Travel: the good and the bad

 Travel has always been a delight for me.  I never travelled for work, so planning a trip was always a vacation and I am all for those.

This trip was booked last September on the good hope that everything would be open and life somewhat back to what we called normal 2 years ago.  As the airlines were offering incredible deals, I treated myself to business class for the Toronto to and from Europe segments.  Going from France to Sweden is an economical 1 suitcase flight from Zurich to Stockholm direct where the suitcase was half the cost of the flight.  

So the air travel on Wednesday evening and yesterday morning was so gracious.  I spent a few hours in the premium lounge in Toronto before boarding at the front of the line.  Champagne was served before takeoff.  The meal was Arctic Char with a duck breast appetizer and Opera cake for dessert.  The seat was comfortable and I even managed to sleep for an hour.

Layover in Keflavik was only an hour, so not even worth going to the lounge there and again boarding at the front.  They served a lovely breakfast and I managed to watch a second movie.  I arrived in Frankfurt having been pampered.

Well, the summer of 2019, I had a series of train trips from Switzerland to Germany and every one was on time and easy transfers.  My cousin remarked this was unusual for German trains.  I scoffed.  Now, I apologize to him.  The 13:52 I had wanted to take was cancelled.  I got a ticket for the 14:52 which had 2 transfers -- a manageable 12 minutes between trains.  When the 14:52 arrived 10 minutes late, there were so many people to get on the train, that they said some had to get off before they could leave.  They encouraged the people going straight south to Switzerland to do so.  I went back up to the ticket people, who changed my routing to head straight for Freiburg where I would then have a 30 min. layover before getting on the train to Mullheim.  Well, that train started about 20 min. late and then there were delay issues with other trains, so I did not make the connection.  Time to go to the ticket people and get another train.  And that one finally came -- again about 20 minutes late.  I messaged Rhonda who was picking me up, so many times with changes, I'm surprised that there she was finally at just before 20:00, in the rain in a construction zone.  Negotiating 2 large suitcases is never a joy, but dragging them up and down stairs and running along platforms to try and catch a train makes it worse. 

 

I know I am in favour of public transport, and want to take surface rather than more flights, but yesterday's misadventures may have shaken my resolve somewhat.  However, it will be a train to Zurich on Tuesday morning and then another train to Gavle on Tuesday afternoon.  No prebooking!  I will get there when I get there.