Swiss Family Abraham

With a little luck…

Joe – The weather has taken a turn for the better. The sun is out, and after breakfast on the porch,   we are going a wandering.

We just returned from our first hike in Switzerland.  Three Swiss Grandma types set next to us on the train platform, also waiting for the train to the mountain (Uetliberg), so the pressure was on from the start. Getting my out-of-shape US butt kicked by a small Swiss mountain and alte Swiss Großmutters is no confidence booster. Maya seemed to fit right in though. 

We had great views of Zurich, several cow sightings, and got to watch paragliders taking off. 

There was a line of paragliders waiting to take off.

See Ali’s post for the far funnier, and perhaps slightly more cynical version of the hike. BTW,  I’m giving up on being a better blogger than Ali. She’s just plain funnier than I am. I’ve got Maya in my sights though. 

Ali – For only the second time, the International AIDS Society meeting was held in Africa, the region with the highest prevalence of HIV in the world. So, since this is one of my favorite meetings, and I had never been to Africa, I made the long trek to the Southern Hemisphere with my travelers dissentsentary prophylaxis  in hand (two tabs of pepto bismal with every meal if you wanted to know). 

The meeting did not disappoint. This is the only professional meeting I know where you can go to a session on Grindr and gay dating apps and then have a colleague later say, ‘Hey I saw you in the Grindr session; I didn’t know that was your thing,’ and have this all be run-of-the-mill collegial interaction. Other regular features of the meeting include the shaming of the pharmaceutical companies, which occurs with such predictability that it makes you wonder whether the drug reps manning the booths are in on the game or if they are just the drug company employees who drew the short sticks.  

On my first day in Durban, I joined one of the conference-organized safaris and hoped on a tour bus at 7am heading for HluHluwe, 3 hours away. For the $150 price of admission, I wasn’t sure what to expect – I mean this price would get you only a light breakfast in Zurich. The tour bus seats were about half an American rear-end wide and thus I became quite intimately acquainted with the two delightful traveling companions that sat in my row: Steph the HIV advocate from Ottowa and Lissette the Panamanian doctor. Upon arrival at the preserve, Steph secured us a jeep ride with Rob, our fantastic tour guide who had a six sense for spotting animals

One of the implicit goals of the safari seemed to be to spot the ‘big 5’ (which refers to the 5 hardest animals to hunt on foot, namely the  Lion, Buffalo, Rhino, Elephant, and Leopard) so you could tell the other tour participants and then feign sympathy that they hadn’t had similar good viewing luck. Thanks to Rob, we saw all but the leopard and this was the best $150 ever spent. Compared to seeing the animals in their element doing their thing, the captive animal zoo experience I now know is a bit like a bad Elvis impersonator or a mall Santa. The rhino poaching stats that we got were horrifying enough to make me fairly certain that some subset of the big 5 won’t be around much longer unless the US expands its drone program to target poachers (call your congressman!) or all the animals move to Texas and open-carry AK-47s for self-protection (call the NRA!)

For the rest of my time, I stayed in the Durban area, which, due to the large Indian population, has a good amount of Indian- inspired local culinary delights including the gut-busting Bunny Chow – a bread bucket filled with curry for about 60 Rand or $4 (4 pepto for this bad boy). My ‘Durban-nice’ (said like ‘midget-tall’) hotel was Indian-ocean front and had free breakfasts, which in my book made up for any amenity-deficit. The most notable thing about Durban, and by extrapolation South Africa, was the consistent friendly warmth and helpfulness of the South Africans. I have finally found a people that beat out the Canadians for friendliness (sorry Canada. But you still have the Strategic National Maple Syrup Reserve! They’ll never take that away!)

Ali – I’d like to return to the topic of international  travel never going as planned. Last night I said goodbye to Joe and Maya and headed to the Zurich Airport for my trip to Durban, South Africa for the International AIDS Conference.   Upon arriving I made may way to the Swiss Airlines check in (no budget seasonal airline for me this time; I’m trusting to Swiss excellence and efficiency!). I was quickly routed to the self-check-in kiosk, which I was told was the only check-in option. For cosmically mysterious reasons that no one yet has been able to explain, the kiosk gave me one standby boarding pass for my Zurich to Johannesburg flight and no boarding pass for my Johannesburg to Durban flight. The nice Swiss Air help lady told me first in German and then in English after I gave her my best  confused look (vielleicht Englisch ist besser für Sie?) to go to the gate and all would be well. 

