Switzerland Trip

I’m sure by now you’re tired of reading the same Blogg entry over and over, so I guess it’s time to continue with a new one. I left off with not being able to do laundry and warned my brother to come pick me up at the airport with gasmask on. Luckily he didn’t have to do that as two days before I left I finally was able to do laundry. I had a great flight with an Air France Jumbo and was able to sit in the top floor and even luckier I had no seats in front of me, could stretch my legs. I was a bit worried about missing my connection flight to Zurich. I had only one hour in-between, but a friendly hostess with a “Passengers to Zurich” sign, helped me get there faster.

I stayed in Switzerland for four weeks and it was wonderful to catch up with everybody or almost everybody as 4 weeks are not nearly enough time to visit with everybody you know. Main thing was to see my mom and it was good to see that she is coping well being alone after my dad had passed away five years ago. It was great to see my family, unfortunately or very sad is that they don’t get along with each other, so my family was never together at the same time, really sad. The first weekend I spent with my brother Marco who started his own beer brewery. Wow was that interesting to learn all about beer making. I never tasted a better beer, has nothing to do with him being my brother, it’s really an incredibly rich beer. I’m so proud of Marco, originally he started brewing beer as a hobby then when he lost his job and couldn’t find any work and got close to having to get social help, he took a chance and started brewing, while his wife Barbara started catering, both were and still are working their butts off. In the meantime he found a job and is doing the brewing every weekend, not leaving him much time for other things. Good thing is that his beer is a hit and he is on his way to expand.

I did some travels by train with my mom and I’m amazed about the public transportation system in Switzerland, it’s just amazing and way faster by train then by car, but is very costly as well. We visited the castle of Rapperswil and took the boat back on the lake of Zurich. Another trip was to Lugano the Italian part of Switzerland, what a most beautiful area. The most I enjoyed was seeing the snow capped mountains up close.

Then of course I had to visit my good friend Gabriela, when she knew that we wanted to remodel our bathroom she painted tiles for us, but look for yourself how cute they are.

She is incredibly talented. She had planned to visit Rita in Malaga to study Spanish for two weeks and was a bit disappointed that she only could see me twice; well that’s what she thought. Week three I flew to Malaga and surprised her with a five day visit, besides that it was great catching up with Rita, family and friends as well. This was truly the highlight of my trip to Switzerland. On my flight back, (Air France again) we had a delayed start and so I missed my connection flight to Zurich in Paris. I already had my episode in Paris on my way to

Malaga as I had a four hour layover. Four hours is a long time and so I found a very nice Steakhouse at the airport, settled in and was just done enjoying my appetizer when a police man came running into the restaurant and everybody started to scurry around. The waitress brought me my bill and

said I had to leave and to return in about twenty minutes. Of course I questioned that because I didn’t have my steak yet and that was on the bill too. She mumbled something in French which I interpreted “bomb in a suite case”. I wasn’t going to run out on my bill but I was definitely not going to pay for the steak I hadn’t enjoyed yet either, so they took it off the bill. As I left the restaurant I was facing the window through which you can see where they unload and load passenger. There was a Peugeot oddly parked on the other side of the window, two police officers on their knees leaning into both front doors, a fire truck right behind them then the yellow tape and hundreds of spectators. Next to the restaurant more yellow tape and more spectators. They were closer to the scene as I was happily sitting at my table waiting for my steak. When I observed all this, it didn’t take me one second to get the heck out of this area and as far away from the bomb as possible. I can’t believe how unsafe that was handled. About twenty minutes later the area was cleared I went back to the restaurant and finished my meal. So on my trip back from Malaga we ran one hour late, the exact time to catch my connection and oh boy is that airport huge. To get from terminal D to F was a never ending walk then going through customs and baggage check, the line was never ending. I had about 15 minutes to reach the gate. The customs guys, knowing I had limited time, insisted that I stood behind the last person in line. All the passengers in front were very nice to let me jump ahead, while the customs gave me dirty looks as I kept smiling at them, I was sure they were going to rip me and my luggage apart, but I actually made the gate 10 minutes before departure. Here comes the problem though, since my flight was an inner city flight they bring you by bus to the plain and they were not going to do the trip with just one person. As I stood at the info counter to find out that I had missed the last flight to Zurich for the night “KABOOOOOOOOM”. I was ready to hit the floor as it sounded like there was a shooting going on. Wide eyed I starred at the guy behind the counter, he smiled and assured me that was no gun shot, they must have exploded another suspicious suite case that happens here all the time, oh is that all (which made me decide to pack my luggage differently on my flight home, I place all camera wires in a Ziploc). So instead of spending my evening with my brother one more time before I flew home, I had to spend the night in, although a very nice hotel room , the Radisson instead. Boy did I miss Sid, would have loved to share that room with him. I must say as unhappy as I was I got treated really well by Air France, had an expensive room and a four course dinner, not to mention lox and caviar breakfast buffet. To top this story off, while in Malaga our debit card got blocked again, happened last time as well. Luckily I had some Swiss money with me and had just enough left to buy me a glass of beer at the Radisson. A few days later I convinced my bank that I indeed spent the 72 dollar on my debit card in Malaga.

