Holiday Diary – Day 1

Day 1
4am start. Not good for someone like me who is not a morning person. It also doesn’t help that I have a fear of flying so, that coupled with little sleep not helping matters at all.
7am-ish we arrive at the airport after dropping the car off it at it’s destination for the next week. My fear is really starting to kick in now after checking in and probably wasn’t helped by the guy at check-in. So after a spot of breakfast. downed two travel sickness tablets. WARNING: Kalms + Travel sickness tablet make for very sleepy person. Kept wanting to fall asleep while waiting to board. People must have thought I was crazy as I kept walking up and down the same path for what seemed like hours.
Once we’d boarded I was terrified, even though I was sleepy. I am thinking by this point that having pulled an all nighter might have been a good course of action and just slept through take off…As soon as it was safe to do so, got the DS out and stuck on some music which seemed to do the trick of tipping me over the point to sleep.
Coming into Faro airport, I didn’t realise that we circled round and over the Atlantic (I think it’s the Atlantic…It’s water anyways [at this point I stress the last time we visited Portugal, we arrived at night so I didn’t know any better]) and then came in for landing. After the whole rigmarole of going through passport control (Faro has some of the new hi-tech passport scanners  that works on facial recognition meaning no queues…assuming you can get them to work that it!) we headed out to get the hire car. So three cases in the boot one in the back with me and the brother.
Now a word of warning to all passengers who are picking cars up from the airport and making their own way to their accomodation…DO NOT assume that the instructions you have are right! By following the directions that we were given, we ended up heading for the Spanish border (at which point I have to ask would it not have been cheaper to fly to Spain rather than drive). Fortunately, having been this road before, we kinda knew what we had to do to get to where we were going. Somehow (and God only knows how we managed it) we ended up on the road that, according to the directions we had, we were supposed to be on.
Finally we arrived at our villa for the week. First thing we notice: lemon tree (nice bit of fresh lemon in our coke :D). Once we worked out how to get the key out the safe, we entered. First impressions: nice but there were obvious faults like huge chunks of plaster missing, lights hanging (literally) by their wiring etc etc. Once we’d chosen rooms, I spent the rest of the day basically sleeping off the rest of the tablets.
Later that night we headed out to the Algarve Shopping to pick up some food shopping etc. Now, the last time I was in Portugal, Algarve Shopping appeared to have just been dumped in the middle of nowhere. Now it appears to have blossomed! Quick round in there and back to the villa to catch some much needed sleep!