On Thursday, June 21st, Roberto Peon, Mike Samuel and I flew into Zurich for a Tour of the Swiss, Italian, and Austrian Alps. Arriving at the airport's international terminal 3 hours before the flight was due, I had a hard time finding the USAirways check-in counter. I eventually discovered that they were in the Domestic Terminal, and there Roberto was in the check-in line. We tried to check-in, but discovered that USAirways did not provide bike boxes, so I went to the United Airlines counter to buy some.
United Airlines sold me 3 bike boxes for $30 and taxes, and I came back to the USAirways counter with the boxes to find that everything had been done except the bike boxing, so we packed the bikes in the boxes, and they charged us $80 for each bike to fly with them, despite the fact that in the past I had never been charged for flying with a bicycle. As before, I checked in my saddlebag, and carried a backpack for a laptop, a few books, and other sundries that I might need for the plane flight.
The flight was late by 2 hours into Philadelphia, but they held our flight for Frankfurt. We arrived at Frankfurt a grand total of 4 hours late, however, and were rebooked for a flight into Zurich with SwissAir. Arriving in Zurich, my saddlebag rolled off the lugguage carousel, but nothing else did, and our bikes were lost as well. So we spent a half hour at the lost lugguage counter before getting our SIM cards and going to the office in Zurich.
There, we caught up with friends, got keys to the apartment, and then took a Taxi (after grabbing dinner) to RehalpStrasse. The weather was breezy but not at all unpleasant, but the lack of bicycles made the mood sour.
My brother, Sy arrived late at night after flying from Dublin and London, and announced that he had sighted our bikes at the airport! We went to sleep knowing that we wouldn't be buying new bikes for the trip.