I woke up at 5AM EEST—that’s UTC+2 for freaks like me that have to deal with timezones for work, 7 hours later than Eastern Standard Time for those lucky enough to retain their sanity. The figurative alarm bells jingled on my bed stand and I, of course, hit the snooze button. Instead of the standard 50 minutes, I managed to get out of bed in ten. This was due to the fact that our flight to Zürich departed Athens at 7:05AM, and I wanted to load myself down with a buffet breakfast at the airport hotel.

The breakfast buffet was 30€ for a full selection, which was a moderate rip-off, in my opinion. Fortunately, I steered clear of the disgusting stuff, so they only charged me 21€. The distinguishing factor to that buffet was the fact that they had honeycomb from the beehive still in the frame. I, of course, had to have some, so I had the lady carve me a portion of the bee vomit. I mostly shoveled food down the pie hole and tried not to think about the raging inferno that was still brewing in the figurative boiler room. To remind you, this fire was stoked late the previous evening by a freddo cappuccino, a fancy chocolate dessert, and a piece of baklava from the pastry shop on the airport property. Follow this with a four hour sleep and you have a recipe for pure napalm in one’s esophagus. [editor’s note: slight exaggeration may be employed for attempts at comedy from time to time]

I waddled over to the airport, checked my bag in and headed to security. Everything went swimmingly in Athens. By swimmingly, I mean it went well. The pool was closed at the hotel so there was no swimming going on. Thanks to Trevor discovering that I could change my seat for free on SWISS, I had moved my seat to an exit row. This was a good thing because it meant I could have a small modicum of comfort and stretch out a bit. After we landed in Zürich, I immediately ditched the other guys, which was a mistake. The main justification for the ditching was to find a paperclip so I could change my SIM card to my American one, since Vodafone Greece’s prepaid plan doesn’t work in Switzerland.

After ditching them, I realized that this was stupid, because they didn’t have their SIMs in either. I assumed that Zürich airport had free wifi that they could connect to. I found out later after visiting the SWISS lounge in E gates that Zürich airport does not have free wifi, and that you should plan ahead with regards to cellular communications devices.

Anyway, I decided to head outside the airport and figure out how we were gonna get to downtown. After asking a few locals, I finally procured a 24-hour 2nd class ticket for 13.20 CHF, If I recall correctly. The great thing about Zürich is that there are lots of trains between Zürich Hauptbahnhof (Zürich HB in the signs) and Zürich Airport (Zürich Flughafen)

Weston finally got his data working, so he called me back, and we met up to quick purchase tickets. We asked some more locals more questions about how to get downtown fast. In order to facilitate you, the reader, in getting downtown from Zürich Flughafen as quickly as possible, I will write instructions in the following paragraph.

The first thing you want to do is exit security, obviously. Then (my brain is already getting fuzzy on this) you want to follow signs for the trains (Bahn), not the tram. The tram (no. 10 if you want to go this route) will also get you there, but not as quickly. Find a ticket machine. The ticket machines I found were outside the airport on ground level, but I suppose there are machines in the train station as well. You can use your credit card to purchase the ticket, too. I think it’s a good deal to get the 24-hour ticket to Zürich City (at the time of this writing this was about 13.20 CHF) After getting the ticket, you can go into the train station and look for trains to Zürich HB. Google Maps transit directions to Zürich Hauptbahnhof will facilitate you in this regard. Most trains going south will stop at Zürich HB. In my little bit of tram and train riding in Zürich, my ticket was not checked. Neither were there turnstiles at which to scan the ticket. I believe the ticket is good for any trains, trams, or buses in Zürich.

I was very impressed with the trains I rode to and from the airport. When traveling in the open air, I measured the noise level in the train at 45-55dB. The loudest I saw on my watch was 68dB when coming through the tunnel up to Zürich HB. New York City metro doesn’t even come close.

Once we got to Zürich HB, we got off the train and started walking for the river. I would like to detour this paragraph a bit and say that the weather in Zürich was absolutely perfect for a February day. It was about 48°F when we were walking the city.

