Hello Zurich
We both packed and squeezed everything back in our big bags last night, going over all the fun we’ve experienced on our trip and lamenting the end of our travels. Molly & I have truly had so much fun together but we are missing home, friends and family and are ready to get back home to Sydney.
We had booked our flights home separately and at different times, with different airlines. Molly was travelling with Emirates, leaving a couple of hours after my Thai Airways flight but we’d rendezvous back in Sydney the following night when we landed, to compare tales of our long flights and so we could be picked up together.
Out the door right on time, we boarded our punctual Swiss bus and met Mitch, Suz and Zoe for breakfast at the Bern ‘Bahnhof’ (the only German word I can remember from Year 7 German class).
After brekky, we bought our tickets and boarded our train for our hour-long journey to Zurich. Mitch was such a gentleman, insisting on carrying both our big bags. In London they constantly remind you to ‘mind the gap’, though the ‘gap’ here was like a foot-wide chasm, with no precautionary announcement. I wondered if anyone ever lost a shoe (or a small child) down there.
With seats at a premium, Molly and I sat a couple of rows apart in the same carriage. I logged into the free train wifi and thought I’d check my flight details. You know when you’re on holidays, you often don’t know what day it is? I saw my flight was leaving on the 10th. Hang on. Wasn’t today only the 9th? A quick check of my phone calendar confirmed it was indeed only the 9th day of September. Oh but there’s confusion with crossing the international dateline…you lose a day going back…’maybe this was the 10th, Sydney time?’, I thought. I did a quick check of my flight confirmation email and unfortunately it confirmed, I was booked to go home TOMORROW. Molly was booked to go home TODAY.
I scooted off my seat and up to Molly’s seat, urgently whispering that we had a “RED ALERT!!” (OK, maybe I didn’t whisper it). Red alert, red alert!
I had always thought I was going home on 10th. When I’d booked my flight, Molly had said she was “going home on 10th”, meaning that was when she’d BE home, not when she was leaving to go. She was right, she was ‘going home on 10th’ - that’s when she’d be home. It was in no way Molly’s fault (you’re off the hook Miss Molly), I had misunderstood and booked myself on a flight a day after hers, thinking “going home” meant getting on a flight. I’m confused even writing this.
The airline had the exact same flights scheduled for today so I tried to manage my booking online to see if I could switch mine to one day earlier. It was a bit complicated so I thought I’d just tackle it with someone in person at the airport.
The Zurich Flughafen Airport has an amazing online service to help you with your departure. Typing in your flight number and destination, it produces a handy checklist to help you prepare for take off. Complete with maps, it gives you detailed information about which floor to be on, which numbered queue to stand in. It even has live updates with up-to-the-minute security queue waiting times. That’s Switzerland for you.
After ‘Preparing For Your Flight’ and ‘Check-In’, the checklist has an item titled ‘Wrap Up Loose Ends’. I sure had a few loose ends to wrap up. The ground staff at the counter were so lovely about my booking blunder and did their best to insert me onto today’s flights, reassuring me I was not the first person to make this mistake. It could have been worse they told me, I could’ve arrived a week late. In the end, I had to call the airline to see if they could squeeze me on the earlier flights. Apparently the first leg of the trip was possible but the second leg was almost fully booked. She did have some seats but they were going to cost me almost AUD $900 extra (& that didn’t even include an upgrade). If they had seats for goodness’ sake, why couldn’t I just sit in one? I’d already paid for my flight.
Anyway, having come to terms with spending a night in Zurich, I stopped Googling flights and started Googling airport hotels. I hugged and farewelled Molly, a little jealous she would soon be home and made my way to the hotel within the airport, deciding to try to make the most of my bonus day in Switzerland.
Thanks for coming along on the ride with us these last few weeks! It’s been epic and we have so many great memories to hang onto for life.
Auf Wiedersehen!
