DAY ONE
I live in “fear” of sending a group email after AOL cancelled my account last time…but, here goes.
Left Nashville on Thursday AM to fly to Zurich. American partners with Swiss Air but won’t allow passengers to upgrade using American miles so I had to fly Nashville to Dallas to Zurich. Major backtracking. I had been wait listed since April to upgrade from coach to business using my miles. There were plenty of seats available, but American would NOT release one to me. By the time I got to Dallas, I was ready for a fight. Fortunately, they upgraded me with no hassle. About an hour and a half into the flight out of Dallas, the pilot came on and said fasten your seat belts. We’re flying over Nashville and they have “weather”. Nice to know I had just left Nashville and was now flying back over it again.
Landed in Zurich and was waiting in baggage claim for a couple of the other members of the entourage to come in on the flight from Chicago. I waited for an hour and finally gave up. Found out there are 2 terminals and they had been waiting for me in the other terminal for an hour. We landed at 7:30 am and had to wait until 3:30 that afternoon for Heather Myles and her musicians to come in. The festival site is a 2 hour drive from the airport and they couldn’t make two pickups. So, the 3 of us hung around the Zurich airport for 8 hours! Then Heather landed and had a bag missing. It took her another 2 hours to fill out the lost luggage forms.
Finally arrived at the hotel in time to shower, eat dinner and go up to the festival to watch BR549 perform. The hotel is located at the base of an Alp and the only way to get to the festival site is in a Gondola. The only thing I hate worse than flying is a chair lift or a gondola — anything suspended. Add to the fact that it was pouring down rain and freezing and pitch dark. It was not a pretty site. But the show was great. The stage was covered and the crowd stood out in the pouring rain and mud for 90 minutes of BR549. Got back to the hotel at 3 am — that’s 36 hours with no sleep. I was toast! And we had to be ready to leave the hotel at 8:45 am for sound check.
Went up to the venue for sound check. This time the gondola ride was worse. The night before, it was so dark I couldn’t see how high up we were. Today was beautiful and sunny. I hiked up to the top of the mountain while Heather was sound checking and the view was spectacular. It’s a ski resort in the winter and must be absolutely glorious.
The hotel we are staying in is in a little village on the lake across from Luzcern. After sound check, I jogged with one of the wife’s along the lake. The view was so pretty, it make the running easy.
Heather performed tonight and did a great show. She has a song that will be on her new album titled, “Nashville’s Gone Hollywood” and I think it will be a big hit for her. The timing is perfect. It’s not a “ditty” but does address the fact that an artist can’t get played on country radio if they are “too country”. Just got back from the show and it’s 3 am again. Got to get up and run tomorrow and we’re taking the boat over to Lucerne. There’s a Blues Festival taking place there and the name of the festival is “Blue Balls”. Uh huh….
Good Night!
Jude
DAY 2
Well, we had a gorgeous day off. The weather was perfect. Got up and ran along the lake early this morning and then we took a boat cruise over to Lucerne. Walked around the “old city” and along the water where the Jazz Festival was supposed to be taking place. Evidently, it doesn’t start until late night since there was nothing there but an empty band shell. But, the booths were open and we ate Bratwurst and Gelato, so the trip was worthwhile.
On one of my trips to Europe we did a video documentary on where to find the “flush handles” for the toilets. Every bathroom is different and it’s always a challenge to find out how to operate the toilet. You would not believe some of the places they can hide these devices. Anyway, my next trip will be a “shower head” documentary. The water pressure is to die for. We would pay extra for this kind of water pressure in the States. But, then, they install these little hand-held shower wands. I can’t even remember how many times I’ve been brutalized by these things… the latest being this morning. The hot and cold water has two separate handles, so it’s best to turn them on and get it adjusted before stepping into the tiny shower stall. Only, there’s so much water pressure that the “wand” won’t stay in place. It somehow knew exactly where my face was and drowned me this morning. When I finally was able to grab it, it flipped straight up and sprayed the ceiling, which is turn drenched the entire floor of the bathroom. Once I got it under control and got in the shower, the only way to take a shower without having to turn the water off and on and “re-adjust” the temperature between washing my hair, conditioning–all that girl stuff was to put the wand on the floor and stand on it. Not an ideal situation since with one false move, it will shoot lose and attack again. Then, I realized that the water on the ceiling was dripping down on me and was ice-cold. And you’re saying, why not just take a bath? No bath tub!
