Lift Up Your Hearts!

Now I must report on my first dissatisfaction with the Swiss transportation system.  The bus we rode from the airport could not take us back there, because it disappeared overnight!  Fortunately, observant Janet had noticed that the sign was conspicuously missing from the stop.  At first we assumed this was just another of the BaselWorld alterations to the city, but she did some investigating and discovered that that particular run was not popular/profitable enough, so off with its head!  This turned out not to be much of a problem, however, as we were able to take a tram to Basel SBB, the main train station, where we could catch another bus to the airport.

Janet generously accompanied us all the way to the airport, and even waited with us until it was time to catch the last bus that would take her to church on time.  Then we reluctantly said our goodbyes, with heartfelt gratitude.  I do believe being a tour guide takes more out of Janet than performing in front of an audience of a thousand, but she does a great job of it!

We checked in with British Airways, and were able to get boarding passes for the entire trip this time, which eased my mind.  Later we were to discover that two of the three passes were no good, but that did nothing to diminish my relief at this point.

After a pleasant flight, we landed at Heathrow.  (I never can type that without first typing "Heatherow" and having to correct it!)  Once again we faced the long, circuitous walk and the even longer, more circuitous bus ride, followed by security screening and the "one bag only" rule.  This we were expecting.  But going from London to the United States is more complicated than going from London to Basel, probably with good reason.  There was yet another security check at the gate, and we were issued new boarding passes for our next two flights, to replace the for-whatever-reason defective ones we already had.  The process was smooth and we had no trouble, but a connection time of an hour and a half is none too long and in some cases much too short, I'm sure.  We were very glad our flight from Basel had landed a little early.

The next leg of the flight ended in Chicago.  Porter was able to sleep much of the way.  I was not, and distracted myself by watching a movie:  Miss Potter, a reasonably-accurate-for-Hollywood story of the life of Beatrix Potter.  I'd left my book behind with Janet, and I wasn't in the mood for French lessons.

Our connection time in Chicago was two and a half hours, which turned out to be 'way more than we needed, but better safe than sorry.  I've written about our reentry shock before, so I won't repeat it here.  Our passports received their first official stamps of the trip.  There's no evidence there of our time in Switzerland, France, or Germany; not even any evidence that we left the United State.  But we now have proof that we returned!  Going through customs was not a problem.  Our flight to Orlando was delayed, but that didn't matter so much since our only remaining connection was to the rental car Porter had thoughtfully reserved in Orlando—a very good thing, as the buses had long since stopped running for the night, and it was much too late to call a friend outside of a life-threatening emergency.

Then we were home.  All was well, thanks in part to our good neighbors, and we gratefully collapsed into bed—though not until after we'd rebooted the water, electricity, telephone, and computers, and sent off an e-mail reassuring family of our safe return.

For all I dislike about much of our current culture, and fear about the direction our country has been headed for the last half century or so; for all I loved about our visit to Europe; with all my certainty that we have much to learn from other countries and cultures; still, the United States of America is a great place to live, and other countries and cultures could learn a lot from us as well.  Unfortunately, all they're likely to get is the very distorted view of our country presented by Hollywood and the news media.  One thing I got tired of quickly was the assertion, "Americans do/are thus-and-so," repeated all the more emphatically after I've stated that no, we don't do that and neither do many other Americans we know.  I'm more convinced than ever of the value of cultural exchange programs, in which real, ordinary individuals from one country get to know real, ordinary individuals from another—as I've written about here, here and here.  As we discovered in Japan, and again in Switzerland, France, and Germany, there's nothing like good conversation with people from different backgrounds for dispelling misconceptions and dissolving stereotypes (unless we intentionally retain them; see above), and for providing new insights into other cultures—and our own.

It was a great trip!  Danke, danke, Janet!  Merci, merci, our hosts in France (you know who you are)! And to those of you whom we would love to have visited but didn' this trip—there's a good chance that We'll...Be...Back.