Going Home!

Tuesday, July 28, 2015

Mmmmm,  it’s really time to go home.  We’re up and packed and downstairs, waiting for our airport shuttle before the anticipated arrival time of 7:15.  There is an arrival window of 7:15 to 7:45 but we’re hoping for the earlier end of that.  

Our home for past six days

Breakfast was included, which meant one of these and all the cereal, coffee, tea and "orange juice" you could eat
between eight and ten am.

Early morning

The hallways are REALLY brightly painted!

The second kitchen, right next to our room.
You can tell it's early because there's no one here!

The ladies' shower room

Our door.  If you look carefully you can see the room number!

There is an entry code for the downstairs door and also
for the door to our hallway.

This is confusing for Americans.  "0" is our first floor, "M" is
our second floor, and "1" is our third floor.

Directly across the street

At about 7:20 a big van pulls up and the driver eases our bags into the back.  We’re ahead of schedule and quite tickled.  Prematurely.  We drive a bit and pull into a parking spot.  The driver says we’re a bit early and will wait.  Turns out there’s another couple that we’re picking up here.  Our driver has time for a cup of coffee and a cigarette before they show up.  It’s all good, we’re still ahead of schedule.  More driving.  Another two passengers.  More driving.  Ah, there’s a sign to the airport!!  We finally arrive and it’s exactly the time we were hoping for!  It never pays to worry!

In the door and follow the signs for check-in and baggage drop-off.  We show our passports and e-passes and receive real paper boarding passes for both flights.  Yay!  And my incredibly heavy bag is under the weight limit!  It’s only 17.5 kilos (about 38 pounds)!  On, now, to departures to find our gate, up the escalator, down the hall, over the river through the woods and we get to passport check.  And then to security. Marilyn sails through but something sets off the metal detector when I pass through.  I get the whole treatment, pat down, waistband check, even removing my boots and feeling the soles of my feet!  They don’t find anything, of course, and even with that we still have more than an hour before boarding is scheduled to begin!

Breakfast is the next order of the day.  The only place we’ve seen that might offer bacon and eggs doesn’t open until 10:30;  but there’s a place with coffee and lots of delicious pastries.  Marilyn gets an apple tart, her last for quite a while, and I have a perfect pain au chocolat.  Even the café au lait is good!

We finish up, head to our gate, and take turns checking out “the facilities”.  Marilyn finds one last gift for her grandkids and it’s time to board.  It’s a Swiss Air flight and very comfortable.  And we have the exit row with all that legroom!! The start by walking down the aisles with baskets of Swiss milk chocolate and don’t even give you a dirty look if you take two of the little bars!  It’s a short flight to Zurich, only a little over an hour, and they give us both a beverage and a croissant!  And another round of chocolate!  To balance that, the flight arrives about ten minutes late and we only had forty-five minutes to change planes before the delay!

Our land gate is a A gate.  Our departing gate is an E gate.  It’s as far away as that implies!  And we have to go through passport check, even though we’ve never left the secured area.  Everyone is line at passport check has five minutes to get to a flight and so there isn’t much pity for the coupe that try to cut in line because they only have five minutes!  We’ve ALL got only five minutes!! 

We’ve bonded with a family of four who are also flying to Tampa and we move as a group, keeping together and spotting the next turn!  We take a train and when we arrive at our gate there are actually quite a few of us who came from the Prague flight and they’ve held the plane for us.  It’s an Edelweiss flight and I guess they are travel partners with Swiss Air.

Everyone is settled in their seats and we’re finally heading home.  It’s a ten-hour flight, which means there’s time to watch four movies!  “Tea with Mussolini”, “”Exodus:  Gods and Kings”, “Queen and Country” and “Philomena”.  If I could sleep, I probably wouldn’t just watch movies;  but it works for me!.There is an endless flow of food and beverages!  We are still getting settled when we are brought a little snack pack . The main meal is a choice of beef or vegetarian.  I can’t look at any more beef, so I choose the vegetarian and receive tortellini in cream sauce, prosciutto and melon, cucumbers, cheese and crackers, roll and butter and strawberry whip!

 In a couple of hours there is a strawberry/raspberry sorbet. And a couple of hours after that there is a “snack” of roast beef slices with horseradish and a tomato and a roll to put them on.  This is accompanied by curried rice with peas and a lovely flan.  There is coffee or tea after each meal and beverages are offered about once an hour!  I really like this airline!

We land at the Tampa airport and get to see the international terminal.  This is where we clear passport control, after a nice lady welcomes us to Tampa and another points out the line for US citizens.  Interestingly enough, the passport stop also turns out to be customs!  The agent takes my declaration pages, asks if I have any food (just candy) and that’s that!!  All that trouble to itemize three pages worth of declarations!  Not that I’m complaining!!

We collect our bags from the carousel and Marilyn calls Premier from the white courtesy phone and we go outside to await the shuttle.  Happily it comes quite quickly and we don’t have time to melt. We are going to claim Marilyn’s car, which the Poles left about a week ago.  It takes a bit of time for the overworked kid to locate the car and the keys; but it is worth the wait!  What a smooth ride!  What  a powerful engine and air conditioner!

Floofen is ready to come in when I get home and Rosa and Miss Kitty are the inside welcoming committee! Jody checks in when he gets home and reports on the month’s activities and I’m exhausted.  It’s going to be so marvelous to sleep in my own bed and wake up when I want to, not when the sun comes up at four!  It’s been a great trip – but it’s great to be home!

Early the next morning - HOME!