surprise: it’s switzerland
After the wedding, Chris and I headed to Encore. It was truly the nicest place we’ve ever stayed, who knew that all we needed to do was travel to Everett??
The living room part of our suite. Encore upgraded us when they heard it was our honeymoon!
We were totally dead the next day. It was very hot out, so we hid in movie theater air conditioning to kill some time before our evening flight to Italy.
Peep that ring! Trying to keep our eyes open watching Bullet Train
We got to the airport with plenty of time for dinner. There are no direct flights from the US to Sicily, so the plan was to fly Swiss through Zurich. A wicked thunderstorm temporarily shut down Logan… so before we even got on the plane, we knew we’d miss our connection. I also knew there was only one flight a day to Sicily from Zurich, so stoke level was low as we made our way to our seats at the baaaaaaaack of the very warm plane.
The lady sitting behind Chris started to be a real POS before we even took off. Her TV wasn’t working; her solution was to bash the thing with her fist repeatedly to get it on. This, kind readers, meant she was punching the back of my newly minted husband’s head, which, kind readers, I was having none of, especially as it was hot AF on the plane, and I was perhaps a little overtired from, you know, an exciting few days.
We had a wee tiff and she cut the shit. The plane took off, and we discovered why her TV wasn’t working: Chris’ seat was super broken, and slammed back horizontally onto the tv-less whiner. She’s screaming, Chris is trying to fix it, the very German flight attendants are in a tizzy, and we’re now exactly ten minutes into our honeymoon. Huzzah!
The flight attendant couldn’t fix the seat, so their solution was to move Chris ten rows away. At this point a few tears may have flown on my end, and “it’s our honeymoon” may have been said with a quivering lip. The flight attendant did not give one F that it was our honeymoon and took Chris to his new middle seat.
Folks in other rows become invested in the situation and troubleshoot how Chris and I can sit together. Rocky Balboa continues to huff and puff. At one point she says, “I know it’s their honeymoon, but can we talk about how I’m about to fly eight hours with no TV?”
I spy another flight attendant and use the honeymoon card again. This time it works, and he takes me and Chris to our new seats. Surprise, this seat is also broken!
I only have to turn my welling eyes to the kind attendant and he whisks us up to BUSINESS CLASS.
they give you full size lindt in biz
This has never happened to me before. The seats go FULLY FLAT and they give you little slippers and nice wool blankets and I am totally hooked. At one point I went back to the bowels of the plane to retrieve my carry on; Rocky was sitting in my original spot happily watching the damn TV. Look, everyone wins!
We land in Zurich knowing we’re not making it to Sicily that day. Swiss put us up in a hotel nearby and gave us a meal voucher and train card. Zurich is not the worst place to be stuck for a night, especially when it’s warm and sunny, and you just got married!
I traveled to Germany and Switzerland annually for pre-pandemic trade shows; it’s a place I’ve always wanted to take Chris, but it’s expensive and far. But suddenly we were there, so after a nap and a snack, we headed into the city for dinner.
I always bring backup clothes after getting stuck in the travel fallout from Eyjafjallajökull’s eruption in 2010. (Perhaps this deserves a throwback post sometime, as it continues to be my “bad travel day” baseline). Chris made the fatal flaw of not bringing extra garb, so we hit up the local H&M and walked around the Altstadt, the Old Town.
Personally, when I think Switzerland, I think “cheese,” so we forked over a cool $120 to eat a bunch of fondue.
Neither of us were very impressed, but, when in Rome! Tuckered out, we took the train back to the hotel and caught some zz’s before heading to Palermo.
We made it to Sicily the next morning with minimal fuss. My luggage arrived, but Chris’ was nowhere to be found. He went to file a lost bag claim, but spotted it way in the back of the office. His suitcase was the only one of us who made it to Palermo as planned on Monday!
where: zurich, switzerland
when: early august, and it was pristine
how: by missing our flight lol
