But we had our tickets, I swear

Ah, Lisbon - my dream. I traveled to Portugal this past weekend and it was amazing! Portugal is majestic with mountains and forests. Then there’s the coast and ooooh, it’s so beautiful. I stepped out of the bus at 5 a.m. Friday and breathed in the salt air: I was in love. 

Friday we went sightseeing and visited museums and such, but then our day got interesting. During the bus ride to our sunset sail, the police came on board and started checking tickets. This isn't unusual (I've had it happen in Madrid, too) but our bus ticket in Portugal didn't work. We had bought a three-day tourist pass which we had thought covered everything such as train, metro and buses. We had ridden the train earlier in the day with it and it had worked fine. When we got on the bus, our card didn't scan and we showed the bus driver, who just waved us on anyway, so we didn't think much of it until the police came. After our cards didn't work for them, either, they asked for our licenses and gave us receipts for our fine, which was 60 euros. We tried explaining to them that we had bought a transportation ticket. We wanted to make it clear we were simply confused and meant no harm–but they wouldn't listen and coldly told us where to pay on Saturday. So then we left flustered and went to our 2-hour sunset sail ride/wine tour. 

That was amazing. For two hours we sailed up and down the river, listening to our tour guide and having our glasses constantly filled with delicious Portugal green wine. Going on that ride really helped us relax just after getting an expensive ticket!

We woke up the next morning to try to talk to the fine people and try to pay (less than) our ticket before going to Sintra, Portugal, but it turns out the place that we were told to go was closed. We even tried going to other tourist information locations and everything, but all the offices were closed on the weekend! We walked around for two hours talking to different people and going to different places trying to pay our fine, but nothing was open and no phone numbers were working. 

Sintra was amazing as we saw a palace, and originally we had also planned on seeing a castle, but because we had spent so long that morning trying to pay our fine, we didn't have enough time to visit the castle. We all regretted that: it was so beautiful in the pictures. 

I was exhausted from the two busy days, but Sunday morning we woke up, packed up, checked out, and started walking around the plazas before having to go to the bus station. Our bus left at 1:15, but it wasn't until 10:40 when we got to Madrid. We were all sick of being on the bus and kind of annoyed with the bus driver because we stopped twice so that he could have a smoke break

So if I learned anything this weekend, it’s to be careful when buying a ticket for transportation when in a different country…

My Determination: “And I knew exactly what to do. But in a much more real sense, I had no idea what to do.” – Michael Scott