Flight to Zurich
My trip started with the shocking realization that I did not pack and ship enough stuff, and I still had a lot left to pack! My suitcases were full, so at some point I had to pack and ship a few books via USPS. Yet still I had stuff I couldn’t take, and I had two huge suitcases, a carry-on, a backpack, and two sweatshirts, a coat, and two hats in my hand! Luckily my flight was a direct flight, and I was going to take a cab both to airport and to my final destination, but I was still looking forward a hell of a trip!
My packing strategy was wrong — instead of shipping stuff, and packing the remaining with me, I should have first packed into suitcases the things I will need until my packages arrive, and then shipped the rest. Duly noted!
I “caterpillar-walked” with three suitcases to check-in counters, just to discover that with my current set-up I had to pay $850 in fees if I wanted to check-in all three suitcases. After removing stuff from my carry-on, the fee reduced to $500, for two overweight suitcases. I felt like it was too much again, so I decided to do some more shuffling — luckily I was at the airport three hours before the flight! I guess three hours before the flight is a good timing for international flights with a potential for weight shuffling.
The two overweight suitcases were 58lb and 61lb, so I shuffled them into even 50lb, which was the limit, and 70lb, which was the absolute limit for overweight bags. My fee was now $250 — not bad at all, compared to $850!
With two suitcases checked in, I still had a carry-on, a backpack, and all the other stuff to carry. So I could only walk to my gate, and waited to finally get on the plane. It was then announced that we could check-in carry-ons at the gate — and it was free! This sounded like a blessing to me, cause it meant I can get rid of my carry-on, and have only a handful of stuff left with me!
The flight itself was quite smooth, though I didn’t manage to get any sleep. It was an overnight flight, so I “skipped” a night. This meant huge jetlag for me.
Being German meant that I would go probably go through the border without any questions asked. It was indeed just saying hi, and the officer verifying my passport with the machine.
When I got to baggage claim, I was terrifyingly imagining another “caterpillar walk” with 3 suitcases to the taxi. However, Zurich airport had free carts! I put my suitcases onto the cart, and happily rolled to get a taxi!
The ride home was short, around 20 minutes. Yet I paid 75CHF for the ride! I guess this was my first realization about how expensive things are in Zurich! The driver was nice, and he told me about Zurich along our ride. He told me how you can swim in the lake during summer, and bragged how buildings in Zurich are old, because it’s been a while since Switzerland was in a war.
When I made it home, I started immediately unpacking, since my plan was to stay up until the evening. But this didn’t work that well, and after finishing unpacking by 2pm I crashed for few hours!
