No Regrets!

Out the door at 5am.

Dave’s flight was the first to leave, so we dropped him at departures and sent him on his way before returning the rental car. A couple of hugs, and he was off. And then there were two.

A confusing maze of bad signs and roundabouts had Matt and me circling the airport a few times, trying to figure out where to return the car. We had plenty of time before our flights, so it wasn’t a big deal, but it was annoying. We finally found the lot, parked the car, dropped off the key, and headed into the airport.

It was too early for me to check in. I had to wait around the SWISS counter for more than 45 minutes before the agents arrived and, in slow motion, arranged the belt barriers, repositioned the signs, and turned on their computers. I was the first to be helped. Dropped my bag, got my boarding pass, and then accompanied Matt toward his gate.

Mallorca Airport is huge. The terminals are quite long, and navigating them is made confusing by the fact that specific gates aren’t announced far in advance. Instead, the monitors first show the time when a flight’s gate number is expected to be revealed. Often, there isn’t much time between the gate assignment and departure, and gates frequently change, so you really have to stay on top of things.

The airport was hot and smelled like ham and cigarettes. Matt and I walked through the terminal and found seats near some monitors. Matt was dreading the trip, as he had two stops and four more hours of travel time than I did. I was lucky, with an easy route from Palma to Zurich and then home to DC.

I walked Matt to his gate and said goodbye. Another hug and a big thanks for joining us on this adventure. And then there was one.

I relaxed in the airport for another couple of hours while waiting for my gate assignment. A good opportunity for some last-minute shopping and a final ham sandwich.

This was my first time flying SWISS and my first time visiting Switzerland, even if only in transit. I was delighted with the little ramekin of hard cheese cubes served after boarding. A blanket of gray clouds obscured most of the flight, but things cleared up a bit around Zurich, offering me my first glimpse of the Alps and Swiss countryside on the way down.

Zurich Airport had a modern, industrial aesthetic, all black and gray, and smelled like a mixture of licorice and ham. Or maybe that was the residual essence of Iberian ham stuck to my nose hairs.

Passport control was relatively painless, and then I boarded the plane for my overseas flight back to DC.

The Airbus A330-300 was only about 30% full, and I got an entire row to myself. But no power outlets for my laptop, so I couldn’t make much progress on the blog or photos. And the Wi-Fi sucked. The Starlink rollout can’t happen soon enough.

I watched the seatback map as our plane slipped off the tip of France’s Crozon Peninsula, crossed the long stretch of Atlantic Ocean, and made landfall again just south of New York City. The right-side windows offered views of the southern edge of Long Island and a smashing view of Manhattan.

Soon, I was back in DC. The eerie, disquieting familiarity of home overcame me once again, as it always does after I’ve been out of the country for a while. I zipped through customs shockingly fast with Global Entry, then found myself at baggage claim, staring at an empty carousel. Yes, more baggage drama. My AirTag told me that my bag was perfectly content in Mallorca, Spain.

I spoke with a baggage agent, who quickly found my name on a printed list of passengers whose bags had NOT been loaded onto the plane. Strange to me that they could be so efficient at identifying missing bags when they could have put some of that efficiency toward making sure the bags didn’t go missing in the first place. The agent told me to file an online claim, which required a detailed description of what the bag looked like. Silly, since I had an AirTag telling me exactly where it was. But the SWISS form explicitly stated that I could only submit tracking information after 48 hours had passed. Strange policy.

Well, 48 hours passed, and I submitted my tracking information. It took a few more days, but my bag was finally found, loaded onto a plane to Zurich, loaded onto another plane to DC, and delivered from the airport to my house at about 2am. It ended up taking nearly a week for my bag to return home.

Between delayed and canceled flights, delayed and missing luggage, and rental car drama, this trip gave me more logistical headaches than any other trip I’ve taken. There are some nasty letters to write, for sure.

As I reflect on the trip, we saw and did some really great things, and I’m so glad that it came together with some of my closest friends. It was especially nice having Jerry and Matt join me for the first time on an international adventure. A big thanks again to Dave for his generosity, Matt for his outrageous humor, Jerry for his enthusiasm, and all of them for allowing me to take the lead on this adventure.

If anything, the trip wasn’t quite as social as I’d hoped. After the disappointing social experiences of Hawaii and Japan, I thought Ibiza would be a slam dunk. But we had a lot of obstacles: being there during a quieter time of year, Dave’s raging sinus infection, sore knees, shoulders, and backs, all of us being a bit too old to pull so many late nights, cigarette smoke in every venue, and prostitutes in every direction.

But still an awesome time. I’d been feeling a bit down about the lack of fanfare surrounding my actual 50th birthday, and this trip more than made up for it.

So that’s it. I’m home, and it’s time to get back to work and pick up my life where I left off.

Things are already in motion for another trip next year. Just need to figure out where I’m going and who I’m going with.

Wanna come?