Wilkommen in der Schweiz! (Part 2/Teil 2)
Cass and I caught a Lyft into DC and on the way I booked us a room at the JW Marriott. We left our bags in the care of United, so all we had was the clothes on our back and our carry-on stuff. When we checked into the Marriott, the desk guy went back and got us a bag full of all of their complimentary toiletries - toothbrushes, toothpaste, razors, shampoo, conditioner, lotion, etc. We left to go walk around the Mall area before the sun went down, then on to find something to eat. We ended up eating at The Hamilton which is right across the street from the Marriott. Thank goodness the Marriott had a bathrobe so I could let my travel clothes air out a bit overnight.
When we got up the next morning, we went to find a place to have breakfast - Cafe du Parc. Afterwards, we walked over to the White House and walked through the garden on the north side. Cass insisted on going over to take photos of St. John’s Episcopal Church, then we went back through the garden. There was a protest happening over fossil fuels. We stood there a bit and listened to some of their speeches. Then we walked around to the south side to the Ellipse. Got some pictures there, but the white wall is still up and it still looks ugly. Pretty disappointing. After that, we went back to the hotel, took a nap, then got cleaned up to go eat at Old Ebbitt Grill (which ended up being part of the same restaurant group as The Hamilton and had a nearly identical menu). Then it was time to catch a Lyft back to the airport.
We checked in at the airport pretty early, so we went to the United Club, which was right at our gate. I watched a bit of the MSU/Samford regional baseball game, and Cass drank Scotch. This time we were there on time for boarding, and I took some pics of my seat/area in business class (thanks giant social media/tech company!) Also took some pictures of the meals, which weren’t terrible but definitely nothing special.
I don’t think I really fell totally asleep, but I managed to attain semi-consciousness for several hours while listening to movies. I got up to brush my teeth when we were about an hour and a half from landing, and we had breakfast. Then we finally arrived! We de-planed and collected our bags. Then we went through passport control. Our only hiccup was that we didn’t have the letter from Switzerland giving us permission, but luckily our passport control lady was satisfied when Cass told her for whom he’d be working while here. We already had our visas anyway, which is proof that such a letter exists, so I’m glad she didn’t choose to hassle us. The United agents in Austin told us that they’d heard that lots of people are having trouble getting through all of the checks to get into European countries right now. We are very lucky that we had people taking care of all of that for us, or else I’m sure we’d have gotten stopped somewhere along the way. The relocation people had booked us a car, and it turned out to be a Tesla Model X driven by Peter. When we got to the building, he called the check-in person and she came out to take us in and show us around.
So now we’re here! We’ve made it to the grocery store for some necessities, and I have purchased a Swiss flatiron for my hair. Next up is to go register with the local police as soon as we can so we can begin the process of getting a bank account set up.
Prost!