Europe Day 35: Home again

 Tuesday, July 30

We got out of the door by 7 am and made it to the Zurich airport car rental return by 8 am, despite taking a tour of the Zurich surface streets due to an ambiguous direction from the GPS.  Returning the car was a breeze – we just waived goodbye to the attendant.  After I left, I wondered if I should have gotten a receipt.  Oh well.  I told the rest of the family that I’d see them at JFK, and I headed off to American Airlines, while everyone else went to AirBerlin, where they will connect via Dusseldorf and JFK.  Sometimes the price of using miles to travel is the suboptimal itinerary.  Because AirBerlin had only 4 free seats, I had to use more miles to fly home the same day, so I’m roughing it in business class, where the filet was a bit overcooked and the crab cake was cold.  I’ll just have to suffer through it.

Upon landing at JFK, I got a text message that Jennifer and the kids’ flight from Dusseldorf to JFK would be delayed by 3.5 hours.  I confirmed their re-booking on the AA leg from JFK to DCA.  They will now land in DC after 11 pm.  I decided that I’d catch an earlier flight back to DC, turn on the a/c, do some grocery shopping, and do some laundry (since I checked two of our overstuffed bags).  I’m looking forward to getting home. 

Takeaways from this Europe adventure, in no particular order:

·  The roads are in much better condition than the US.  I don’t think I hit a single pothole in our 1768 km of driving.

·  Air conditioning is a luxury that most European residences (and many hotels) do not have.  Even our 3 year old apartment in Switzerland did not have a/c.

·  Europeans don’t use window screens, which in the absence of a/c is the only way to cool off.  I don’t get it.  There were flies in every country, and mosquitoes in some. 

·  Seeing historical sights with kids who don’t know or who have little interest in what happened there is no fun.  History interests me, but apparently that was not passed on to my kids. 

·  35 days is a long time to spend together as a family on vacation.   Next vacation, I think Jennifer and I will go with friends instead of family. 

·  I have no desire to spend any more time in any of the Western European cities we visited.  London is all business, Paris stunk, Rome is still crumbling, Athens is worse than Rome, Austria and Germany are soulless, and Switzerland is overpriced.  Prague was probably my favorite city, and I’d consider further exploring Croatia and points east.  But before I go back to Europe, I’d want to try Africa, or maybe Australia or New Zealand.  Or some remote island in the Pacific. 

·  I don’t want to go on vacation where there are lots of other tourists. 

·  If I ever go on another cruise, I’m spending more time in the spa.