A Short Night

---

Geo: 46.2038, 6.13996

The first alert woke me up at 3:00am, only a few hours after I turned in. My phone was in the other room of the suite charging, so I got up and went to see what was happening. It was the first of what ended up being quite a few automated alerts from United Airlines and a travel app I use, telling me that our flight from Geneva to Washington was going to be delayed. As that had no impact on the fact that K and I were still being picked up at 5:20am to go to the airport for our flight to Geneva, I tried to go back to sleep -- unsuccessfully. When the front desk called at 4:30am, I was still awake.

We were originally booked to fly home to Washington via Frankfurt, on Lufthansa. I kept checking award availability in the weeks before we left, which seemed to change constantly. A new option came up for a flight home via Geneva, on United Airlines, which was a little shorter. More importantly, it allowed us the option to upgrade our seats to Business Class at a reduced rate. I jumped on the chance, and while I had planned to surprise K, I ended up telling her before we left Washington.

We were both rather comatose as we showered and got ready to leave the hotel. Our bags, including the wine suitcase, were all closed and ready to go from the night before. We ended up with 14 bottles of wine (12 in the carrier), and one of vermouth; we somehow managed to squeeze the excess bottles and all of our purchase into our two other suitcases. Right as we were to head down to the lobby, the front desk called to say our driver had arrived. All was going according to schedule.

Given that we saw how many people were still out eating, drinking, hanging out at midnight, I had expected the streets to be deserted at 5:15am. I could not have been more wrong. The traffic outside was already solid, and as we got on the main highway to the airport, it was a steady and solid block of traffic in both directions. I'm convinced that Barcelona, not New York, is the city that never sleeps.

We arrived at the airport before 6:00am but it was already overflowing with people. The numbers were staggering. The airport, built for the Olympics and then expanded, is large enough to absorb the crowds, but still seeing so many people in the pre-dawn airport was still jarring.

Check-in and security were quick and without incident, so we settled into yet another airport lounge. We both grabbed some breakfast and -- most importantly -- coffee, before settling into a couple of very comfortable recliners. I got up to refill my coffee, and by the time I got back, K was out -- zonked out completely. She had talked of wanting to do a little shopping in the airport, but she was so asleep and looked so comfortable, I did not have the heart to wake her. Rather, I read and then woke her up about 45 minutes later, as we had to get to our gate.

The departure area was packed, but we were among the first to board. The plane was full in Economy, but K and I were the only two people in Business Class aboard this first flight -- on Swiss Airlines. It was a short 90-minute flight; time only for a hot breakfast and -- yeah -- more coffee.

By now I had figured out why our flight to Dulles -- on United Airlines -- was delayed. The inbound flight from Washington had departed on time the night before, but had to return to Dulles after a couple of hours due to a mechanical problem. They swapped everyone onto a new aircraft, but that ended up putting them more than five hours behind schedule. Our flight was, luckily, only delayed by two hours. They did a remarkable job of clearing, cleaning, loading, and turning the plane around, taking less than 90 minutes between the plane arriving and departing Geneva.

We spent our layover in our final airline lounge. This was my first time at the Geneva Airport, which struck me as a relic from the 1960's; very outdated and smoky. Unlike all of our other layovers, I was very happy to have the lounge here to escape the general airport areas.

The additional security screening for this flight to the States was as time-consuming as ever, but it left us with a few scant minutes before they announced boarding.

---