Arctic Route (Arrival in Portugal)

We made it to Portugal!

It’s a beautiful day here in Lisbon as we get ready to head out for a day of exploring. This is the view from the living room of our 12th-story flat with the Tejo River in the distance.

We opted for a place a bit outside of the touristy Centro to keep costs down a bit. There’s a Metro stop just around the corner and we’re about 15 minutes from the center of activity. But we’ll get to that in a moment.

If you’re curious what brings us out to Portugal, you can read about that here.

It’s been a very busy week and there’s lots to cover, so, first, let’s rewind…

On Sunday, we celebrated Riley turning SEVEN with a fun birthday party (only his second in Roseburg with his grandparents since he was born). His Aunt Chrissy from Santa Monica was even able to attend, which made it extra-extra special.

Just minutes after opening presents, Lori and I raced across the street to show the RV to a couple of prospective buyers. Within an hour, our home-on-wheels of 18 months was sold to an awesome couple from Colorado via Vermont living in Eugene—just three days after listing it on Facebook Marketplace.

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Merely a week prior, we hadn’t even considered trying to sell it before leaving for Europe, but thought we’d give it a try anyway.

Bittersweet, but we knew it was time to move on to the next adventure (we try not to be too sentimental about material things anyway, but will always have a ton of great memories traveling around Mexico and the U.S. as a family in our Winnie).

This is a photo we snapped on March 4th, 2024, the day we left Roseburg and headed south.

And here’s one I snapped on Riley’s birthday evening, the day we sold it:

Monday, the payment deposit cleared and I delivered the RV to Eugene. Title was signed over and that was that.

Tuesday, we loaded two big packs, two small packs, two small rolling suitcases, and the boys’ personal backpacks into a rental car and headed up to PDX to hop on a plane to London.

This was the first time we got to see the new remodel job at PDX, which looks fantastic. It looks like a modern international airport now! No pics of that, however—just an old hallway and the ramp.

Check-in and security was butter-smooth, and we arrived at the gate with about 20 minutes to kick back before boarding.

We flew British Airways from Portland to Heathrow, leaving at 7:45 in the evening.

I’ve only got good things to say about the flight. One of the best long-hauls Lori and I have done together (of many). Exceptional cabin crew, great food, and you can’t beat a 787 Dreamliner for comfort, even in Economy.

Smooth air across eight time zones, and the four of us got around 4-5 hours of sleep on an 8.5-hour flight. Not bad!

The British flight attendants lavished the boys and us with praise about how courteous and well-spoken the boys were (which never happens to us in the U.S.).

It also happened a couple other times at Heathrow with security staff at checkpoints.

Before landing, one flight attendant even pulled the boys aside to tell them they were her very favorites (there were several other kids on board), and gave them a special little gift.

We often give the boys a hard time about their shenanigans, and the two of them together can be a handful. But it’s nice to hear things like that every once in a while to remind us that they really are pretty darn good most of the time.

As we were leaving the aircraft, flight attendants invited them up to the flight deck where they got to chat with the pilots for 10 minutes.

A typical grey day in London… just how I remember it 25 years ago. On to Lisbon!

Setting foot on the ground in Portugal.

Another great flight, but the airport arrival in Lisbon didn’t go quite the way we had expected.

They have a new biometrics system in place that’s supposed to make processing travelers from the EU, UK, and U.S. more efficient. Unfortunately, children aren’t able to use it, so we had to go to the general queue.

There were around 800 people in front of us (I counted) and it took just under TWO hours to get through immigration. The boys were absolutely exhausted, as you might imagine, but did about as well as anybody.

Next stop—reuniting with our luggage at baggage claim. This is everything between the four of us for the next year:

It’s by far the least amount of stuff we’ve traveled with as a family for this length of time—seven days worth of clothes each, plus essential toiletries and medicines, two laptops, two iPads, a camera, a few school supplies, and a handful of the boys’ most prized possessions.

