travel trials

Most of the time it works together flawlessly.  There were no problems in my Sweden trip earlier this month-- flights on time, connections within the time allowances, luggage safe, trains prompt.  So when SATA called on Friday morning to tell us that the flight had been delayed to midnight from 9:45 pm, it was a warning.

Actually, we didn't leave till 2:30 am so we were overly tired, leaving at the time that we should have been arriving in the Azores.  And then there was the pressure of a connection.  We were told the flight to Madiera would wait for us, so we did not have to run through the airport (been there, done that) to make the connection, but we were first told that we had to claim our baggage and then after waiting and waiting, finally someone said that it was checked through automatically.  Added stress.

So we arrived in Funchal, Madeira at 4:20 local time (5 hours ahead of TO).  Then there was the car rental problems, we had a receipt but not a voucher (there is a 2 line difference) and so did not know which of the car rental companies to contact to claim our vehicle.
Thank you to the lovely lady at Sixt Rental who allowed me to access my email to get the appropriate voucher and then direct me to Goldcar rentals.  Now, what you think you are getting is not the same as what there is at the counter -- we thought all was included (it said so) but there was an additional damage insurance where you had to either put 1200 euro on your credit card as deposit, or take the 145 euro insurance package they offered-- which was about double what the rental was.  So we put the money on the card and recorded every last little dint and nick on the car.

Then there was the adventure of driving to the hotel.  My phone doesn't have the handy gps app which tells you exactly what to do, but we did make it about 6:45, finally and parked the car at the Lince hotel.  There was a supermarket SPAR across the street, so there was some bread and cheese and wine and then relaxation on the balcony.

I think we will take it easy and just explore around tomorrow.  NO big problems on the travel front, but little trials mount up to make this a difficult day.  But done and here and now going to relax.