“I can’t walk any more
in these shoes!” she says. “You’ve got
to be kidding me!” I respond. “You always do this; you always wear the wrong
shoes, Missy! Listen, just take them
off. We have to find Terminal Un,” I
tell her. “I am not about to walk barefoot through Charles De Gaulle airport!”
She says. “Well, it’s either that or we
miss our connecting flight to Lisbon because your feet hurt.” “Fine!” She responds. In the 25 years of our being best friends,
the one flaw in our friendship has been Missy’s poor choice of shoes, often
opting for fashion instead of comfort.
This is an issue she’s worked on in recent years, and it’s been quite some
time since she’s had an SSS (Shoe Selection Situation.) However, during the adventures of our
mid-twenties and early thirties, we spent a lot of time discussing her shoe
selection.
About ten years ago, I
worked as the Business Center attendant at the newly opened Four Seasons Hotel
Miami. That will be another story for
another time. One of the most amazing benefits
the company offered was five free nights yearly at any Four Seasons hotel or
resort worldwide. In 2005, I chose to
use my five free nights at the resort in Lisbon. I was single back then and my best friend,
Missy, was the obvious travel companion choice.
On a sweltering South Florida summer evening, we began our journey:
MIA-CDG-LIS. Two flights consisting of
15 hours total including layovers.
As with most long-haul
flights, the beginning was all cocktails and excitement, 7 hours in it was a
different story. Sitting in coach for
that long does something to your psyche.
You become irritable, uncomfortable and you begin to smell. I’ve often compared these transatlantic
flights to a huge slumber party in the sky with 250 complete strangers, and not
all of them have good bathroom habits or good habits in general. Yet, as we started descending into Paris, the
excitement began to build again. I’ll
never forget the look on Missy’s face as she saw the Eiffel tower for the first
time out of the plane’s window. We had
made it across the pond, only one more flight to go!
For anyone who has
ever landed at CDG, it is a quixotic airport at best. Nothing makes sense, basic airport patterns
are thrown out the window and it is virtually impossible to find anyone who is
willing to help you. We should have been
tipped off when French customs officials didn’t even bother to look at our passports upon entering the EU. With my
high school French and scavenger hunt instincts, we learned that we needed to
find “Terminal Un.”It was in this
elusive terminal that we would find our connecting flight and our next carrier
TAP, The Airlines of Portugal. Much
later in this trip, we would learn that what it actually stood for was: Take another
Plane.
After about 4 hours of
wondering if we would ever leave CDG or if it was our destiny to spend our
vacation at a Paris airport, our connecting flight arrived. To say it was a no frills airline is an
understatement. They offered you a seat
and a partially working seatbelt, with a good air stream and a prayer they
hoped to get to your destination. Again,
as we flew over the Alps, our (albeit tired and weary) excitement
returned. Missy put on her torturous shoes
and we began to attempt to put ourselves together for our arrival “em Lisboa.”
If there’s one thing I
learned from working in a luxury hotel, it is to always arrange your airport
transportation beforehand. Few things
are as welcoming and comforting as a sign with your name on it being held up
high in a crowd by a sharply dressed chauffeur.
Finally, we arrived! Now, it was
time to get our luggage. “Sua bagagem não
chegou.” The pretty blonde airport
attendant said to us. My Portuguese may
not be perfect, but I fully understood that statement. The dreaded and feared statement no traveler wants
to hear, your luggage did not arrive.
With little energy left in us to argue, we filled out the necessary
paperwork, boarded the sedan, and made our way to the hotel.
The hotel, originally
a Ritz-Carlton was one of only two hybrid properties which Four Seasons owned that
was a Ritz-Carlton and a Four Seasons at the same time. It was the epitome of luxury with massive
marble halls set high atop a hill overlooking the Tagus River. It remains one of the most beautiful
properties I have ever stayed at. Our room
was a sprawling suite with a cavernous pink marble bathroom and a balcony
overlooking the city and the river beyond.
It was simply spectacular!
