The last couple of days have been
a bit of a round Europe wiz…. I started off in London on the Friday morning
before flying to Zurich via Dusseldorf which was the cheapest way by some
considerable margin and had the added benefit of leaving from my local airport.
After I arrived in Zurich I checked the arrangements for the flight the next
day, picked up the boarding cards and caught the shuttle but to my hotel. An
hour later I was out of the hotel and back to the airport to catch the train
downtown to meet my customer at the stage door of the venue to go through the
arrangements and hand over the boarding cards so she could distribute them to
the passengers. I was fortunate that the customer had made arrangements for me
to be invited to the gig which is always great. I am sure I looked out of place
though as everyone else was in groups or couples and I was “billy no mates” on
my own. This was the first time I have been to a gig in Switzerland and I was
surprised to see a number of large signs warning about excessive noise and
possible Tinnitus from attending the event. Every person was given a set of
disposable ear plugs before they went to their seats, very odd. The gig itself
was fantastic as always and at 10:30 I was outside the venue and running for
the train that I made by moments as I did the 11PM connecting shuttle bus
to the hotel.
The next day I was tasked with
looking after the personal baggage of the group and ensuring that it is all
checked in without problems, there are 122 passengers and 233 bags at a total
of 5077Kgs the heaviest bag being 42Kgs. The porters and check in staff were
very efficient and I managed to get the baggage processed within 45 minutes of
it arriving at the airport.
The flight was a short one to Turin being just 40
minutes in length and passing over the alps at quite a low level, As ever they
were stunning after arriving in Turin it took me about 45 minutes with the
porters to get the baggage loaded onto the trucks and away to the hotel leaving
me just needing to get home. The person in charge of the baggage trucks very
kindly offered me a lift to Turin central station. It turns out he must be a
wanabee tram driver, at least that’s what I assume he was because when we hit
the outskirts of town he decided to dispense with the road and drive down the
tram tracks. This was fine until we caught up with a tram and then we had to
also stop at the tram stops. After a
couple of stops he got bored with this and pulled out and drove the next three
miles on the “wrong track” before re-joining the road system to drop me at the
station, Fortunately there were no oncoming trams. Strange as it sounds It did
not seem to be unsafe at all, just very odd.
The next stage of the journey was
to Milan central station which it turns out is another amazing and vast
building not unlike Leipzig Hbf. Finally it was the bus to Bergamo and then the
Ryanair flight home and the end of another 19 hour day
