I have spent a wonderful 4 days with my friend Rhonda and her husband Robert, who tolerates (bemusedly, I am sure) our laughing, playing in the garden and shopping. They recently moved into a house in a village just west of the Rhine River. The house took many months to renovate and there are still a number of items that need to be finished, but it is a very welcoming, open and light space. There is decking on two levels looking over the garden and both have been very busy creating a huge garden for fruits and vegetables (Robert) and flowers, both in the ground and pots (Rhonda). Robert is well versed in fertilizers and plant helpers of all kinds, so the garden is amazingly lush and productive after just one year. It is their retirement project -- well, along with organizing the golf club where they both play. It was such a treat to visit and be welcomed into their new space.
Flying to Stockholm is not easy from anywhere it seems. The Basel/Mulhouse airport which is about 10 minutes from Rhonda and Robert's does not have direct flights and connecting in Berlin or London or wherever was of no interest to me. But there were direct flights out of Zurich -- 12:40. Great, there was a train from Basel direct to the airport at 8:37 and I could catch a train at 7:26 from Habsheim to Basel to arrive at 7:50, giving me lots of time to head over to the other side of the station where the long distance trans connected, pick up a coffee to have with my pastry and pick out a great seat. The train was arriving at the airport at 10:04 -- lots of time to check in, get some lunch and check out the chocolate shops.
Everything was going well until about 9:15. I got a text that my phone account had run out of money and needed to be topped up. It is a Norwegian SIM and when I try to pay it, there is a two step verification involving sending a code to my Canadian SIM. Luckily, I have figured out to turn on that SIM to get the code and then turn it off again to eliminate roaming charges. So it would be no problem to top up my account once I reached Zurich Airport. I can handle that.
Then there was an announcement -- the train was going no further than Zurich main train station due to some police action between the city and the airport. Yikes. There were some suggestions about how to navigate around it, but I don't know my way around well enough, so I went to the information station and was told that Tram 10 goes to the airport. Well, it does, but it stops every 100 m (or so it seemed) and we did not get to the airport till 11 am. Now it was dashing to check in and drop off the luggage, then head through security and up to the gates. It was now 11:50 and we were boarding starting 12:15. Needed a bathroom stop. Tried to connect to the airport wifi but there was something wrong with my boarding pass QR code. Eventually, the nice lady at information got me a code for the wifi, I connected to MyCall in Norway, got the security code for making a payment, and topped up the phone so I could contact Jennie when I got to Sweden. Grabbed a sandwich. At the gate, I told the checkin people about the problem with the boarding pass (I was going to need to scan it to get on the airplane) and they immediately noticed the problem and printed a new one. 12:10. 12:20 we boarded and thankfully there was an empty seat beside me at the back.
SJ (the Swedish train system) now does las minute tickets and there were some cheap ones, the first of which left at 15:52. I got my suitcase at 15:40, dashed up to the central station and asked if I could still make that train. I was directed to a ticket machine which, thankfully, was fairly easy to navigate and I did make the 15:52 which should get me to Gavle about 15:56, barring some other disaster.
This trip is certainly testing my train resolve. Pictures will have to wait as this is on the train wifi.
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