The Perils of Flying Back to the US

On my last night in Switzerland, post move out inspection, a big group of us went ice skating near the Olympic museum in sub-freezing weather, then had one last Swiss fondue dinner and said goodbye for the dozenth time.


Instead of flying directly home I was flying the next day to San Francisco for an interview with a consulting company, before flying on to Oklahoma City for the holidays. 
Since I was officially homeless I spent the night at my friend Stephanie's house and we talked until after midnight. Then I got caught up on all my emails and made further arrangements for staying in San Francisco. I finally got in bed at 1:30 and had to get up at 6:30, which came too early. As it happened Stephs water heater broke the night before so after the first 15 seconds my shower turned unexpectedly ice cold. I had to heat up water in the electric kettle and bring it into the shower to splash on myself in between gasps for air while rinsing under the cold tap. My head hurt from too much beer at ice skating, my wrist and elbow were badly bruised from my only fall ice skating while trying to do a spinning trick, and Steph is the only girl I know who doesn't own a hair dryer, so my morning was not going well.

Steph dropped me off at the train station and ran home to clean her apt before her own exit inspection. I lugged my 4 bags up to the platform just as the train was arriving and was at the back of the line to board. After struggling to get my bags up the stairs I realized I was trapped among 3 other travelers in the bicycle and baggage hold because all of the seats on the train were full. As I bent down to pull my bags into a more organized collection I was walloped in the bridge of the nose by a womans laptop bag as she turned around suddenly. The pain was sharp enough to bring tears to my eyes and all of a sudden the collective events of the morning overwhelmed me and I was fighting unsuccessfully to hold back hot tears of frustration.

Things got marginally better when I arrived at Geneva airport because there were trolleys available right on the platform and I was able to load up my bags into a more manageable transportation method. Once I was checked in my only lingering consternation was my backpack, which, with carrying my laptop, 2 large coffee table books, and an enormous stack of administrative papers, topped out at nearly 20 pounds, and my stubborn headache, that made every step excruciating.

I stopped into a shop that seemed to sell travel items such as headphones, neck pillows, travel mugs, and small gadgets, and the like, and inquired of the salesclerk if she had any headache medicine (Avez-vous quelquechose  pour un mal-a-tete?) At first she started off very Swiss and said, "no of course I don't, this is not a pharmacy" (silly me), but then she relented and went to her purse where she took out a small pouch filled with her own reserve of medicines brought from home. She popped out one large white pill with a name I didn't recognize and handed it to me, but my head hurt too much to care about technicalities and I downed the pill with gratitude.

Once on board and in flight the flight attendants told us to lower our shades so that people could take a nap, but this was a daytime flight and we would be arriving in Washington DC in the middle of the afternoon, so I suspected it instead was a trick to encourage passengers to sleep so they wouldn't be so needy and the flight attendants could have a more peaceful working day.

My headache returned and I thought once again, as I have many times over the last year, that I couldn't wait to return to the land of cheap and easily accessible ibuprofen.

We landed in Dulles 1 hr and 10 min early because of unseasonably strong tailwinds, but as we got off the plane and rounded the corner for immigration my heart sank because there were no fewer than 500 people in line ahead of me. After 45 minutes of semi-delirious swaying while trying to maintain my balance with my 20 lb backpack I made it through the line, where the immigration officer told me "welcome home."

I ran immediately to a newsstand where I bought two gossip magazines and the latest Discover (100 Top Science Stories of 2010, always the best issue of the year) and then walked 20 minutes to get to my gate in the next concourse. As I approached my gate I reached for my IPhone and discovered in was not in any of the usual places in my pocket or purse. Panic set in as I threw down my bags and rummaged through everything I had with me. No phone. Definitely no phone. 



I ran back along the concourse frantically trying to remember any place I had stopped. I ran to the customer service counter because I had asked for a seat reassignment from them. They didn't have my phone but a very nice United Airlines woman asked me for my phone number and called my phone from her phone. Lo and behold someone answered it, but the connection was too bad and neither person could understand the other. She hung up and called back again but this time no one picked up. I went from hopeful to miserable, thinking that someone had realized they could get away with it. The United Airlines woman told me to go back to the newsstand because probably they had it. I was extremely doubtful, but obeyed, and when I arrived and announced that I had been there a few minutes before the cashier said "yes, I remember you, here is your phone."  I could have kissed her.


After I returned to my gate I bought a lovely fountain soda to calm down and sat there thinking that all I wanted was to get home. Instead I had another 6 hours of flight and a full day of interviews to go.