Zurich, Again, For Real This Time!

Us three amigos decided to get on the Zurich train around 2 so we could get there around 4. Perfect for checking into hotels and all that jazz. 

The station was open today or least wasn’t surrounded by police so we hung out inside and had a light lunch/snack while waiting. It was a really hot day so it was nice to have some semblance of a/c. Meaning, it wasn’t cold at all but it was cooler than being outside.

Jason and I were paying more for the first class train tickets because we wanted extra leg room so he could be sure he could fully extend his right leg and also because we were now hyper aware of the lack of luggage space!! Ash booked a regular ticket and then, in hilarious shake up, we all ended up in different train cars. Whatever! We were mostly gazing out the windows anyway. 

Jason rounded up some G&Ts on the train and the ice came frozen in this little popsicle bag thing. I was too dumb to ponder that I might remove it from said bag and just rammed the whole thing in the glass. Even on the train, they serve them up in tiny glass containers and as always over here, let you pour the tonic in yourself. 

The train ended up being 68 minutes late. Not to get to us but with us on it. I know this because some poor lady had to come on the intercom and update us in German and English every time the delay increased. Apparently, the German trains are known for being late, cancelling, etc. Since we’d only had the one perfect train ride before, we had no idea. In fact, when I told my work team our train ride was perfect they said, “It must have been a Swiss train!” 

We didn’t really care that it was late since we didn’t have to change trains or anything. Once we all got off the train it took a moment to find each other on the platform. Jason is operating without a cell phone unless he can be on WiFi so I found him and then worked on finding Ash.

By this point, it was now fully in the happy hour/dinner range and we still needed to figure out how to get to our respective hotels. We decided to split up and go check in and then holler back later to see if we wanted to gather or not. Ash was able to jump another train over towards her hotel so she took off and left us wandering around. 

I pulled up uber but then remembered on our way out (the day of the Scottish soccer game in Lichtenstein) the uber drive pointed out they have the entirety of the train station blocked off for construction making it hard to drop people off. We tried to figure out where to go so an uber would find us and about that time we also noticed we were only 1/2 mile from the hotel. 

Hell. It was 93, sunny, and we had all our luggage but we walked it. BOOM! I was feeling so European, despite sweating a lot and not noticing a single European sweating at all.

The cobblestone sidewalks are decidedly cuter without roller bags but nevertheless, we arrived at the Marriott. Our room was a large 2 room suite with nearly panoramic views of the Limmat River, which we were shocked and delighted to see what looked to be half of Zurich jumping into and floating down. Man that sounded pretty great right then.

They left us this cute little dish of treats and a very nice note addressed to Ms. Wood. I mean, if the Swiss want me to go undercover as a woman named Ms. Wood, who am I to argue?

This room came with rights to use the swanky lounge so we went to check it out and were happy to find a nice dinner, lite bites, beer, wine, and lots of non-alcoholic drinks. We also found a lot of rude Americans. Jason and I locked eyes in our always-on agreement to personally make it up to the staff for the jerk faces they were encountering. Team Thurman is on the scene!

After all that, it was now like 8 PM or something hideous like that so we all decided we were good for the evening. Ash’s hotel had a non-staffed check-in station. These must be getting more common here because another teammate of mine stayed in one right before our offsite, too. She was able to get checked-in and even hit up a local grocery for some staples. We would rendezvous tomorrow!

Side bar - my teammate who stayed in the non-staff hotel was 4 hours into his train ride to Germany when he realized he had left his passport in the room safe. So, he hopped off the train, took another train 4 hours back. He called the hotel help line and they said they could meet him the next day. He couldn’t wait so he had to book another room so he could get access into the building and then he knocked on the door of his old room and asked if he could get into the safe!!!! They said yes!! I was like - yo, Fred. I would NEVER have even opened the door to hear that foolish request. You are so lucky. He said - believe me! I know!!! He ended up on a train for 14 hours that day just trying to get to Freiburg that night in time to be late to the meeting the next morning with me- LOL.