So I sallied forth and assumed all would be clarified at the gate. Clarification did not happen but a seat assignment did spit out of the machine as I boarded the flight and I assumed all was well. Flash forward 10 hours and we are landing in Johannesburg. It’s 9:15 am and my Durban flight leaves at 12:15. I am feeling quite optimistic about the final leg of my journey and I calmly submit myself to the longest passport security line known to man

It was reminiscent of the worst summer vacation Disney World line for the most popular ride but nothing remotely fun at the end. So now it’s 11:15 am and I am finally pulled out of line to go to the front so I don’t miss my flight to Durban. I dash to the South African Air check-in counter (as they are operating my Swiss Air flight) and I’m told that the flight is closed to me as I am not checked in, have no boarding pass and therefore am entirely and completely screwed. I am sent to the Swiss Air baggage counter as the South African Air folk have no clue where or if there might be a Swiss Air ticketing type person about. The baggage counter, which I get to by walking back through the NO ENTRY door past the armed  security, sends me to another counter upstairs. This is all looking pretty bad for me. At this point I’m in a bit of a sweaty, out-of-breath tizzy when I arrive at the second floor and meet Stanely.

I still don’t know if Stanely was some official airport helper or a benevolent opportunist but he got my story in winded panting bursts, then grabbed my bag and wheeled me through the Johannesburg airport concrete jungle on the worst scavenger hunt ever to find a boarding card for a new flight. The treasure was finally found in the bowels of the airport at a Swiss Air office where apparently the words ‘missed her flight due to security’ is the equivalent of ‘Open sesame!’ or ‘Abracadabra!’  With new shiny boarding card in hand for my 3:55 flight to Durban, Stanely left me at the gate security line after extorting 15CHF from me, which I gladly gave as he was worth every Franc. 

Now I’m having a beer at the gate waiting for the flight and pondering how international airport travel is like life. It’s completely out of your control and never goes as planned though we often tell ourselves it’s highly scheduled and Swiss clock precise. You will likely have to be satisfied with plan B or C, with delays and hiccups. People will help you along the way.  But it may cost you. In the end we all just have to give up control and smile thankfully as we count out the Swiss Francs. 

Ali – Friday night we went to the home of our friends Raphaelle and Ashton for Shabbos. After a lively discussion of American politics and the fastest prayer recitation in Hebrew I have ever heard, Raphaelle pointed out that, because of the high cost of Swiss living, the average Swiss person couldn’t afford to spend their leisure time consuming goods. She said (picture a French accent here) , “You Americans have a culture of consumption because of your cheap goods. Here you have to find another way to occupy your time… here you hike.” And voila! The Swiss hiking theory is born! 

So, because indeed we can’t afford to buy anything, Saturday we headed out of the house around 11 am to hit one of the 32 most enjoyable hikes in Switzerland. We made our way to the Hauptbahnhof or the main train station and bought some tickets to Uetliberg, the local Zurich  mountain (what? Doesn’t your town have a mountain??). When the train arrived we watched as all the local Swiss – who had already climbed up Uetliberg earlier that morning and taken the return train home – disembarked while all the tourists -who had just rolled out of their hotels – hopped on for the ride up. Swiss hiking lesson 1: The Swiss hike up and take the train down while everyone else takes the train up and hikes down. We arrived at the Uetliberg stop and started along the planetweg trail that traverses the ridge looking down on Zurich while passing representations of the planets in order out from the sun (with size and distance precisely to scale). Immediately we were passed by two Swiss women in their 80s. 

The trail features ample panoramas of Zurich and the distant alps and just about every view is annoyingly similar to the landscape scenes from a Disney movie. What Americans in particular will find unsettling is the complete lack of idiot protection measures. You look around and see no guard rails, no warning signs, no barricades and think, ‘oh my god, this is an idiot elimination conspiracy!’ I stood on the edge of a steep cliff-like precipice snapping a photo. Then I turned my head to the side and saw a 4 year old Swiss kid similarly perched with his parents behind him seemingly entirely oblivious to the boy-in-a-gorilla-cage situation. I mean sure, the kid should know better than to walk off a cliff just like a boy should know better than to go into a gorilla cage but …. you know…there was just recently a boy who went in a gorilla cage. Well I guess someone has to get rid of the idiots and, since the Swiss are neutral and highly efficient, they are perhaps the obvious choice. Swiss hiking lesson #2: leave your idiots at home when you go for a hike. 

 

Ali – I have heard that each country offers its own unique challenges to relocating foreigners. These are Darwinian puzzles to solve that test your ability to adapt and thus quickly weed out the weak-willed or ill-suited. I was recently told that the Motor Vehicle Administration is that survival-of-the-fittest experience for newcomers to the US.

