Our flight from Dallas to London is long and cramped. I don’t sleep on the flight so by morning, I am pretty rummy. Once at Heathrow, we begin to make our way for our last connection to Zurich. As luck would have it, TSA decides to throw a monkey wrench into everything and pulls my bin aside to search. This takes so long that we worry we might miss our flight.

After finally getting through TSA, we dash to our gate without any time to spare. Once there, David isn’t allowed to board because our luggage isn’t here, (It got stuck in Dallas when we changed flights). Good news– there are five people working on the situation and they manage to sort it out in time for us to board the plane.

The short flight from London to Zurich is interesting.  It is a sunny morning, so there are plenty of things to see from the window. (I catch a good glimpse of the white cliffs of Dover!) After a short while, the flight attendants offer us food and/or beverages to purchase. We are thirsty and tired so we each order a cup of coffee… what we are given is a little unexpected.  They hand us each a cup with hot water, a wooden stick and a 3″X 3″ square bag. It is like a tea bag (only huge) and filled with some sort of powdered coffee. The directions on the package say to put the bag into the hot water and ‘squeeze’. After several minutes of attempting to follow the directions, we each remove the bags from the hot water and give it a taste….our beverage has more texture than taste. (Similar to the sludge you might find at the bottom of a cup of cocoa, only not as pleasing to the palate). Tea would definitely have been a better choice.

We enjoy the rest of the relatively short commute to Zurich. Once we land, we take a quick gander around the baggage carousel and then move on to report our missing luggage. The customer service person is pleasant, helpful and polished. We answer the pertinent questions as she fills out a form. Suddenly, out of the blue, we hear a man break out into operatic song.  Our customer service lady starts to giggle and candidly gasps, “he is crazy!” Almost as quickly as she utters the words, she looks at us apologetically and returns to her professional demeanor. We chuckle along with her and notice a look of relief flood her face. I can tell I am going to enjoy the people in this new and interesting place.

David pre-purchased us 8 day Swiss Travel Passes ($418.00 CHF each) so getting from Zurich to Lucern from the airport is easy breezy! The trains in Switzerland are fantastic and always on time. I take a quick little nap on the train and before I know it, we are in Lucern, making our way to old town to find our apartment. We pass a stand selling roasted chestnuts and I make a mental note that we must come back to give them a try.

Once we locate and check in to our apartment, (The Altstadt Hotel in Old Town), we find a great Italian restaurant called Ristorante Mamma Leone and order a pizza to share and a glass of red wine each. ($46.50 CHF)