We walked the river down to the lake and stopped at a pastry shop called Pascal et Katy, that I thought was pretty touristy. Not sure though, maybe one of you Europe experts (you know who you are) can tell me. After we walked down to the lake I found a “third wave” coffee shop about a ten minute walk away. This was when we decided to try out the tram.

After going to this coffee shop, I realized that the third wave coffee shop is just the McDonalds of the millennial crowd. Think about it. I can go to Zürich, to Athens, to Paris, to London, to Alliance, Ohio (not anymore, R.I.P Esso Coffee), to San Francisco, etc. etc. THEY ALL SERVE THE SAME STUFF. Sure, Athens has a couple of unique drinks, and there are American shops that have “unique” seasonal flavors. However, you and I both know that if we go to one anywhere in the world, we’re going to get more or less the same experience. Sure, I can’t order a cheeseburger in Tel Aviv because that’s not kosher, but I can still get beef sandwiched between two chunks of soggy carbs with mayo squishing out the sides and glopping disgustingly onto your formerly clean hands. Or maybe I get some slight local derivative that has some cool local name.

One thing that did impress me about the coffee shop was that I noticed someone had left their Apple MacBook Pro (the best laptop ever made by the way) sitting at a table, open, with no one sitting there. It is my impression that in SF or NYC such things left on tables in such places will soon find a new and rather guilty-looking owner.

After the coffee, we took the tram back to a stop close to the train station. After that we went to a coop supermarket right across the street from the station. I personally bought 800g of chocolate. This is something that I feel slightly ashamed of, so it’s probably a good thing to come clean and bring it to the light. My German friend, whom I shall mention in more detail later, shared his opinion that Swiss chocolate is mostly branding, and that it is not necessarily the best chocolate to be had. So, you Swiss chocolate fanatics can put that in your pipe and smoke it.

I would also like to offend the Hershey’s chocolate lovers. I told the German gentleman that he should try Hershey’s while here in the States. I then told him that I had read that some Europeans thought it tasted like baby barf.

We got back to the airport anded headed through security in our respective lines. Funny story, the business line that I was in moved more slowly than the “Economy” (a.k.a. cattle class) line. Somehow Weston beat me through security. It’s okay, though. I don’t take it personally.

When I got to passport control for E gates in the airport, I became very thankful that Weston had sped us along to get us back to the airport before I thought we needed to be there. The passport control lines gave me flashbacks of the time I stood in line for an hour in Tel Aviv for passport control. I decided that the others had Giesbrecht luck (if that’s even a thing) and that I should follow him. Sure enough, we breezed through the leftmost line while everyone else was at a standstill.

Once through to E gates, I got my boarding pass stamped with a pretty blue stamp. I would like to know what the purpose of getting your boarding pass stamped is. Someday when I’m not flying across the wastes of northern Canada, I shall look it up.

After getting the stamp, I went up to the SWISS lounge and waited anxiously for our plane to begin boarding. It had come in late, so boarding did not start right on time. I boarded in group 2 and went for seat 20A in the Premium Economy section. Let me just say, if you’re going to pick between Lufthansa and SWISS for a premium seat, SWISS is the way to go. The seat had an actual leg rest and a nice entertainment screen.

As I write this, I am sitting by a German gentleman from a village in southern Germany, near Stuttgart. He is flying to Tahoe and then to Aspen to be a “service man” for athletes using his company’s ski goggles (Forgive me if this is not an accurate description) We had what I thought was a very pleasant conversation for one to two hours. He told me that he had met some of his parents’ friends in Zürich going to Mallorca to watch the almond trees blossom. I told him that if I were him, I would want to go see the same thing happening right now in California, just as a flex on those people going to Mallorca to see the same thing. I guess that’s a flex or something, I don’t know.

Another thing I talked with the German gentleman was his particular variety and dialect of German. He said that he is one of the last age group to speak Schwäbisch. Since I know very little standard German, and even less Pennsylvania German, I couldn’t verify with 100% certainty, but there were a couple of features of his dialect that were similar to Pennsylvania German. The first was the word they use for “to speak”. In both dialects, it’s “schwetzen” rather than the standard German “sprechen”. The second was the word they use for “not”. In both dialects, it’s “net” rather than the standard German “nicht”. I am very sure, however, that both dialects have drifted since the before times, because his accent sounded different than the accent of the Pennsylvania German speakers that I know. Whether this is because of English influence on Pennsylvania German, I do not know.

