On the Lam in Zurich

Rugby is an easy game in which to keep score, especially if your child is on the Pitch.  Either he walks off the field without help (a victory) or he is carried off (a defeat).

The past two days were reminders of recent posts combining my travel misadventures with my son’s impossible to find Rugby matches in places far and away.

Perhaps this time the scheduling was my fault, a 10:00 AM flight from London City Airport to Zurich, arriving at 12:30, a 1:30 client meeting and 2:30 rugby game.  Distances on maps don’t look very far, even Google says not to rely on their travel estimations.  But I had little choice.

It starts with trying to get to City Airport.  Why am I flying out of City Airport on SwissAir, because my son is flying out of Heathrow on British Air.  And while he didn’t tell me not to fly with him and his team, he did say I was the only parent coming to the games (Untrue).

The plane was full of the world’s worst parents and the world’s most patient flight attendants, a toxic combination.  We managed to take off on time, but land 20 minutes late, and I forgot to factor in things like customs, and passport control.

By an act of G-d I get through customs and am first in the taxi line which takes me to my client meeting in record time (way faster than Google said).  I sweep into the office at 1:30 with perfection.  I tell them I need to be out of there at 2:30 and again, clockwork, we finish our discussion, have a walk around their picturesque office overlooking Lake Zurich complete with sailboats, swans and birds aflutter. 

My new cabbie tells me we’ll be at the game in 20 minutes, could this be happening?  This cabbie name Yunis tries hard in his broken English to communicate.  I’ve made a friend.  Although he manages, I would later learn, to gladly take my Euros at his own special conversion rate (I have special rate for you Mr. hurried American businessman who doesn’t speak German and forgot that Switzerland isn’t part of the Euro-Zone)

Twenty minutes later he announces we’ve arrived, I’ve only missed half the game.  I look up to see a small house at the end of a small lane.

“What is this?”

“We are here?”

“This is not it,” I tell him.  “I am looking for a Rugby Pitch.  The Zurich International School and again I show him the address.  He shakes his head and pulls over to ask a local.  They speak in quick Swiss German which I don’t understand (I don’t understand slow Swiss German so it didn’t matter) but I do recognize the slow shaking of the head that suggests I am about to miss the match.

I take out two pieces of paper and show him the address and little did I know that Eichweg 2 Adliswil is different from Eichstrassse 2 Langnau.

He tells me he thinks he knows the way and miraculously I arrive in the middle of nowhere, which turns out to be a Rugby field, I see some orange jerseys off in the distance and then my son’s little head running down the way and I want to hug my cabbie, my new best friend.

He agrees to return in an hour, which he does and takes me to my hotel.  We also agree that he will pick me up the following morning take me to the game and then bring me back to the hotel.  He was there in the morning, dropped me off, we made a deal on the round-trip fare, but he doesn't return.

The European tolerance for late cabs far exceeds mine.  In all cities they tell us, “just five more minutes,” but they do this five, six, seven times.  So I wait five, ten, fifteen minutes and still nothing.  I wait 20 and then five more and still no sign of him.  But I am in the middle of nowhere, so what are my options?

I start walking toward town, and walking and walking until I find a hotel.  The hotel calls a cab and soon I am back in my hotel.  For the next two hours while I hunch over my laptop in my room working I await the knock at the door, broken down by the Polizei who are waiting to take me away because of the 30 Francs I owe the cabbie.  And I will tell them I waited and they will ask how long and then they will say incredulously, “only 30 minutes” and into Jail I will go.

But no police come and I even walk the streets although I have this running fear that I will be shot from an apartment window.  I made it to the airport without incident, although I almost confessed my guilt when they asked at customs if I had anything to declare.

Zurich is another place, very different from the economically challenged countries we’ve visited so far.  With 3% unemployment, 65 degree weather and a perfect sun reflecting off Lake Zurich, you’re hard pressed to find someone complaining.  Mostly I saw couples walking along the water, young couples in arms, older folks enjoying the sun, a band of middle aged men playing the accordion and general harmony.

I watched my son’s two games and took enough pictures for a rugby career, because these may be his last.  He scored a try and I saw it.  He made some great tackles and they are on film.  He high fived his teammates and stayed with a Swiss family who offered him ham and cheese breakfast-lunch and dinner. 

One player ended up in the hospital with internal bleeding.  “We thought he broke his pelvis, but it was just bleeding,” the coach told me.  Another 9^th grader had a concussion and I could see from the stands his eyes rolling around his head. 

And while his team didn’t win, getting to watch him run off the field was a victory for this parent.