Day 21: Zurich, Switzerland - Saying Goodbye to Switzerland

Friday, July 21, 2023

Zurich, Switzerland to Los Angeles, California

It had finally come.  Our last day in Switzerland.  We had only spent a few days in Zurich, Switzerland, but this was day 21 of our European vacation.  It had been amazing and exhausting. 

We had plenty of time to catch our 1:20pm flight, as it was delayed to 1:50pm.  We finished packing and cleaning, and said goodbye to our amazing apartment. 

We hauled our luggage one last time down the cobblestone streets, machine-gun staccato echoing down the alleys in the morning. 

We waited at the tram stop, while I got a coffee at Joe & The Juice. 

It was a quick tram stop to the train station, where we missed our first train, but easily got on another that would take us directly to the Zurich Airport. 

At the airport, we went through security pretty easily and had hours before boarding our flight.  So we went on a mission to find the airport playgrounds.  One was super tiny, but there was another one we could actually see from our current terminal.  Unfortunately, after a long search, we found out it was not accessible inside the airport.  

So we went to our gate and waited to board— getting priority boarding with other first class and families.  

Our flight was 30 minutes late in leaving, but we were finally in the air, saying goodbye to Switzerland one last time.  

We enjoyed our airplane dinner and Alina and Jonas either settled into inflight entertainment or sleeping.  However, I was wide away and I knew this was my chance to finally catch up with the blog.  

Instead of sleeping, I had a theory about avoiding jet lag when traveling internationally from Europe to the states.  Our flight left at 2:10pm in Switzerland, but in the states, it was only 5:20am.  So if I started the flight like I started my day, I would stay awake, arrive in LA at 4:30pm, drive us home, and crash at 6:30pm, sleeping through the night and avoiding the groggy jet-lag we had experienced at the beginning of our trip.  What could possibly go wrong? 

Well, I was able to stay awake the whole 11.5-hour flight— with decent energy, blogging furiously about 60% of the time.  By the end, I was watching “Silicon Valley” on my screen and starting to get sleepy.  But then we landed!

We got off the airplane, went through customs, got our luggage, left the terminal, waited for the Budget Rental shuttle bus, got the rental car, and stopped at In-and-Out Burger because… ‘Merica, and then started the 2.5-hour drive home.  

By the time I got on the 405, we had missed most of the Friday traffic, so that was easy.  But slowly, as I drove, my family fell asleep, and it was up to me to get us home safely.  

However, Even though it was 7:00pm in California, it was 4:00am in Switzerland.  So I had been awake for almost 24-hours straight.  By the time I left LA and made my way to the grapevine, I was nodding off.  I kept it together up until that point, but I knew it was getting dangerous.  So at Pyramid Lake, I pulled off and asked Alina to drive us home.  I slept the rest of the way home, completely exhausted from traveling.  

We made it home in Bakersfield, California, at 10:30pm on Friday, July 21, 2023, our travels officially coming to a tiresome end.