Travels and Jet-Lagging

Yesterday morning, the alarm clock went off at 05:45 and I arose to begin the first part of my trek to the US.  The preceding evening, I had dropped off my suitcase in the left luggage section of the train station at the airport. The taxi fare from my little town to the airport runs about CHF 80+ per trip so I like to avoid paying that. While friends have often kindly offered to drop me off at the airport for morning flights, requiring them to arise at the crack of dawn is not, IMO, a good way to maintain friendships.

Prior to the mega-security measures introduced in the last decade in large part due to the previous US Presidential Administration's completely dropping the ball and ignoring the intelligence they received about terrorists who ultimately flew airplanes into the Twin Towers and the Pentagon, flying used to be a much more pleasurable experience. Our travel-friendly climate in Switzerland also offered many conveniences, such as overnight check-in, which allowed us to leave our large suitcases at the airport the night before. While some airlines still follow this policy, the carrier I generally use does not, so leaving my suitcase with the left luggage at the train station is the next best policy if I do not want to pay an expensive taxi fare - or, of course, bother friends. The fee is reasonable: CHF 10 per suitcase per day. The train fare is another CHF 3.20. So it is quite a savings. But the logistics do require some planning.

Thus, yesterday, I spent the early part of my day in completing the packing of my cabin luggage and packing up my trusty laptop. Arrangements have been made for the apartment in my absence and hopefully all will remain well there. Then, off I set to catch the 07:30 train, only to discover that for whatever reason, certain trains had been "suppressed" yesterday and the 07:30 was running late. Still, I made it to Geneva in fair time, only to discover that the next two trains to the airport station had also been "suppressed." Fortunately, I had already done my check-in on-line so the only thing remaining was to pick up my bag at the train station and wheel it over to the airport counter to "drop" it off.

After those initial glitches, everything proceeded on schedule and without problem. I made my connecting flight in good time and arrived in Maryland last evening, thankfully to find HWMBO waiting for me at the airport. As expected for this time of year, the flights were completely full. All things considered, we were comfortable enough. But by the time we had gotten home and relaxed a little, it was around 10:00 pm, which was already 04:00 Central European time. So yes, it was a LONG day, although HWMBO had little sympathy for me, having recently endured his own odyssey to China and back. After that experience, trips back and forth to Europe in his opinion warrant a "meh!"

Today has been a day of getting used to being on the West Side of The Pond again, as well as realizing that my day is now six hours later than what I'm used to. As usual, I find adjusting to the time change in this direction much easier than having six hours lopped off my day, usually from my sleeping time, when I return to the East Side. Thankfully, I slept through the night and didn't wake up until 08:00 so that HWMBO and I could catch the Wimbledon men's quarter-finals!

Now, I'm going through the mail that has accumulated here for me and nursing what jet-lag I seem to have. Our various families are celebrating the holidays in various locations and we have opted for calm. After all, our area has a celebrated fireworks display to which people drive from miles around. We can enjoy it without even having to deal with the traffic.