Monday June 10th Planes Trains and Automobiles

Monday June 10th, planes, trains, and automobiles as we journey back home. 

So, oh 4:30 git up for an 05:30 Uber  to get us to the Lisbon airport by 6am. After about 20 minutes in the Uber cab we arrived at the Lisbon airport more or less ready to face the day. The airport went relatively smoothly and after passing successfully through security and duty free shops made our way towards the gate. We grabbed a couple almond croissants and a milchkaffe not knowing if the 7:30 flight would have a meal. 

 The croissant was good and so was the scoop of scrambled eggs and mushrooms with a few taters slices, bread and coffee. Being Lufthansa airlines we were also offered a Warsteiner beer - I guess it’s always 5pm somewhere. We passed on the breakfast beer feeling it would clash with the coffee. After about a three hour flight we landed at Frankfurt and took a nice 10 minute bus ride snaking around the ramp and underneath the terminal to arrive at the international arrivals area. Through passport control twice and once again through duty free successfully we arrived at our gate with our new tube buddies assigned to this B747/400.  Two pretty good meals, three movies and just over 11 hours later we touched down in Vancouver BC fully refreshed and ready to meet the early afternoon sunshine. 

The airport metro train took us to across the street from the AMTRAK station and we had 1:45hrs till departure for home. They called for boarding at 4:30pm for a 5:45pm departure. This is when things went into slow motion. As the line of a hundred or so started moving past the agent we were seen by a second agent who assigned seats and segregated us into US passport and others. The two lines then remerged so a single Canadian Agent sent Americans to one CBP agent and all the others to a couple of others to check passports and get our declaration cards and ask if we’d been on a farm overseas or touched any farm animals. We cleared through this process in about 30 minutes and then made it in one big line again to the agent tagging luggage for stowage for the trip ending in Seattle. After enjoying about 10 minutes in this line the baggage agent looked at the line and said folks if you’re not checking anything then feel free to walk down and board. Like an ice jam breaking on a frozen river this line moved off smartly and left the baggage agent no doubt wondering if his deodorant had failed. We arrived in our seats and departed the station 8 minutes early as all booked passengers had boarded and “Stan” had also arrived.  The train didn’t travel at the speeds we’d seen in Portugal and Spain, even the slow trains there would have smoked this ride. A shining spot was the Bistro car man who was pretty friendly and answered my questions about WiFi not working ( cause were not in the USA yet) and gave this former pilgrim who’d now been traveling just short of 24 hours some advice on an easy drinking craft IPA.  In an exercise of extreme vetting we stopped at the border so that US CBP agents could also check our passports and customs declarations paperwork that was checked by a US agent in Vancouver. We’d now covered the 52km or 32 miles at an average speed of 27 mph!  Eye watering speeds for those used to European trains - tears of agony.  

Kelli’s sister Kathi picked us up at the train station and whisked us home and we celebrated 25+ hours of travel and another Camino. 

Special thanks go out to Jeff and Kathi, Kelli’s sibs who took their mom to Jeff’s house in Burbank California and then got mom back to Anacortes and Ginny and Benny who were our Camino walking partners on this nice adventure.   Who knows what’s next but I’m sure there’s another “experience” out there somewhere that needs experienced. 

Love to all,

BandKalongtheway