We got to the gate, but we should have known we were in trouble when they looked at our tickets, handed them back to us, and said, “You need boarding pass.” The plane was going to take off in 15 minutes! Luckily, there was a nice man there that helped us. We got on the plane! Phew! It was only an hour flight and we landed in Lisbon, Portugal. All we had to do was pick up our luggage, right? Wrong! We waited by the luggage belt and, sure enough, ours wasn’t there. We went to the lost and found to see if it turned up there. They said they didn’t know where our bags were! All of our packing for nothing! We didn’t have a change of clothes! They did give us two “we're sorry we lost your luggage” toiletry kits, which had soap, toothbrush, toothpaste, etc …. Interesting facts about the European toiletry kit:

1. The Men’s kit contains razors
2. Woman’s kit does not
3. Woman’s kit contains laundry detergent
4. Men’s kit does not

We then caught a train to Sintra, a small town with many old castles! We found our hotel, and I proved to have good map skills, because the streets weren’t labeled on the map.

Anyway, we made it to our hotel, checked in, gave them my passport, (this will come into play later) and dropped off our things in the room.

We decided that we had to have a good time, despite our set-back, so we went out to see three castles in town. The first, (the Sintra National Palace), was pretty impressive. It had blue tile walls and two distinctive chimneys.

Then, we took a bus and a trolley up to Pena Palace. Wow! These people lived in style. Well, they were royalty of Portugal, I suppose. It was this castle on a mountain. The view was amazing. Also, they had no railings in front of steep drops. I was unusually calm this time.

We took a tour of the castle, but they didn’t let me take my camera in, so I checked it at the door. I was very nervous about it because that camera was all I had left after the airport lost our luggage. =( But I got the camera back safe and sound.

We ate lunch on top of this castle overlooking the town. It was beautiful! It got really cold and windy after that, (and our jackets were somewhere between Philly and Lisbon), so we left for our third castle of the day.

The Moorish castle was an ancient structure that was in partial ruin. They tried to restore it, but failed. It was so green and beautiful, though! We stayed for a while, just taking it all in. After taking lots of pictures, we went shopping for souvenirs that could be used as a change of clothes if the need arose. =)

We took showers, changed into souvenir attire, and walked the streets of Sintra, to find a place to drink some Portuguese wine and eat some cheese. We found a place right around the corner. We had wine, cheese, sausage, ham, and bread. (I had some olives, too). After two glasses, I was pretty dizzy. (It’s pretty common knowledge that I cannot hold my wine!)

We staggered back to our hotel and ate dinner at the hotel restaurant after that, but we were so full from the wine and cheese that we couldn’t eat half our dinner. When we went back up to the lobby, the concierge waved us to the desk. The airport dropped off our luggage! This ended our luggage-less day. We were very lucky to get our bags back (especially so quickly). =)

More pictures from day 2:

I dared Hilary to lick the moss

Hey Genius, walk around the open door!

I can see my hotel from here!

Looks kind of like the great wall of China!

Hilary sits among the all green-ness

Introduction Day 1 Day 2 Day 3 Day 4 Day 5 Day 6 Day 7 Day 8 Day 9 Day 10