5 airports, 4 flights, 1 day...

Yesterday was almost completely 24 hours of travel. We picked the most roundabout way to get to Lisbon--we flew from Boston to London with a layover in Dublin, switched from London Heathrow to London Gatwick (harder than you'd think), and then flew from Gatwick to Lisbon. If I never have to go through another security line at an airport, I think I'd die happy. 

Our flights went smoothly enough--the only truly awful part of the traveling was getting from London Heathrow to Gatwick. There are super convenient direct trains between the airports, but at what we believed was a steep price of 25 pounds. Instead, we decided to go into the city center via tube (5.50 pounds), and take an Easybus from Earls Court to Gatwick (10 pounds). It seemed a simple way to save around 17 US dollars or so. 

When we arrived in London, it was raining (but are you really surprised?). Luckily we had the sense to stow our huge 50 pound luggage at Heathrow for the week and just bring our carryons to Lisbon. Thinking that Earls Court would be at Earls Court station, we took the tube there. Unfortunately, we were wrong and ended up dragging our suitcases through the pouring rain 20 minutes to the impossible to find Easybus station. However, we did find it, and we also found some dumpy cafe to sit in for the 45-60 minutes we still had to kill to get to the pick up point. We got there 15 minutes early just to be safe, and were soon followed by a long line of travelers anxious to get on this airport shuttle. Well, readers, it never showed up. We waited in the rain for about 45 minutes before giving up and hailing a taxi. 

Lucky for us, even in such an awful situation, it was made much better when a very nice Irish gentleman hopped in the cab with us and made good conversation about traveling and all of our shit luck with Easybus. He was so gracious that we let him into our cab (which racked up a bill of 125 pounds!), that he put 50 pounds towards his share of the fare, twice what he owed. We were so touched by his genuine gratitude, that it actually completely turned our sour attitudes about the Easybus disaster around. 

After some serious maneuvering of our suitcases to fit our carryons into the Easyjet requirements (mine actually got stuck in the bars that showed the size limit. A facilities man actually had to come and tip it over to retrieve it for me...), we made it to our flight and accrued no extra baggage charges!

Once arriving in Lisbon, a taxi driver brought us to our hostel, which we almost didn't find, and we were greeted by really awesome young people at the desk that gave us a grand tour, ending at the spectacular view on the rooftop. Then I knew that it was absolutely all worth it.