Now some backtracking, a very memorable visit was to see Helen and Peter, the couple I met in Puerto La Cruz last November. I met her in Winterthur one early morning. She greeted me with a nice down jacket which I welcomed as it was cold. As early as it was we hit a fancy restaurant/bar and toasted with a “Güppli” (Glass of Champagne) and afterward walked through this charming town. It was a picturesque day as we drove trough the country side to her home up to the “Nollen” a hill above the Bodensee (Lake of Konstanz which boarders Germany). The view from the house was just spectacular as you can see nothing but fields, hills, forests and snow topped mountains in the background. The highest peak is Säntis. You should have seen the trees full with apples and pears and quince and and and. Every time I walked by an apple tree one jumped right out of there into my hand. There is nothing more delicious than biting into a juicy, firm apple fresh from a tree with the most incredible sweet and sour apple flavor, yum. I love Peter and Helen’s house, especially my room on the top floor with a view of the Säntis. Peter wasn’t home yet so Helen took me “Pilzen” (collecting mushrooms in the forest). How exciting that was, for once to forage in a forest instead of in the water. We found I think 6 different type of mushroom which Peter turned into a gourmet meal the next day. In the evening I used their sauna that was awesome as a cold beer was waiting for me and I cooled off in the cold mountain air outside. Oh and you should see her bath tub.

Now get this, I am a Swiss citizen and wanted to open a savings account with a little inheritance I made. Do you think they would let me open one? Nope! Reason: I don’t live in Switzerland. They gave me an option though to open an account for foreigners which would cost me 250 bucks a year, now that I don’t call a savings account anymore. Then when my bank blocked my credit card I wanted to exchange some dollars. First thing she asked was if I had an account because they only exchange with an account. How could I have an account when they won’t let me open one? So she wanted 10 bucks to change a 50 dollar bill, absolutely NOT. Also as a Swiss Citizen I cannot renew my passport in Switzerland, because I don’t live there anymore, my paperwork is in Atlanta and therefore I have to renew it there. But for the same price of renewing one I could extend the old one for one year, oh really! Well, my passport is expired since 1999 and customs never even noticed, neither in Spain or France.

I had a great time in Switzerland and loaded up on all the seasonings I ran out of over the years including cheeses and of course chocolate and of course I had 4 kilos overweight. They closed the eyes on two kilos but I had to pay 40 bucks for each other kilo, ouch. I was looking forward to going home as I was longing for Sid, Tika, my bed, the boat and the friendly people in the sun. I came to the conclusion that I could not live in Switzerland anymore, people are way too serious and drive off negativity, without it, they are not happy. Simply I changed way too much over the years, I don’t fit in anymore.

I lucked out once more with my Jumbo flight home, this time I was sitting in the front row right behind the cockpit and since there was a cabinet under the window I was able to prop my feet up, I felt like flying first class, the ultimate was that I was allowed to sit in the cockpit and chat with the pilots for 1 ½ hours. The pilots asked me more questions about our sailing than I could ask them, but we discovered that sailing and flying are similar with all the instruments and keeping watch, except of course the difference of speed. In Caracas a zoo was waiting for me, immediately I realized it must be a holiday (Columbus Day) as every counter was filled with long lines. I think I had 200 people in front of me. Then we sat in the overheated plane on the runway for over two hours while one plain after another landed. It went something like this, two to four planes landing one taking off. It was a traffic jam in an airport. Well it was a very long day for me but I forgot all about it once I was in Sid’s arms.

Sid had a lonely time in Puerto La Cruz while I was gone. Lonely because he was pretty much the only person here, all had left for travels or went to the States. He was taking care of our friends boat Three Keys, feeding their cats, our own and doing odds and ends on our boat. Unfortunately while I was gone he received sad news that his mom died. She had Alzheimer’s and breast cancer.

I’m glad to be home again and told Sid that I’m done with flying for a loooooong time. Well, that looooooong time is not so long as we are going to see the Angle Falls next week and from there to Gran Sabana which is twice flying in a tiny, scary Cessna or something like that.

And here a few photos of Switzerland:

Did you know they have self cleaning toilets in Switzerland?