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It’s travel day. The vacation is almost over. Woke up at 5:00 am from a dead sleep. We were pretty much packed and ready to go, but we had a lot of leftover food that we thought we should try and eat. I had texted Don the night before and invited him down for an early picnic breakfast. He texted me at the appointed time to inform me that had locked himself in the stairwell. I walked down the hall to free him. He looked like a museum specimen in the glass-sided stairwell. We ate as much of our leftovers as possible- cheese, bread and meat, and then loaded up and headed for the airport. It wasn’t long until we were headed in the opposite direction. After a brief panic attack, we were back on course. Finding the rental car return was easy and we were in the terminal or more specifically, the first ring of hell. We headed for our gate. Okay so far until we reached passport control. Hundreds of passengers were crammed into a confined area. There were attendants but the line didn’t seem to move. After a least a half hour, we finally passed that checkpoint only to find ourselves standing in yet another passport control line. Was this an episode of the Twilight Zone? After another long wait, we finally were through. Had a quick flight to Frankfurt.
We made our way to our gate, another long walk. We arrived there to an overflowing waiting area, more than half of the passengers required to stand. We all took the preemptive action to utilize the nearby WC. For whatever reason, the bathrooms in Frankfurt Airport have one stall and two urinals. Don’t people go to the bathroom here? It’s absolute chaos, so of course while waiting there, we hear a loud anguished scream and crying only to see a young boy holding his crotch and running for his mother. He had waited just a little too long. Another unfortunate lifetime memory for this young traveler.
The geniuses.
Finally we boarded. These planes are huge and hold tons of passengers. So of course boarding is a long and tedious process. It was a long and boring ride. Don and Clay both watched three movies. I watched one and then decided to make progress on the book that I’ve got checked out. We had bulkhead seats which was good, but that meant pulling up our screens in front of us. That, in addition to our little dinner trays made me feel like I was trapped in a dentist’s chair. We were also feet from the lavatories so that meant constant traffic and funny smells. There was a lovely, friendly flight attendant who was stationed in the area and we had fun conversing with her. The crew was going to layover in Minneapolis for a couple of nights. She had never been inMinneapolis before and was looking forward to it. She had brought her husband along just for that reason.
We finally landed, went through passport control and grabbed our bags in a timely manner. It was 1:30 pm. Got back to the house in a coma, took showers and hung out. Nicci came over to say hi. We made gin and tonics with my newly obtained Swiss gin. Susan made a heaping dish of veggie lasagna and we had watermelon for dessert. We looked at pictures and then, full and exhausted, we hit the sack. We'd been up of 20 straight hours. It was an amazing trip but it was good to be home.
Here is a piece that Dave put together that captures the spirit of Switzerland: