The Italian language is itself much like the opera born of its homeland. Listening without comprehension of the words is like listening to music, the crescendos and decrescendos caress one’s ears, my soul. Even today in English we use Italian words for many of our musical terms. Italian has a lyrical quality all its own, rising and falling, building, then rolling like waves out to sea. I fell asleep on the train from Milan to Zurich comfortably surrounded by this lullaby and woke in another world. My body twitched to into consciousness in time with the guttural sounding fits and starts of the language around me. I opened my eyes to find myself suddenly surrounded by tall blonde men and cute fair skinned girls. Exhaustion gifts you with the ability to sleep profoundly in the oddest of positions – half bent over a suitcase or tray table, curled up in a ball the size of a car tire, legs outstretched doing the infamous head bob reminiscent of high school days. The train was coming to a stop as I awoke, clueless to time or location. Eyes half-lidded I asked the gentleman across from me if this was “Zurigo” (Italian for Zurich). “Yah, Zurgo” he replied. Still heavy with slumber I struggled to gather my belongings and slipped, or more accurately, stumbled, off the train as the doors closed behind me. I made my way down the track, surprised that a town as large as Zurich had such a small train station and especially surprised it was deserted at only 11:00 at night. Well that would be because I was in Zurgo, not Zurigo. In Swiss, German, and English, Zurich is Zurich. In my dazed awakening I didn’t realize I was speaking Italian to a Swiss who answered me in German!
Now I really had no idea where I was. Nothing was in English, no information stands open, and no indication whatsoever of a train to the airport. I stopped three students returning from Italy for help. We stumbled through an assortment of English, Italian, and Swiss words as they explained that I was not in Zurich and which train would hopefully take me there. By the grace of God (or Satan), one of the girls had a cigarette and I had twenty minutes before the next train. A quick stop at the water closet to wash my face and brush my teeth and I felt almost human again after the eleven hour train ride. I resisted the temptation to cross the deserted tracks, not knowing exactly how the Swiss are about their rules, hauled my ungodly heavy bag back down the flight of stairs I had to go up to get to the bathroom and back up the flight of stairs to get to the next track over. Racing for the train that was already sitting there, I was smart enough this time when the little voice that had suggested at the last train to ask the conductor I passed if I was indeed in Zurich whispered to listen and ask the guy if this was indeed the train to Zurich, even at the risk of missing the train. The doors closed. He said no. The next train goes to Zurich. Thank God. I lit my cigarette and sunk into a glorious nicotine reverie. The train pulled up as I took the last drag of my nicotine heaven. Perfect timing. Back on track. (Pun intended.)
I reached the main station, predominately closed as well, but much larger than the station in Zurgo. I desperately wanted a drink and some English conversation and found the lockers readily enough to stash my bags and venture out into town. Unfortunately I also found out there was only one more train to the airport. As much as I wanted a drink, I would have to drink a whole bottle to be able to sleep in the frigid train station. I decided it would be more prudent to go on to the airport and try to catch the train back in the morning for a quick little city tour. Having learned my lesson, I asked a second person if there was a later train to the airport. Yez, go seckin D. “No. Is there a later train to the airport?” “Yez, yez, seckin D to airport.” This obviously wasn’t getting anywhere. Section D was about a mile down the track (okay, not quite a mile but it looked like a mile). Not trusting his obviously pour grasp of English, I got on the first coach car available. A few minutes later I was told this car wasn’t going to the airport. Huh? You’ve all heard the blonde joke haven’t you. A blonde boards an airplane with a coach ticket to Los Angeles. Spying the roomy accommodations in first class, she gets up and moves to a first class seat instead. The flight attendant informs her that she can’t sit in first class with a coach ticket. “I’m blonde, I’m beautiful, I can do whatever I want, and I’m not moving!” exclaimed the blonde. The flight attendant, gently at first but then more firmly, instructed her she must move back to coach. “I’m blonde, I’m beautiful, I can do whatever I want, and I’m not moving!” declared the blonde more emphatically each time. The co-pilot emerged to see what the ruckus was about. The attendant told him the situation. “Don’t worry,” he said, “I’m married to a blonde. I know how to handle this.” He walked up to the blonde, leaned over, and whispered something in her ear. With a startled look, she quickly grabbed her things, and made her way back to her seat in coach. Astounded, the flight attendant asked what he said to her. “ Oh,” he replied, “I just told her first class wasn’t going to Los Angeles.” Badomp-bomp.