I would like to devote a small paragraph to drivel on about the similarities between English and other Germanic languages. Imagine if we, instead of calling our airports “airports”, we called them “Flight havens.” Or if instead of calling oxygen “oxygen” we called it “sourstuff.” Someday, I might get inspired to learn a few more German words to add to the general mishmash of half-learned languages in my brain.

About halfway through the flight, I got up and talked with Trevor and Weston for a few minutes, then looked out the window on the exit row at what I assume was Greenland. By the way, I believe that name was invented by an Icelandic “scam artist” back in the 10th century so that people would move there. It certainly was not green; it was very white. I am very sure his VRBO listing would have been 1/5 stars.

After talking with the boys, I ran into a French athlete who was going to compete in the ski races in Tahoe this week. I talked to him for a few minutes before wishing him luck.

This, I think, will be the end of my trip report. As I write this, I’ve got three more hours on the flight to SFO, but I don’t think you want to hear about San Francisco traffic and U.S. border officials.

Appendix A: Public Restrooms

Public restrooms, a.k.a water closets, tend to have more wall for each stall in Europe. It’s a very nice feature. I really appreciate it, and I think that Americans would do well to implement such features in all restrooms within their nation. I think that it’s possible that they would enter a new golden age of peace and prosperity. Think about it! Imagine a nation where Joe Biden lovers and Donald Trump lovers could get along. That would be a beautiful day. Anyway, I suppose you might say this is all a pipe dream.

Appendix B: Flights and cruising altitudes

This, I suppose, is a bit random, but I noticed that European flights all fly at multiples of 100 feet, just like American flights all do. I suppose it’s because Britain and America have ruled the world for approximately two hundred years. I mean, which ATC controller is going to say “Climb and maintain 10,972m.” Rather, they’ll say something like “Climb and maintain flight level 360” (36,000 feet) This is another reason why U.S. measurements are so great. If they did use meters, how would they specify flight levels? I was going to go on a long and not very well-thought-through rant about this, but I realized that my premise was invalid. So, anyway.

Appendix C: That old peddler dude in Chania

I kept thinking about how I should just reply to street peddlers in Spanish whenever they would try to sell me something. Finally, in Chania, I got my chance. I told the man, “No, no quiero ningún” or “I no want any” (don’t judge my bad grammar, Spanish speakers) He replied with (in Spanish) “You speak Spanish? I worked on a boat from Spain for fifty years” At least, I think this is what he said. I wasn’t sure he was old enough to have worked on one boat for fifty years. Pronunciation is where the blog format comes short, because he came back and asked if we wanted glasses (gafas in Spanish) But he said it with a very distinct greek ‘g’ sound which is more like the ‘ch’ sound in German, but aspirated. And now I’ve lost everyone but the language nerds. Nice! Anyway, my language nerd brain nerded out over that for a bit.

Appendix D: Prepaid SIMs

If you have Verizon or AT&T, I would highly recommend getting a prepaid plan in your destination country. We paid 23€ each for a Vodafone SIM in Athens. This was much cheaper than using Verizon or AT&T’s day passes, which cost $10 a day. If you are visiting Athens and you go to Plaka during the daytime, you can get a Vodafone SIM from a kiosk in the market there for around 11€. The kiosk looked legit, and was staffed by a guy in a Vodafone shirt. I talked to him for a while about the price difference. What I gather is that Vodafone rips people off in-store to pay for the store infrastructure.

Appendix E: Snacks and bottled water in Greece

The price of basic bottled water is regulated in Greece. I think it’s about 0.60€ for a 500ml, and 1€ for a liter. Fancy bottled water is more expensive. And snacks: I don’t remember where now, but we bought ourselves a pile of bottled water and snacks, and the bill came to about 7€, if I remember correctly. I thought this was impressive.

That wraps up this stretch of blog posts. If I do my math correctly, I wrote about 11,000 words in the last week. That’s about 11,000 more words than I write in a typical week.