London/ Day 1 Portugual

1:53 PM 8/10/11

London's Heathrow Airport:

We've just completed our long flight from Houston to Heathrow and we are now sitting in terminal 3 of the airport. It was a 9 hour flight from Houston to here. We had a choice of chicken curry and rice or veggie pasta on the plane ride with a salad, roll, and cheesecake. When we arrived in London, we took a bus/tram to terminal 3 and were told that we could go anywhere in the airport and were to meet at 5:30 pm at the F lounge. So we are waiting.

4:45 PM 8/11/11 

Hotel Real, Lisbon, Portugal

We had an much shorter flight on a much smaller aircraft from Heathrow to Lisbon last night and arrived at approximately 10:35 PM local time. After clearing Immigration and Customs – extremely easy from my point of view at least we got our first view of the City of Seven Hills (as many locals refer to it). We had a short – 10 minute – bus ride to the hotel where we were assigned rooms. ( On a personal note I lost my water bottle on the bus because it fell out of my backpack at some point. Sad Day) Once we arrived at our rooms (which are pretty awesome) we showered (I am assuming that everyone did this, I hope) and hit the hay. This morning after a scrumptious breakfast buffet at the hotel (included with our room), we boarded a Coach for a 4 hour tour of the City. We stopped at several places along the way including the local Cathedral (St. Mary's), the birthplace of St. Anthony of Padua, and Jeronimos Monastery. The architecture is simply incredible and very different from what I am used to. After the tour we had Mass as a group in a Church near the hotel whose decoration and architecture were absolutely magnificent. Most of the group then ate at Antonio's Restaurant a local hole in the wall. (I had the fish and rice which was AWESOME.) The guy who owned the place (we think) waited on us and reminded James and I of Mr. G from the Pizza place in Bryan.

Its been great so far – looking forward to some free time this afternoon and evening.

Pictures to come ( have to recharge camera batteries)

Will