It's 1805 hours, the plane is heading NE over Philly; its almost time for dinner. The plane is pretty full. Lavon has an empty seat on her left, I'm on the aisle. I'm watching the terrestrial camera on my monitor, now that is cool. We'll be in Paris at about 0730, Its now 0015 their time.

We have heard from our tour guide that the mosquitoes are bad in Lisbon.  Which means the little fellers will be bad in southern France too. We have met a few fellow travelers that are journeying to Lisbon. The Archbishop is on the other flight that left for Detroit after ours left after ours. The crew speaks several languages, but English not so well.  We'll just follow the crowd, when they jump we will also. When the stewardess asked what I wanted for dinner I just said, "buck, buck." She asked,  "Chicken?" I said, "yes." I might add that she is oriental and speaks French. She also asked us if we wanted brandy. I said, " sure!" I put in my coffee and then took my medications. 

There's a bunch of infants on board, I'm glad I have my Bose earphones on!

It's 2105 EDT now. We're just now over open ocean. We've been flying up the east coast of North America since we left Atlanta. St. John's, Newfoundland is 70 miles to the SW of here. We have yet to make the half-way mark. The cabin is dark and about half are trying to sleep. Me and Lavon are wide awake, she watching a movie and I reading a book. The tail wind speed at one time, hit 160 mph! Our relative speed was over 650 mph! Now we're being pushed at 67 mph. We will be in Paris about 40 minutes early. 

There is on board a young middle eastern couple with a brand new baby girl. He has been picking her up and kissing her all night. To me it is almost an emotional disconnect with what has been going on in the Mid East. How could any Muslim ask their child to strap on a bomb and murder innocents? He appears to love his daughter immensely, but what will happen to her when she gets older? Will she become a good loving mother of her own children, or will she birth a future terrorist? THAT, is my disconnect. 

Landed in Paris early. It's raining here. We had to go through security again, but they didn't do a great job checking folks out. They weren't very friendly either.

My so called 'Global Phone' doesn't work,I'm not the only person. I was able to send out an email to let Cherie know. We'll see what happens in Portugal, Spain and Southern France.

Everyone is dragging their butt's. The itinerary for the rest of the day includes Holy Mass at a Church in Lisbon before we head to Fatima tonight. I think most people would rather go to the hotel and get a good nights sleep.

Day3 October 10

This morning, went to Mass at the new cathedral at Fatima named after Pope John Paul II, not inside, but at one of the many chapels that are connected to it. The main cathedral is under complete re-decoration for the centennial in 2017. Other than visiting the graves of the three seer's, the whole cathedral is behind paint drop cloths.   Right now we're on the bus in the city of  Porto, the second largest city in Portugal. We also found out the correct pronunciation for Portugal is not "Portchugal", but, Por tu gal, just like it is spelled. Portuguese, at least to my ear, sound like a combination of French and Spanish. It shares many of the same words but are spelled different from Spanish, but has many of the guttural pronunciations of French. 

As we roll into Spain in a few hours, we'll stop for lunch, then we will head on into Santiago de Copostella and visit the tomb of St James. We will spend the night then head into Lourdes for a couple of days.  

The other interesting observation: there is not the plethora of fast food industries here. When you visit gas stations, there are no such things as "big gulps." In fact, there are no ice to be had or soft drink fountains. Consequently, the people here are not fat. They don't use disposable cups, containers, etc. Which translates to nearly absent trash along the highways.  If you want a quick meal, you go find an American fast food joint, and thy are not that numerous. Another oddity, diesel is cheaper than petrol, though they both are triple what we pay in the US. That explains the large number of small diesel cars. 

I hope to publish this and some pictures tonight, WiFi pending. 

I'm having many problems with the dashboard on Blogger and I cannot edit heat I write , so bear with me