I fly home tomorrow and Heather goes on to France and Poland.
Jude
DAY 3
Got up early Monday morning for one last jog along the beautiful lake in Switzerland. We left the hotel in a van for a 2 hour drive to the airport in Zurich. The promoter that I work with had gone home the night before and left us with the “buyer” for transportation to the van. “Peter” is a really nice guy but is a “want-a-be” Country Music singer. (He asked the promoter to ask BR5-49 if he could sing a song with them on stage at the show. She didn’t ask, Thank God!) Take it from there. His English is okay but I learned he really doesn’t understand English as well as he speaks it. We’re driving along for less than 5 minutes and he pops a tape in the tape deck and turns it up full volume. It is blasting away in German and the band is yelling, “tell him to turn it off. Translate, Translate”. Since I was sitting in front with him (not my choice), I tried to make him understand that we didn’t want any music. Evidently, this was 3 radio spots that had run advertising the festival and he insisted that we listen to them. They were completely in Swiss/German. The only word we understood was once they said “Heather Myles and BR5-49”. He was so proud of these spots, telling me how he went into the studio and said, “do this, this, this”.
Then, “Peter” announces that he would like to get “off of the highway” and show us the sights on the way to the Airport. I explained to him that we did not have time to “sightsee” and preferred to go straight to the airport. He said he wanted to show us Lucerne but I told him we had been there on Sunday. It was impossible to dissuade him. He got off the interstate and ended up in some construction area in a bad part of Lucerne. “Oops. Got off on the wrong exit”. Wonderful! He drove down a street explaining that it was the “Beverly Hills” of Lucerne because all the wealthy people lived there. Might have been, but all their homes were completely hidden by large trees so all we saw were trees and a little glimpse of the lake. He then insisted on showing us a new “auditorium” (that was thrilling!) and the Blues Festival where we had all spent the day before! I finally convinced him to get back on the highway before we all missed our flights. He spent the rest of the trip telling me he was coming to Nashville and wanted me to introduce him to George Strait. Yeah, right. Says he is making an album here and I asked him who is producing and he said — Byron Gallimore! Wonder how much Bryon is getting for that?
We arrived at the airport and I went with Heather and her group to make sure their tickets were okay. Their flights over had been cancelled. (Not my travel agent — someone elses, thank goodness). All was well and I went to check in. Got settled in my seat and was really happy to have an empty seat beside me. No such luck. I heard these cries of pain coming from the back of the plane. I don’t mean “moans”, I mean anguished cries. The flight attendant walks up to my seat and tells this woman with her arm in a sling that this is her new seat. Just my luck.
She sits down and continues to scream in pain. I’m trying my best just to totally ignore her because I don’t want to become her “nurse” for the flight. No such luck. She starts talking and will not shut up. Said she fell down with her luggage cart and dislocated both of her shoulders. One popped back into place but the other one didn’t and she was in excruciating pain. She said she told them to give her morphine and they refused and all she had with her was some aspirin. Said she normally doesn’t drink but she was going to drink to try and relax and make her shoulder pop back into place. Hmmmm. So, she started drinking. And talking. Supposedly she was 60 years old and had been a plastic surgeon for 33 years in Chicago. She said her patients never thanked her for removing the 99 wrinkles but just complained about the one wrinkle she left. So, she had closed her practice and was moving to South Africa! This was all beginning to sound a little far-fetched to me and I decided she must “fall down” before every flight so she can get a free upgrade from Coach to Business.
The pilot came on and said that we had lost a battery pack and it had to be replaced before we could fly. Said we could all get off the plane because it would be dark and hot. I jumped at the chance to escape from her for a few minutes. Walked off the plane into the restroom and they made an announcement that we had to get back on the plane!
We took off and I hooked up my DVD player and started watching a movie — more to “turn her off” than anything. But, she literally would reach over and pull my earphone off my ear and talk to me. She constantly needed something — could I re-tie her sling tighter? Could I hand her the bag with all her pills in it? Could I find her seatbelt for her? Now, I’m a nice person and the movie was horrible, but I was beginning to get really fed up with the situation. She then told me that she had taken 4 tranquilizers and that normally you were not supposed to take than many in a 12 hour time period. And, all the while, she is slamming booze.
