Off to Switzerland!
LAX, Above Greenland, Zurich Flughaven
December 9-10, 2021
Omicron almost killed the trip.
We had been planning and saving for six months to go to Switzerland for Monica & Thomas' wedding, we had bought the winter clothes and secured dogsitting by Katie. We had tracked and met all the rules for Covid testing and certification in order to leave the US and arrive in Switzerland.
And then the week before the trip, a new variant of Covid began taking the world by storm. For a few days it looked like the bride's own family, the Sheffers might not go, and then it seemed like we wouldn't either.
But luckily, Omicron moved a bit slower and more tepidly than anticipated. We decided to go for it.
Anticipating additional hassles at the airport, we arrived four hours before our flight -- but it still was barely enough time. Although Em had already undergone three nose-probing tests over the past 24 hours, none of the results had shown up on her phone. (It's pretty tricky to time a test with results in hand all 24 hours before departure!). Before we could check in, she had to grab a bus to yet another testing site, (her bags in tow, in case we had to depart without her) and then run back to the airport so that we could check in on time. As soon as she returned, we got back in the check-in line, and by the time we reached the counter, her negative results were on her phone.
We were on our way.
But not all of us could rest: Ellie had two papers to finish to wrap up Fall quarter at UCLA. While the rest of us dozed uncomfortably in our seats, she typed away, high over Greenland -- and celebrated completing the quarter in the first light over Europe with a mimosa!
The bride's family was in the air at the same time, and by a crazy coincidence, we wound up directly behind our old Santa Rosa friends, just in on their flight from San Francisco, in the passport control line.