My moment on the train was the joke in reverse. “How can this car not being going to the airport?!” I almost said. Then I realized – uh, yeah, train, separate cars, on the ground. Guess they can kind of take them apart can’t they?
I stepped off the train with 30 or so other people fumbling with their bags to walk the two miles to the end of the train and in a few minutes was settled in the part of the train that WAS going to the airport. Swiss trains are much cleaner than Italian trains. Cleaner, quieter, nicer. They even have “Quiet compartments” – no cell phones, talking, headphones. I thought this was just brilliant after repeatedly waking up to various disco dance song ringtones every few minutes on the train to Milano. Twenty minutes later I entered the airport, ready for a cup of coffee and a sandwich. Instead I discovered a ghost town. Beautiful airport, clea,n well appointed, with the minor exception of a shockingly limited number of seating areas. I think there were 50 seats total in all three terminals. At this time that was fine since the only people in the airport were the crazy guy who kept talking to himself and wandering in circles, the two Italian girls who had trained up from Milano, and the couple who must have taken the last flight to Madrid since I never saw them again. My stomach growled. I decided to put my bag in a locker, go back to town and risk the night in the cold (you all know me well enough to know I didn’t take a coat to Switzerland.). I found the train schedule, the lockers, and someone to change my euro into Swiss francs. Unfortunately, she was blonde and the four minutes it took her to calculate the exchange rate and then figure out what coins added up to 14 Swiss francs put me one minute late for the last train. Damn. I bummed a cigarette from the crazy guy who was still wandering around and sat in the otherwise deserted train station, in the deserted airport, my first time in Switzerland, feeling rather melancholy. All packed up and no place to go.
I decided to find the terminal for American Airlines and much to my delight found a darkened seating area nearby with a whole row of seats and no arm rests! Inexplicable joy this is when you have to sleep the night in a European airport. In the states I sleep on the ground, as seating areas are usually carpeted, but in Europe your choice is a single upright seat with immovable armrests or an impossibly cold pavement floor. A row of seats, in the dark, in the silence – what a find!!!! For a few minutes.
What is it about Italians and congregating? It is like they have people magnets installed inside that pull them one to another. If you are ever in Italy at a bar this is quite entertaining. They will all cue at the same time. It is as if some one just announced it was closing time. They are all standing, talking, drinking their wine then all of the sudden, they are all jostling at the cash register. Now keep in mind two seconds before they were standing along a bar NEXT TO the cash register. Then in one sweeping movement there is a little pack of rabid dogs swarming in a circle around the cash register. I wonder if they have hidden walkie talkies to coordinate arrival and departure times. So here I am, only one of the three people left in the entire Zurich airport, an International airport that services the entire world, three check in terminals, hundreds of stores, hallways, every place lit and inviting except my little cubby hole in the dark, that I actually had to dodge a sign blocking the stairs to get to. I’m not there for five minutes when, like heat-seeking missiles, the two Italian girls burst out the elevator and head directly for me, talking in excited pitch, rise and fall, laughing, and filling the empty quiet terminal with Italian singsong. If you are in the mood, it is lovely. If you just found your solitary, sleeping haven it is piercing. They settled in the seats next to me and proceeded to call a boyfriend in Rome and put him on speaker for the ensuing hour long conversation. Mio dio!
Unable to sleep, I bummed another cigarette and wandered outside to scope out the vending machine. Interesting vending machines they have in Switzerland. You can buy normal things – candy, a sandwich, water and soda, but also a pack of cigarettes, gum, a condom, or crayons. The condoms and crayons were side by side. An interesting choice – which form of entertainment do I want tonight?. I think there was a sewing kit and some array of other odd items. I couldn’t bring myself to pay the eight Swiss francs for a sandwich and returned to the terminal, chilled, hungry, irritated my haven had been invaded, and edging on depressed…..
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