Just when I think things can’t get any worse, the pilot comes on and says we have to make an emergency landing at London’s Heathrow Airport because the battery pack has gone out. Evidently, there are 2 battery packs and a charger. Maintenance only replaced one battery pack and now it was already dead. I called the steward over to ask him how serious it was because I HATE TO FLY under good circumstance. He assured me that it was very serious. Evidently, if an engine stalls, the only way to restart it is with the battery. So, for about one hour, I clung to the arm rests and tried to listen to the engines to see if one of them was going to stall. The psycho next to me would not shut up. At one point she yells, “I wish I had missed this flight. What else can happen to me?” I wanted to say “Listen, you ******, we could crash and die”. But, since I had promised God that I would never curse again if he would let us land safely, I kept my mouth shut.
Just before we landed the pilot warned us that we would be landing in an “overweight” situation which called for an emergency landing with all the fire trucks, ambulances, etc. I can’t remember when I’ve ever been that scared.
Obviously, since you are getting this email, we landed safely. I should have used that opportunity to change seats, but I didn’t. We had to turn in our DVD players when we landed in London, so I picked another movie — hoping it was better than the last — and started watching it. We took off for Chicago and the psycho had to get up and go to the bathroom. Only, she couldn’t get up and wanted me to pull her out of her seat. No way. I called the flight attendant (let me explain, that our attendant was a male — large, pretty overweight). He helped her up and she was gone for about 10 minutes. She stepped on my feet going out and coming back in. Sat down, they brought her meal back and not 2 minutes later, she had to go to the bathroom again. Same procedure — remove her meal, pull her out of the seat, step all over my feet and reverse the process on the return. She did this 4 times and while she was gone, I told the flight attendant that I was changing seats after the meal. He offered to move me immediately but I told him I would wait until after the meal — BIG MISTAKE.
The choices for dinner were steak, chicken, salmon, and pasta. Now, if you were right-handed and couldn’t use your right hand, what would you order? She ordered the steak. Of course, she couldn’t cut it. I again called the flight attendant and he had to cut it up for her. When he finished, he leaned over to me and said, “Would you like for me to feed you yours?” He was totally over this woman.
She starts eating her steak and I’m trying to watch the movie. Then, I realize she looks like she is choking. I’m in the process of jumping up to again get the flight attendant (he now refuses to answer the call button!) and she throws up everywhere — all over herself, the seat, you name it. My DVD player went air borne and I didn’t stop until I got back to the Galley. I told them that she said she was a doctor but she had taken 4 tranquilizers and all that alcohol and was now throwing up everywhere. The male flight attendant just said, “Sorry, I CANNOT deal with that!”. Honestly, I didn’t blame him. A female attendant went up and took care of her and I moved to another seat. Every few minutes, the attendant would run by with these large empty shopping bags — the airsick bags weren’t even an option.
So, I start watching yet a third movie which is also horrible. Now the guy I’m sitting with is 95 if he is a day and I’m wondering if he’ll live until the end of the flight. Fortunately he slept all the way but I kept my eye on him to make sure he was breathing. The male flight attendant offered to upgrade me to first (Are you crazy, after I’ve set up my DVD for the 3rd time?), then he offered me a case of wine or a case of champagne. I declined both. All I wanted to do was get home.
Since we arrived Chicago 5 hours late, I knew my flight to Nashville would have left and I would be spending the night there. Not so. They had “weather” in Chicago and I got on my flight to Nashville. We left Chicago at 9:30 and the pilot comes on and tells us that there is “weather” all around. So, we’re going to head WEST out to Kansas City, then to Tulsa, then go SOUTH and after that he wasn’t sure until he heard more information.
So, I’m sitting in First Class on this flight and this guy gets on with a bandana wrapped around his head, NO SHOES, and earphones that are blasting so loud you can hear them when he enters the plane. Of course, he sits with me. It was a very long flight!
But, I’m home. Welcome to Nashville. I’m never flying again.
Jude