Homeward Bound

After a lovely breakfast we packed up the car and headed out for our 2 hour drive to Lisbon to drop off our rental car and get to the Airport.  We were supposed to stay until April 5th and depart Porto for Frankfurt to spend 10 days with Rita's parents in Kassel, but sadly that was not to be and were very happy to be able to find flights, albeit very expensive ones, that will take us back home.  It was a lovely drive into Lisbon and our car rental company.  We dropped off the car without incident and took the shuttle to Lisbon Airport for the start of our journey home. 

There was only one entrance door into the airport that was open for people wanting to fly out of Lisbon and every passenger had to show there flight details proving they were departing that day.  There were two massive lines of people waiting to pass through the police check point.  This was the line that we were in and it took about 20 minutes to get to the front and into the airport.  Once inside there were no real line ups to check in or go through security.  Most of the shops were closed but the restaurants and cafes were still serving food and beverages.  

Waiting to board our plane for Frankfurt we could see lots of parked Air Portugal planes that had been grounded for a lack of destinations to fly to and/or passengers to fly.  

More parked Air Portugal planes on the tarmac as we took off from Lisbon Airport 

 Finally landed at Vancouver Airport after an overnight at Frankfurt airport allowing us to reunite with our Canadian passports, which had been couriered from Rita's parents in Kassel to a friend in Frankfurt who delivered them to us. 

 We took a taxi home and started our 14 days of self isolation.  Rita had asked our good friend Wendy to do a grocery run prior to our arrival and so we were well stocked for the duration.  A couple of friends living in our condo also topped us up with supplies when needed.  I started an isolation beard that will happily be removed as soon as our self isolation was over.  For exercise Rita and I separately went to our stairwell and walked up and down the stairs while the other did exercises in our apartment.  The stair waling was much harder than I imagined.  For fresh air we spent time on our balcony envious of the people below us as they walked, ran or biked along the Stanley Park Seawall.   

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