A New Port (Wine)

After a few hectic days in gay Parie we packed our bags checked in with Air France (an experience in it's self) and flew to Portugal.  I'd forgotten this was the home of the first great European explorers.  The pace of life was more relaxed and the weather much warmer.  The Portuguese are encouraged to learn English because tourism is a great part of their economy.  We stayed at The Sofitel (rated 5 Stars) which had much larger rooms.  It had other challenges to deal with, but a breath of fresh air compared too the Hobbit quarters of Paris.  One thing I learned on our trip is that Europeans are really energy conscious and like to use technology to confuse most of us from the new world.  It took a while to understand the light switches and we never did really figure out the shower controls.  Another confusing feature was that the ground floor was always zero in the elevators.  But, I personally enjoyed our short time in Lisbon.  Not as many sight s to see, but all were very interesting.  The food was much different, and the bread wasn't quite as good,  but the Port wine was very good.  We always ended the day with a night cap and a sweet.

Yesterday was a light day on the golf course due the monthly member guest.  Only four showed for a quick round and a spot of lunch.  The SD's prime rib dinner on Wednesday was well attended with over 100.  The prime rib was very good, and the cheese cake great.  Saturday will be a return our standard game.  Personally I haven't played Saturday golf for a month and am looking forward to it.

I'll wrap up the trip in my next post.

CC

PS- One comment about checking in at Air France.  It seemed like everything that could go wrong did.  Everything is automated with very little help.  My boarding pass wouldn't print;  my luggage got stuck on the conveyor; another conveyor wouldn't move.  You get the picture.