Just got back from Nuremberg and Zurich - Part 1

I just took my wife on our first vacation without the kids since we had kids. Our first time alone together for more than 12 hours in over 5 years!!! Can you believe that?

Zurich was nice, but as a Jew who grew up with the Holocaust ingrained into his psyche, whose grandfather is a 95 year old survivor of Birkenau that came face to face with Dr. Death (Mongele), and watched his family get killed, I got to tell you, it is tough going to Germany. It is even harder trying to have a good time while there. Shame, the place has a lot of potential I think.

I had to go for work, so my grandfather understood and gave me his guarded blessing, but I decided to take the wife along with me for the trip and stop in Zurich for the first 4 days before Germany. On my way to Zurich a funny thing happened on the way to the plane. I flew El Al, and flying to and from Europe they are very tough on luggage weight limits. No more than 2o kilo allowed per person as well as 8 kilos for carry-ons. In contrast to flying to and from the USA you are allowed around 40 kilo a person plus carry-ons.

I get to the check in and of course I pick the longest line - on a side note, no matter where I go in life, I always pick the longest line; it is not even funny anymore, just pathetic and sad. I will go through a toll plaza in the middle of nowhere New Jersey, and even though there are only 2 cars ahead of me, the line with 20 cars next to me gets through first. I go through a border checkpoint, same thing, I am the first one in, last one out. The best time witness the phenomena is always in the market, I get to the checkout line behind every lady in the city who decides to pay with coupons and checks. For some reason here in Israel they do not bag your groceries, so the checkout lady will glare at you to hurry up after she dumped a shopping cart worth of groceries behind her into the bagging area and that you are now expected to bag in under 90 seconds. So the lady takes forever at the checkout with price checks, coupons, checks, and then they need to bag their own junk all the while you stand there biting your lip looking at the guy who got in the line to the right of you at the exact same time yet manages to leave 20 minutes before you - BUT I DIGRESS

SOOOOOOOOO after waiting 30-45 minutes in line this elderly lady tries to check in what had to be 2 bags of bricks. I have no clue what could have been in them, but I chivalrously helped her lift her sack of cement onto the scale when she was struggling. The El Al check in lady was having nothing of it and charged her the $20 a kilo overage (which probably came to $19,200) and then she made her weigh her carry on which probably weighed just as much as the much larger bag. That carry on probably cost her another $17,000 - BUT I DIGRESS (isn't digress a great word?)

This check in lady is out for blood, she is weighing everything and after arguing for 15 minutes with this lady who happened to be right before me I knew I was going to be in trouble. I weighed my luggage at home a couple of hours earlier at 4:00 am, and we started out at like 32 and 25 kilo on our 2 suitcases. My boss made clear that stuff for the business was a must go and my stuff came secondary. So that means that I had tons of samples and catalogs and I had to dump a lot of other non essential stuff in order to bring them down to 20 kilo each. Unfortunately non-essentials was toiletries like cologne, pajama sweat pants, boots, pants, sweaters, winter wind breaker, etc etc, who needs those things any way in the middle of a European winter any way? My plan was to stuff the little carry-ons with really heavy stuff like catalogs and hope that they wouldn't weigh them at check in since they were so small. I had 3 carry on bags full of catalogs even though I was only allowed two, and two suit cases at 20 kilo each.

At the last minute while waiting in line with the check-in lady from hell I devise a plan, The luggage carts at Ben Gurion have a little hook on the back of them with an add blocking the hook so from the front if something is hanging off the hook, you can't see it as the add blocks it. I hang one of the over-weight carry-ons on the hook, and cover it with my big rain coat (which I was forced to wear to the airport and on the plane due to the aforementioned weight issue) draping over the front and the back of the cart, and I started to pray that she wouldn't ask to weigh the back packs.

I get up to my turn and said the following - "Some people just don't know how to follow the rules and check the weight before they leave" and I immediately follow it up with, "This is my wife's and mine first trip alone together in 5 years, we are so excited!" I figured that with a line like that she would take sympathy on us. I weigh the two suitcases and we come in both at 21-22 kilo each, and she let that slide, then came the big question, "Do you guys have any carry on luggage?" I of course say, "Yes, just these two small backpacks", she bought it, she didn't even bother to weigh them (like she did for everyone before us). I think what did it was the fact they were so small, who would be stupid enough to carry 8 kilo in a small backpack? And to that I answer proudly - I would be stupid enough!