I’ve been wondering if many other families of four could manage the same. We’ll see how we do…

Our flat in Lisbon was just a 12-minute Uber drive from the airport.

We rented through a site called Flatio which is a Euro-centric platform for people like us with a lot fewer fees than Airbnb and a lot more protections for the renter. If you’re renting for at least a month, this seems like one of the better ways to go than Airbnb, VRBO, or Facebook.

The property manager met us and was very friendly. It didn’t seem to phase her that we ended up arriving a couple hours later than we agreed (she didn’t seem surprised by our immigration wait).

Most people we’ve encountered here so far have been very friendly and don’t seem to be bothered by little things.

I couldn’t resist picking up a bottle of 10-year-old tawny port at duty free on the way out of the airport. A fitting night cap to our first evening in Portugal.

The next morning, I woke up at 8:30am feeling strangely good for having skipped eight time zones. I chock that up to equal parts departing late/ arriving late (my strategy for many years), getting a decent snooze on the plane (thanks, boys!), the aircrat (the carbon fiber body of the Dreamliner is suppose to allow better pressurization and more humidity to combat jet lag), and just being absolutely thrilled to be here.

We’ve been throwing around the idea of Portugal for a few years and now we’re here!

Looking south from our apartment, there’s a shopping center and metro (subway) station at the end of the block.

Looking north, a sprawling park with three playgrounds.

The boys went right down last night and slept through the night, which I didn’t expect but I’ll take it. We didn’t let them sleep past 9am. They didn’t fuss as much as we thought they would.

It took a few minutes to raise Noe, but when he awoke, we told him he needed to get up to get on schedule. He sat up, nodded his head, and got dressed without saying a word.

Riley, on the other hand, was a bit more reluctant, but didn’t take as much convincing as I expected.

Lori brought a few packets of instant oatmeal for the first morning. Besides that, there wasn’t much else in the house. So we figured we’d head into town to see what’s happening.

The Metro station just down the street.

It’s a 15-20 minute subway ride into the heart of the city and costs 1.60 euro for adults (US$1.80).

And here we are. That’s the castle up on the hill.

Our first breakfast out in Lisbon. Some of the best breakfast sandwiches and coffee I’ve had in a long time for about the same as what we’d expect to pay in a big city in Mexico.

Our home for the next month!

A small beach and Lisbon’s famous bridge across the Tejo.

Everything’s pretty clean and tidy for the most part, and people are really friendly. A super laid back place, even on crowded subways. And great weather to boot!

We stocked up on essentials at the little neighborhood supermarket down the street and had a take-and-bake pizza back at home, wrapping up our first full day in Portugal.

Today, we took a morning stroll around the neighborhood.

This is a “Shelter for Street Cats” next to our apartment complex, complete with blankets in the cubby and food and water. Never seen anything like it.

First independent school time at the apartment…

We’re really pleased with our apartment selection so far. It’s not in the heart of the city, but I think that’s going to be a good thing. It’s a peaceful oasis not far from the tourist areas, but a much more local neighborhood (with locals’ pricing) and a very convenient park.

The last time we had done a long haul flight was five years ago from Cambodia to Seattle during Covid. Noe was four and Riley was just 18 months, so we didn’t really know how this one would go.

But the boys did awesome during our 24-hour jaunt from Roseburg to Lisbon. Noe, in particular, is such a good traveler, it’s hard to believe sometimes he’s only nine. And both boys were really into everything, which made it a lot more fun than previous flights.

Despite this being Noe’s 56/57th flights, and Riley’s 20/21st, the level of interest was well beyond what either has shown in the past. It was awesome to watch that and have them be entertained by the simple aspects of travel.

Riley had a window seat for the last hour coming into Lisbon and just stared out the window in awe for most of it. He said, “Yeah, I think we can explore this city for the next month.”

Noe was thrilled to be in the UK, if only for a short time, and really amped to have a new city to explore.

So far, it’s been a great start to our new adventure. More to come from Lisbon!