Switzerland! We have not been there for three years. The last time was when Sydney turned a few months old. So we decided to heed the invitation to Mother's special birthday and visit Switzerland again.
Given the new job situation, which also meant that Thomas has no cushy vacation bank or as they call it here leave bank, we had to squeeze as much as possible into a very few days.
The trip this time was not only longer (23h air time!) but also not in the luxury of business class. Still, it was worth every aspect. Also, this time Tyler could not accompny us, a pitty!
The trip started in Melbourne with a flight to Sydney. This flight is only about an hour an no further problem. After arriving in Sydney, we managed to walk through the internals of the airport straight to the international gate. As it should turn out later, this was not the way we should have done it. In any case, after a few hours of lay over, we boarded a 777 under the wings of Singapore airlines. The flight was heading to Singapore and it was our first long leg of the trip. We were amazed to see how far Singapore is from Sydney. After 4 hours of flight we barely left the Australian continent. Another four hours later saw us in Singapore. At that time it was almost midnight local time. We were so happy that Christy had reserved a hotel room.
After consulting the schedule for the next bus to the hotel, we decided to take a cab and thereby minimize the additional wait. In the hotel we sank to bed and slept like rocks. The next morning there was time for a hearty brekky followed by some time in the simming pool. (Sydney knows by now, that hotels mean, there is a swimming pool!) Then packing up and back to the airport.
The next leg of the trip was even longer. We flew from Singapore straight to Zurich, were we arrived in the evening. Luckily Zurich serves the luggages rapidly up and we found ourselves soon on the way to Basel.
The time in Switzerland passed by in no time. We wanted to visit a large number of people, but in the end only managed to see the immediate family. Apologies to all we could not see. We do hope to come back for a longer time in the future, or host you in Melbourne.
The trip back was uneventful after having worked out some problems at the checkin. The fact that we did not exit the terminal in Sydney and check back in meant, that there was no trace of us leaving the country. Coming back in caused a bit of a problem. This was sorted out with the help of the checkin assistance. We travelled the reverse path to Sydney went by minute by minute. Luckily Sydney slept for a long time. In Sydney we missed the deadline to check in luggage for the flight to Melbourne by a few minutes. We hence ended up once more in a hotel and took the next flight in the morning. All in all a long trip and we all were glad to be back in our own four walls, but happy to have had a chance to see family.