Ready or Not, Here We Come!

I felt like I spent most of the night listening to the noise of the fireworks and watching the minutes tick by on the face of my phone. But I must have slept at some point, because my alarm woke me up, heavy headed, at 6:30. It wasn't the best sleep, but at least there wasn't much of it.

Dennis and I clattered around as much as we could to wake the kids as well.  Joey resisted the longest, and he still wasn't fully conscious when it was time to leave, at a little past 7:00.  That may be why he resisted leaving our hotel so much. Or it may be that he's completely confounded by our vagrant lifestyle.  Whatever it was, Joey was convinced that the ridiculous Hotel Otter was our new permanent home, the one we'd told him so much about, and he was refusing to pack up and go once again.  "No, I wanna stay home! This is our house!"

We literally dragged him kicking and screaming out of the hotel, frankly not much caring if we woke up all of downtown Zürich, since they'd kept us up most of the night.  Joey finally let us put his shoes on only after we'd plopped him onto the drippy cobblestone street outside our hotel.  I ached for the defeated little guy, who, head hung, reached his arms up for a comforting hug.

At that point, Dennis parted. He had to get to Google to retrieve our car and our computer, which we'd stored at his office desk. To our surprise, a lot of the trams weren't running their scheduled routes on this holiday, so Dennis ended up walk-jogging all the way to Google, rattling our suitcase of pajamas and yesterday's clothes behind him.

Meanwhile, I was left with the job of getting the kids to the airport.  There were closer trains that would take us there, but I decided to take the kids to the Hauptbahnhof, where trains for Zürich Flughafen leave constantly.

Alex waits for the tram.

The Hauptbahnhof was every bit as deserted as the streets.

But the trams that could take us to the Hauptbahnhof were running their routes infrequently as well, so we ended up waiting a long time for a tram that inconveniently dropped us several blocks from the main station.  Joey was still feeling defeated, so I was carrying him and two of our heavy bags, while Ella lugged the other two, jaw set, stoically determined to be helpful.  Alex, meanwhile, was saddled with our breakfast, two loaves of bread and some jam, which he assured me was a nearly impossible burden.

Breakfast of champions

But we made it to the station, hopped on an empty train car, and finished waking up as we munched Butterzopf and waved goodbye to Zürich through the appropriately rain-spattered windows.

Since our phones weren't working Dennis and I agreed to meet at the rental car drop-off.  With six suitcases, five carry-ons, three duffels, and three large boxes (including a cumbersome computer), and three car seats, we figured he could use a little help. Stupidly (for I hadn't had my morning coffee yet, and wouldn't for a long time, still), I had the kids help me push luggage carts clear from the train terminal, through two elevators, all the way to Parkhaus 3, where there were, of course, many, many more carts waiting to be used. And there we waited, and waited, with Alex growing increasingly worried that something had happened to his father, or that maybe we would miss our flight.

To distract the kids, I had them teach me words in "their language," while Joey munched away at the little bag of gummy bears that he'd found in his pocket.  It was going to be a long day, so I didn't feel like battling over a little candy for breakfast.

But the real fun began when Dennis finally pulled up.  We wheeled over a fourth luggage cart, requiring every inch of all of them, and performed some last-minute juggling.  

Joey helps, weighing his car seat.

When we were packing our bags at home, we were very careful.  We'd gone without a scale all year, but last week we decided it was worth spending 20 CHF on one to save hundreds in overweight baggage charges.  Each of our boxes was at 48.5 lbs, but we hadn't weighed our duffels, which were holding all of our winter clothes clothes, and were sad, but not too surprised, to learn that they were each a few pounds over the 50-lb limit. So, there in the airport parking lot, we shuffled pairs of heavy jeans and bottles of toiletries until every one of our checked bags was right at 48 or 49 pounds. Then we threw shiny new scale in the least-full box, taped them up, and loaded them on the carts.

Ready to roll!

Joey perched himself in front of Dennis's cart like a masthead, but Ella and Alex each had to push wobbly, precarious carts, which stayed braked unless you held the push bar just so.  We weaved through the garage, taking the elevators in waves. Alex was having trouble and protested mightily that there was no way he'd ever make it, until I promised him a 50-cent tip for services rendered. At that point, he started snarling at Dennis when he tried to help steer, saying he could do it himself, thank you!

On the airport transport: I have a similar picture from
a year ago, when we arrived.

The Zürich airport is enormous, but not big enough to justify the 45 minutes it took us to travel from the parking lot to the check-in desk.  But there we got to shed the bulkier half of our baggage before walking, and walking, and walking, another half-hour to our gate.  At that point we were really pushing the kids to hurry, knowing that we had a far way to go, but even though they hustled, we made it to our gate just minutes before it closed, at 11:10.  

We still hadn't had our coffee.

But the thing if it is, after that long, long morning, the rest of the day was absolute cake.  The first leg of our flight was a two-hour hop from Zürich to London, and the kids insisted on sitting together in a row for part of that, leaving Dennis and me to catch our breath.

Joey's first flight in memory: he decided he should study up.

