Marooned in Zurich
13 hours on a flight is never an appealing option when you're 6'3. We'd never flown Swiss air long haul before but at half the price of their competition, well, beggars can't be choosers so we were hoping for the best. The free cocktails in Singapore certainly helped the mood. The service, food and drinks were excellent, the legroom not so much. It was a totally packed flight but I could barely get into my seat, at 5'9 even Juanitas knees were hitting the seat in front, comfort wasn't really an option but hey, you get what you pay for. So being that I could only sleep for about 20 mins at a time due to only fitting in one position, this was a very very long flight. I think it may have been compounded by the fact we flew with Singapore airlines on the previous flight, they are by far the best airline for economy passengers.
The Swiss don't allow planes to land before
7 am so despite our on time arrival
at 6:20 we then circled for 40 minutes more, our 1 1/2 hour connection time taking a hit. Off the plane to our connecting flight we had to go through customs and security again for some reason, security 20 min wait, getting edgy now. Customs, only 5 people in line, winning ! Or not ! The last person before us was 'that' guy. Just as he handed his passport over about 100 people joined each line, no fast tracking or swappsies allowed. We were stuck
He happened to be loud and American, which is fine, until he used 'that phrase'
'I'm American, I have rights'.
Basically the guy had no visa, no return ticket and no accommodation, eventually they would let him through if he could prove he had means to support himself. Like a a bank statement or a credit card. Apparently this was an invasion of his ' American rights ' and he didn't have to prove anything. Sorry champ, but if you're outside of America and that's the law, well....
30 mins later we had 8 mins to make our flight. We got through and ran to the gate only to watch them pull the rope across, our American friend walking down the gangway, the last one allowed on board.
Now I have many American friends, and I have no problem with Americans, it's just that phrase that really grates my cheese. After an angry Facebook rant, my friend JK quickly reminded me that plenty of Aussie F%#^wits travel too, and he is completely right. In fact every country has their less accepting breeds, I just don't see the point of people travelling to other cultures if they aren't willing to accept that those other cultures may do things differently, and at the end of the day, laws are laws, whatever country you are in.
Anyway I digress, we were looking at 8 hours in the worlds most expensive airport followed by a flight to Frankfurt before Madrid, the look on my face apparently told them otherwise and we were put on standby for a direct flight a few hours later. We'd been awake for about 30 hours when we got on the plane.
Bring on the hotel bed in Madrid
Next episode ... ' what hotel '
Jorje y Juanita