A very important note
to this story is that the very same day that we departed Miami, I had just
arrived that morning from a week long cruise through the Western
Caribbean. I literally had enough time
to do laundry and repack before leaving to the airport. I made many questionable food choices on that
cruise, mainly one involving my eating something called the “Royal Rat” in
Belize. That along with the copious
amounts of drinking involved with any cruise led me to feeling quite ill when
we finally made it to Europe. Once we
were settled in our room, I called for a doctor who true to Four Seasons style visited
me discreetly and said I was suffering from a stomach virus which “could” be
contagious. He wrote me a prescription
and asked for a pot of tea to be sent to our room. I explained to Missy that I needed to sleep
and rest for a day or two, to which she replied “I have not flung myself across
an ocean and into a new continent to watch you sleep. I don’t care if I have to put a cork in your ass;
we are going to go see the city.” I, of
course, agreed.
We put ourselves
together and set off to go sightseeing.
It was the middle of the day and it was warm, very warm. Perhaps because of our time together during
the flights or because the travel had taken a toll on her, too, Missy began to
feel ill as well. It became imminently
evident that we both needed a bathroom, stat! We searched our surroundings and
saw an archeological museum was a few hundred feet away. We quickly made our way to the Museu
arqueológico do Carmo, paid the entrance fee and frantically searched for the “banheiro.” Few things solidify a friendship like experiencing
simultaneous explosive diarrhea in the outhouse of the ruins of a medieval
convent perched high under the blazing Portuguese sun.
To say the beginning of
our trip was a bit challenging is to put it lightly. The days passed and we began to realize that our
luggage may never arrive. “Talvez amanhã
, ele vai chegar.” We were told every morning when we called to inquire. We finally decided there was no option but to
go shopping. Remember that scene from
National Lampoon’s European Vacation when they go shopping in Rome? It went something like that. The fashion was so much better than what we
currently had in the states, so, against our better judgement; we did quite a
bit of damage. Decked out in our new
duds, and with the prescription pills making us feel better, we set out to see
the splendors of Portugal!. We took the
train to Cascais and had a two bottle of wine lunch at a clifftop hotel overlooking
one of the most beautiful beaches I have ever seen. We ate and drank our way all throughout the
city. It was in one word: magical.
With both of us having
a gambling streak in us, we decided to hit up one of Lisbon’s many casinos. Luck was truly on our side as we deposited
our Euros into the Cleopatra themed slot machine, and to our amazement, won almost 900
Euros! This was enough to recuperate the
money we spent shopping and gave us some extra spending money for the rest of
our trip and for our next stop, London.
On the 5th
day, our luggage arrived. However, it
arrived in pieces, held together by duct tape, and contained many items that
were certainly not ours. Feeling high on
our recent win at the casino, this really didn’t bother us much. We decided to visit the Casino in Estoril, touted
as the largest casino in all of Europe.
We dressed in our new snazzy clothes and went on our way. As we were about to enter the complex, Missy
tripped on the cobblestone street, due to her, yup, you guessed it, poor choice
in footwear. This was made all that more
troubling by the scraped knees and hands she suffered from the fall. So, there we stood at the entrance to the
casino, Missy in her white linen skirt, blood running down her knees, the
stigmata at Estoril. Passersby looking worried
commenting, “Ela está bem ?”
 |
| "a pic right before the fall, doctored up by my graphic designer sister in law:-)." |
This trip was really
the last big adventure Missy and I had before she and her husband had children
and I met Oscar. It was the experience
of a lifetime. Few people get to share a
friendship like the one Missy and I have.
In the past 25 years, we have seen each other through the many trials and
tribulations that come with adulthood.
We have known each other since we were 13. I am the Godfather to her first born child
and she was the maid of honor at my wedding.
We call each other best friends but it goes so much deeper than
that. She is another sister to me. Throughout the day, I have a constant
conversation with her in my head. She
gets my dark and often twisted sense of humor.
I think of her as a sounding board, a confidant, and an integral
influence on the man I am today. We
often laugh at what the next 25 years of our lives will be like, when we are in
our 60’s. I can tell you this, I plan on
being there. Besides, who else is going
to tell her that the heels she wants to buy for her vacation are probably a bad
idea?
