The Voyage Home

July 4 - 8, 2002

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020704-125102.jpg (167188 bytes)020704-125307.jpg (134779 bytes) We got up at 5 in the morning to catch our flight from San Francisco to Dallas, leaving at 8, connecting to a flight to Zurich. The flight actually originated at SFO, but somehow it took American two hours longer than anticipated to get the plane from the hangar to the gate. Yup, the sea lion which got from the sea to the American gate just days earlier took less long, and it didn't even have any help. Having missed the connection without even boarding the first plane (which still wasn't in sight), we got a $20 breakfast coupon and a set of boarding passes for a flight to LA and from there to Zurich on Swissair, er, excuse me, Swiss.


020705-111059.jpg (92675 bytes)020705-111800.jpg (209100 bytes)Four hours later than planned we departed to the new destination, in first class courtesy of AA, only to find out that the Bradley terminal has been closed due to some shooting. You guessed right, that's where Swiss park their planes. Nobody at the airport had any clue when our flight would leave, much less what had actually happened or whether the plane from Zurich actually landed at LAX or was diverted somewhere else.


020705-111838.jpg (235179 bytes)020707-150623.jpg (212927 bytes)Once the terminal reopened, the lines could not be called lines but rather solid masses of humanity, and the whole place looked like under rule of anarchy. The security "line" was about 30 people wide and about as long as half the terminal width, since one half of the terminal remained closed. During the long wait one didn't have to worry about falling from exhaustion because of the pressure on one's body from all sides, which was less optimal for people with weak bladder control. Too bad I didn't snap a picture of this madness, but unpacking my photo bag somehow seemed like a bad idea in this context.


020707-132532.jpg (167818 bytes)020707-163141.jpg (295536 bytes)Once through security, we found ourselves in a terminal where screens were still showing flights as departing in the past, at unknown gates. It took a mere 30 minutes and a call to Australia to find out which was the Swiss gate. Tired, hungry and admittedly grumpy the rest of the trip was a blur - with 9 hours delay we finally arrived in Zurich, and somehow like a miracle so did our bags.

020707-133558.jpg (260643 bytes)Here comes the section where the story is boring for the common reader: Mom got her iMac upgraded with Mac OS X and sufficient memory, I showed Essan that there indeed is porn on free German and French TV, and how big Lingwurm City really was. After a few days of mom's home cooking we packed up and headed to Prague, my mom's native town.


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