re coming up on our first anniversary and all. Lol. Now it’s time to get started on all those DIY blog posts! We have so many to share, coming soon!