Joey eventually got antsy, and I shifted back to sit with the boys to snuggle up and read them books for the rest of the flight.  But it was the easiest flight with the kids that I can remember.  It occurred to me today that we hadn't flown in all of 2011.

"We're doing it!"

Since flying was so novel, the boys were so excited: when we took off, Alex glued his nose to the window, shouting "We're doing it! We're flying," acknowledging it for the miracle it is.

Meanwhile, Ella read and read, relishing a few hours with no homework, no ski-school, and no mom-driven excursions.

We thought our layover in Heathrow was supposed to be brief, and we were a little worried about getting through security checks in time, but when we presented our passports, they told us we had over two hours: they hadn't even assigned our flight a gate, yet.  The security guards also gave us the added gift of relieving us of all five of our rolling suitcases because our next flight was absolutely full and there wouldn't be enough overhead space to hold them.  So Alex was finally free of burdens, and, lightened, we breezed through the rest of security, flounced through the airport, and snuggled up in a booth at Wagamama's, enjoying our last European meal.

Unable to help ourselves, Ella and I nipped out of lunch early, running to the closest bookstore, Ella's jaw dropping at the racks and racks of English books for sale.  And after that, we finally, finally, got our coffee. We were feeling fine.

It was a hike to get to our gate, once it was eventually assigned, but a much more relaxed one.  Since we had no overhead baggage, there was no reason to rush onto the plane, so we took our time outside, getting gum for the kids and appreciating our impressively large airplane.

When we finally did board, our walk to our seats made me smile.  The plane was so large that first class was separated into an upstairs floor, and Ella was all set to trot up those stairs when we broke the bad news to her.  

But the seats just around the corner from the stairs weren't so bad either: little individual reclining cots, walled off from one another, each occupied by a someone very smug.  "Ohhh," Ella sighed approvingly, looking to me for directions to her own little cubicle.  No no, Ella, sorry, not here, either.

And then we walked past the curtain into Business Class, with those lovely wide-armed chairs, and Ella said, hopefully, "Here?"  But no: one more curtain and the plane opened up into what looked like a small movie theater of crunched-together seats. "Oh," was all she said, and all there was to say.

Dennis kept Ella company for the flight, and I was flanked by a little boy on either side.  You won't believe this, but our almost 10-hour flight was every bit as easy as our 2-hour one.  After a year of watching the same DVDs from our library over and over, having their choice of English-language cartoons made the kids giddy: they each passed the flight watching Puss in Boots, Cars 2, Winnie the Pooh, Madagascar 2...and then back to Cars 2 again. And me? You'll never hear me complain about getting to sit back and watch four movies back-to-back.

And there was a second show outside the plane window.  Extraordinary.

Joey fell asleep at take-off, and then he snoozed for two hours before our landing. And Alex, a few hours into our flight, abruptly pulled off his earphones and laid his head in my lap, announcing "It's bedtime," falling asleep within thirty seconds.  But in front of me, Ella stayed awake the whole time, not wanting to miss a minute of her gluttonous television fest.  

But oh, she was tired when we landed in Seattle, where it was still only 4:00 PM.  Our passport check was blessedly brief: the agent had no choice but to move things along with Alex standing there, rocking on his heels the whole time, announcing to the agent and the entire terminal that he had to PEE.

And then, one by one, every last one of our bundles rolled around on the conveyor belt, all of them undamaged. After we got everything loaded onto four new trolleys, we walked the twenty feet to customs, where they asked us what, exactly, we were smuggling into America. Eyeing the customs sign, I was inwardly surprised to learn that you're not allowed to bring meat into the country, and there I was with a suitcase filled with cured sausages from Tirol. When they asked if we had any meats, Ella, ever honest, piped up that, "Well, yes, we do!" My breath caught before she continued: "We have some mints! I have a whole pack of gum!"  Meanwhile, I kept my mouth closed...but now I've confessed my crime to the internets. Absolve me, please.

Oddly, once we'd walked those twenty feet trough customs, they had us return our bags to a second conveyor belt: they'd be shuttled to Arrivals for us.

Happy New Year's! White Rabbit!

The poor kids were only half-awake, but, though droopy-eyed, they were so excited: Grandma and Grandpa were picking us up at the airport!  And there they,  were standing there at the top of the Arrivals escalator, with a big yellow sign reading "GEELS."  The kids stumbled over each other to get to the stairs for hugs.  When Joey ran up to Grandma, he cutely, heart-breakingly introduced himself: "Hi, Grandma! I'm Joey! I'm three!"

Dan and Joani had brought us two cars to hold all our stuff, including our American-sized minivan, which now seems so enormous.  And they'd surprised me by cleaning it out and having some dents removed as a Christmas gift: I'm a very lucky daughter-in-law indeed.

Somehow the kids all stayed awake for the car ride home.  When we got there, they swarmed the door of our house, so eager to burst in and look it all over.  Ella wandered around, waxing nostalgic: "Oh, I remember this..."

Alex surprised me by not being able to find his bedroom. I guess a year is an awfully long time when you're just five.

And Joey, he was very approving of our "new" house: much better than the Hotel Otter, it was worth the wait, I think.

Honey, we're home.