It had been almost 2 years since we moved to Portugal. I missed my Grandma and the rest of my family and decided I should go back for a visit. I also wanted to go through some of the stuff we left behind and see if there was anything we left behind that I wanted to bring back.
I debated for a while about where all I would go. I would have loved to go to Vegas and see my friends, I thought about Denver to see some other friends there and of course I had to go to New Mexico where most of my family is. I had a limited time slot though and decided to only go to New Mexico. I was bummed I wouldn’t get to see anyone but I wanted to enjoy my time rather than feeling so rushed and traveling so much. I also scheduled my trip during a family wedding so I was able to see even more family than I would have otherwise.
The journey to get to New Mexico from Tavira is long and hard. I researched flying out of Faro (closest to me), Sevilla (2 hour drive), and Lisbon (4 hr train ride). I looked at every combination to get to either Denver or Albuquerque. My sister was flying into Denver so I could have driven with her. In the end I was able to go Faro to Albuquerque for a reasonable price but the schedule sucked! Also, here is a tip if you are looking for flights; Delta and KLM are owned by the same company but booking my flight on the KLM website was hundreds cheaper than the exact same flight on the Delta site.
I left Faro in the evening on a 3 hour Transavia flight to Amsterdam where I had an 8hr layover. I would have loved that however it was overnight and since I was alone I didn’t want to leave the airport. I also didn’t want to sleep because I wanted to sleep on the long flight. So I basically wandered around and watched Netflix for 8 hours.
Amsterdam Schiphol Airport
The Amsterdam Schiphol Airport was actually a decent airport to be stuck at, especially overnight. It seemed like there are a lot of overnight layovers there and it is very accommodating to it. There are lounge chairs all over the place. There is a pay by hour hotel called Yotelair that has small rooms, it is located right after security. I had seen online that there were sleep pods but I never saw them. There is however a shower room, which I found late in my wandering or I would have definitely taken a shower. They are free but they don’t offer towels or anything. Additionally you can pay to use the showers at Yotelair and Mercure and they will provide towels and toiletries. They cost around €20 and you get 45 min to use them.
Since I wasn’t sleeping, I put my luggage in a locker and explored. There was a lot to see. There was a free, small art museum that is a satellite of Amsterdam’s Rijksmuseum. It’s open 24 hours and has some famous 19th century Dutch art that rotate with the main museum. There is also a library where you can borrow books from Dutch authors in multiple languages. Around the library are plenty of couches and chairs where you can comfortably park yourself to read. There is also a meditation room, an indoor garden area, workstations, express spas and massage chairs.
There were plenty of places for shopping and food as well. However I was not very lucky with food. Most of the food outlets that were open overnight had limited gluten free options so I didn’t get anything to eat there. But the shops had cool stuff and wandering around the airport looking at them all was fun itself. There is so much art all around the airport. Overall it was horrible, it wasn’t the worst airport i’ve been stuck at for a long time.
More Flying
From Amsterdam I flew to LAX. The flight was sooooo long and all I wanted to do was sleep but I didn’t have a ton of luck. I maybe got a couple hours. The food was also not great, gluten free food on airplanes rarely is unfortunately. I had some mushy zucchini with tomato sauce and chicken,a “salad,” fruit, and later there was brownie and then a sausage in some gluten free bread.
LAX was horrible. I had a very short layover so I purposely packed carry on only because I was worried the layover wouldn’t be long enough. I had 2 backpacks to carry. When you get off the plane there, you have a looooonnngggg walk to get to customs. I was walking fast and I think it took me 10 minutes. After customs you have to walk out to go to another terminal. I was exhausted and my bag was heavy so I was able to check it there which luckily didn’t take much time. I was told to go to terminal 2. I walked for forever again and finally got there. Then I found out security was actually way before terminal 2 so I walked basically halfway back. Went through security and made it to my gate in time but I was sweaty and exhausted.
My last flight was LAX to Albuquerque which is only a couple hours. Albuquerque airport is pretty easy so I was able to get my bags quickly and go out to meet my mom who was picking me up. Then we just had a short 2 hour drive to get to my hometown of Las Vegas, New Mexico.
All in all I felt like I traveled for days and don’t even actually know how many hours it took me but it was rough! I really hope I find a better travel plan next to me and I need to avoid LAX at all costs, it is the worst!!!
Stay tuned for more about my trip back, how it felt to return, and some cool stuff about New Mexico!
Follow me on Instagram @vegas.to.portugal to see some more pics and my trip back and my daily life 💙
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