 I would say that here in Zurich it is the residency permit process. It starts prior to your move with your Zurich-based employer submitting a dizzying number of documents and bits of information to the local government including: passport copies, credentials (resume or biosketch and proof of all academic degrees), and your parents full names and birthdates (because someone in the Swiss immigration office must be a big genealogy enthusiast).  In my case I also needed a letter of support from my current employer – Johns Hopkins – promising the local Zurich government that I would be coming back from Zurich in 1 year to a waiting job. The message here was clear: ‘Danke for coming but do go home in a year, bitte.’ 

After a couple months or more, you get a piece of paper in German that you then submit along with an application for a type B visa and your passports to the Swiss embassy. And after three trips to the Swiss embassy, logging 6 hours of driving to and from, you will have passports with lovely Swiss Visas!  Now once you arrive in Zurich you have 2 weeks to find your district immigration office and give them the following: passports with pretty visas, work contract from Zurich employer, birth certificate of daughter, marriage license, piece of paper in German that you got back in step 1, and full names of parents (because why the heck not!). Oh and there is also the small matter of the 200 CHF per person fee. Now for all this you get a stamped piece of paper that says Meldebestätigung für ausländische Personen. This is your temporary residency permit that is good for almost nothing. You then make an appointment to show up for photographs and fingerprints at the main immigration office for Zurich. Don’t forget to bring passports and your Bestätigung (that’s the useless temporary permit). Proof of health insurance is also needed at this point because Switzerland has Obamacare, i.e. mandated health insurance sold through private companies. 

Thus far we have made it through step 3 by sheer dumb luck – I threw our marriage license and Maya’s birth certificate into the suitcase on a whim. We have step 4 coming on the 25th of July at which point we will have proved our survival fitness and worthiness to enter Swiss society. On that great day we will get our shiny new Ausländerausweis or lucky foreigners ID, which is like the golden key to the city. We flash that baby and doors open, melted Swiss cheese pours into our outstretched fondue pots and the secret stash of ‘real’ Swiss chocolate (not the crap they sell to tourists) is revealed! Also at that point we can finally become initiated into the Swiss banking system – which I assume must be like sitting in a massage chair while money pours on your face. 

Ali- I suppose I know that international travel plans rarely go off without a hitch. Our precisely timed and highly coordinated journey to and entry into Swiss society did not end up proceeding in a Swiss efficient way. First we were about an hour late leaving Baltimore. Our budget airline -Condor air – changed planes but forgot to update seating plans. So imagine heading down the isle to seat 15E only to discover that row 15 doesn’t exist. And cue the chaos! This also impacted pre-flight check, which apparently is highly dependent upon the type of airplane.  Makes sense. Clearly a Cessna prop plane and a Boeing 747 don’t require the same safety checks. But don’t panic! Extra time was built into our excellent planning. Then a heavy storm stranded us on the Tarmac at Frankfurt. Apparently German ground crews can’t get wet (nice bargaining ground crew unions!) because we were told that there was no one….no one…. who would come deal with us until the storm passed.  But don’t panic! We still have time to make our 1pm flight!  At last we disembarked and get on  the over-crowded shuttle bus that will take us to the maze of lines that eventually leads to our next flight to Zurich.  Success! Nothing can stop us now! Two generous souls are waiting for us in Zurich. Alexia is ready with a giant car to handle all our luggage and Ulrike has the key to our new appartment. Alas it’s not to be. As we sit trapped in the plane the crew announces that the entire air traffic control system has crashed and no planes can fly. Is it just me or is this a horrifying thing to learn? Errrr backup system? Errr redundancy? Errrr German precision? So you can see where this is going. After two hours our flight gets cancelled and we are faced with this:

 Long snaking line to Luftansa service desk and a series of depressing failures to rebook with endless texts to Alexia and Ulrike. At last we are waiting for our 9pm flight, having spent our 30 Euro so-sorry-you-are-stuck food voucher on one beer and a couple sandwiches. Ulrike will hopefully meet us at the airport with the key. We’ll take a train to the apartment instead of Alexia’s big car. It’s all good. What could go wrong??

Joe – Nine hours in the beautiful Frankfurt airport was not on our itinerary. But here we are, delayed but undeterred by severe thunderstorms followed by failure of the airport’s air traffic control computer system, followed by a two hour sit-and-wait on an airplane before having to vacate that plane to stand on a line waiting to speak to exasperated Lufthansa customer service representatives.  Needless to say, it hasn’t been the smoothest of trips. The good news is that Maya has been a trooper. She makes me proud. Edit: This post has been updated to acknowledge that Ali’s posts are blowing mine out of the water. I need to up my game. Or at least start taking better pictures…

And we’re off!

The first leg of The Journey – Roger’s Forge to BWI – has been successfully negotiated without bloodshed. We have managed to at least temporarily shed two cars, two motorcycles, and three houses.

Goodbye Baltimore !