It’s been a LONG time since I left Honolulu on Sunday night where I flew first to Ka’anapali, Mau’i, for a couple hours, then on to San Francisco, and then to Burbank, California, where I had dinner with my son and his family. Then in spite of leaving early at 7:00 am for an 11:00 am flight, it still took almost two hours to get to the LAX airport. In addition to the regular morning traffic, there was an accident on the 405 Freeway, and then Vice President Kamala Harris was in town, shutting down traffic and delaying us at least a half hour.

Luckily our Los Angeles to Newark flight was a few minutes early because United Airlines had only scheduled a 40-minute layover before our flight to Lisbon. Initially we were scheduled to arrive at gate C94, but fortunately we arrived at C125, with our next flight leaving for gate C121. We had no time to lose before our flight left for Lisbon. Alas, our next flight to Toulouse was delayed — first we learned it would be one hour delayed, then it was going to be three hours delayed, and then finally, it was 3-3/4 hours delayed — on top of an already scheduled 6 hour layover. Altogether we spent over 9 hours in the Lisbon airport, all the while texting our driver about the delays. Here’s a photo of us BEFORE our grueling 9 hours in Lisbon!

Did I mention that I went through TWO nights of no sleeping on the plane … saw movies instead of sleeping! It was almost 11 pm when we finally walked into the Hotel Le Père Leon, and I was quite frankly exhausted.

After breakfast in the hotel, we walked to the church of Notre Dame de la Delbade where I had arranged to meet the assistant organist, Blandine Zobler. The organ is truly magnificent and Jieun Newland and I enjoyed playing this organ for almost two hours.

Jieun played Widor’s famous “Toccata” which was truly thrilling to hear on this organ and in these fabulous acoustics!

We played mostly César Franck, Marcel Dupré and Jieun even played de Grigny, then finally we played some Bach which sounded great on this organ.

Along the way, Bill Potter, Jieun Newland and I posed for a picture in front of a poke place:

We then visited the Saint-Etienne Cathedral where we heard an organ student practicing Mendelssohn.

After lunch we saw three more churches in the area. The first was the Couvent des Jacobins, parts of which are from the 13th c. There is also a reliquary of Thomas Aquinas here.

Next we saw the Notre Dame du Taur, which has an organ by Eugene Puget (1880) and Maurice Puget (1939).

Lastly we saw the Basilique Saint-Sernin which also has an important historical organ.

BUT … it wasn’t only churches and organs we saw. There was also a carousel near the park by our hotel!

Tonight we meet the rest of the members of our GoAhead Tour at a Welcome Dinner.