31
May
2008
Zurich airport.
It’s 10am local time, 2am eastern standard time, and we’re ready to go to school!
(pictured from left to right: Sasha, Dr. Garely, Liliana, Curtis, Katherine, Prof. Blake-Neis, Sarah, Asha, Andy, Shevy)
The exit signs in Europe are much friendlier.
The view from a window at the Swiss School of Tourism and Hospitality.
Our morning in Chur:
Our group in front of the fountain in Martinsplatz, just next to the Kirche St. Martin.
(pictured from left to right, front row: Liliana, Gia, Sarah, Elliott, me, middle row: Mark, Adele, Prof. Blake-Neis, Katherine, Dr. Garely, back row: Curtis, Shevy, Andy, Sasha)
Inside the church (Kirche St. Martin) – it really wasn’t dark in there, but I couldn’t reconfigure the camera.
Walking down Reichsgasse
Chur’s architecture has lots of arches – from decorative portals to windowed hallway bridges:
(this is a view along Brotlaube)
(the Hotel Freieck has a pretty arch as well)
(the arch in the picture below crosses Bärenloch, which ends in a little courtyard with buildings and a garden)
The city of Chur and our School in the village of Passugg are both in the mountains at the edge of the Alps.
This is June, and yes – that’s snow. (The view is of the mountains beyond the square of Regierungsplatz).
and last of all, the door of 64 Reichsgasse (sorry, it’s a little fuzzy):
Posted: daily log
30
May
2008
Let’s start at the beginning.
Day One: Friday, May 30, 12:40pm. We gather at American Airlines, Terminal 8, JFK airport.
Check our bags (I checked in at the kiosk although our group was permitted to check in at the first-class desk), and minutes later the AA Tour began – Led by Bill Clark, an executive with American Airlines.
AA is quite proud of their new terminal – it is the largest at JFK, and the finishing touches are still being completed. A total of $1.3 billion went into the project, expanding and updating everything from the departure lobby to the baggage conveyor system to the number of gates to the size of the customs and immigration area. Each ticketing agent now has an individual baggage belt, and with the elimination of shared belts check-in times have been reduced to just 60-90 seconds. (For the complete do-it-yourself experience, there are also 44 self-check-in stands: swipe your passport, print your ticket, check your bags and go).
The security lanes have been revamped to accommodate as many as 1,800 travelers per hour, and the customs and immigration area can now handle 1,600 travelers per hour (up from just 855 in the old space). Nineteen gates feed directly into the immigration and customs area, and another seventeen gates host domestic flights.
Mostly hidden behind walls and underground, seven miles of conveyors process the checked baggage. Each bag rides from the ticket agent’s belt to the next available CAT scanner, and from there is automatically shunted to one of two belts: one belt for non-suspect luggage, one belt for suspect luggage requiring further inspection by TSA agents. (If the TSA agents do find hazardous materials, the situation is turned over to the onsite law enforcement authorities.) Sometimes the bar-code scanners can’t read the luggage tags, and then bags must ride to the end of the line where an AA employee finds the tag and enters the bag into the system. After passing inspection, the bags continue on conveyors either to carrousel’s (for international flights), or piers (for domestic flights). Baggage handlers load the bags from the carrousel’s and piers to the airplanes. If a plane is required to change its gate, the bags do not have to rerouted to different carrousel’s or piers: the handlers are simply notified of the change, and they drive the bags to the new gate. In the control room, computers monitor the entire system, and a large screen shows the status of each strip of conveyor and each scanning machine. Sometimes jams and small problems can be cleared remotely, from the Control Room. Others must be addressed by hand, and agents will reach the problem by ducking under the raised belts (they’re about four and a half feet off the ground), and stepping over the ground-level belts. (There are three-step staircases on either side of the ground-level belts, and a yard of space to span their width – on our tour, one belt was turned off when we started, and we stepped from the ground onto the stairs then onto the belt to the far stairs and then back to the ground. On our return this belt was in service, and we stepped from the near stairs right over the moving belt onto the far stairs. Our guide (Joe Daly, Manager of Ramp Agents) had long legs and didn’t mind the stride across, but those of us of the shorter persuasion were glad there were raised handrails at elbow height above the belt!)
We also visited the Control Tower, with banks of computers, camera monitors and screens to show the location of planes in the air. JFK and LaGuardia are just nine and half miles apart, and this means they share airspace – not only must planes avoid colliding with other planes arriving and departing at the same airport, but also all the planes at the airport “next door”. From the Control Tower, all routing and scheduling decisions take place: when and where planes may land and park, taxi and takeoff, whether they will travel on this ramp or that, whether they must wait or take priority. In the event of delays and cancellations, an agent in the Tower is responsible for sorting our alternate travel arrangements for each connecting passenger on the affected flight, and for notifying the correct agent at the connecting airport. (To help out, they also have a three-pot coffee maker).
Forgive me if I gloss over the actual flight: it was about seven hours in the air, we were fed a nice dinner and a snack masquerading as breakfast. The pilots can take credit for a smooth takeoff and pretty smooth landing all very nicely graduated (no trouble on the ears).
DAY TWO:
After landing in Zurich (7:30am local time, Saturday May 31), Doris, a Zurich VIP Service Guide, met our group and virtually whisked us through immigration and customs. The Zurich Airport has a terminal dedicated to US arrivals and departures, though occasionally other international flights will use it in the afternoons. Unlike our 24-hour airports, Zurich doesn’t schedule flights either in or out after about 6pm, and closes entirely overnight. Another surprise was the nursery area which is funded by the airport, it includes three rooms plus a lobby and an office area. Anyone traveling with children can visit for free, and they will find changing and washing stations, a room to let their children nap, a row of chairs and tables for snacks, and two playrooms with everything from dolls, trucks and storybooks to rocking horses, PlayStations, and a four-foot high Connect-Four game (which, just like the table-top variety, spills the red and yellow rings all over when the game finishes).
Next we collected our luggage (another neat moment: even though our group checked in at all three ticketing areas – first class, coach, and self-serve – all our bags were piled onto one luggage cart). A farewell gift from Doris was a 10 CFH voucher that we could use for (real) breakfast at the airport.
After a bit of time for us to explore the airport, find the aforementioned coffee and food (okay, and chocolate) and stretch our legs, we traveled another two hours by van to our host school in the village of Passugg (sounds like Pass-sue-gh) – ten minutes above the city of Chur (sounds like Coor).
A former hotel, the Swiss School dates back 110 years. The School offers students airy dorm rooms, classrooms with picture windows and views of the mountains leading to the Alps, an indoor swimming pool which has been converted to a movie room, a disco (with bar, lights, and sound – so students can get a feel for what it takes to work at and run a club), a mosaic-tiled bathhouse which has been converted into a student kitchen, and a pair of full restaurant-grade kitchens which both teach and provide food for two dinning rooms (large and small), and a third kitchen which provides food for a fully operational restaurant space (also a teaching facility).
DAY THREE:
Today (Sunday, June 1), we breakfasted at School, and then took the school van to the city of Chur. After strolling along some of the cobblestone and paved streets, and visiting the Church of St. Martin, we walked along the river to the train station. Almost all of the shops and restaurants are closed on Sundays (the exception was a little convenience mart in the train station).
By group consensus, we lunched at a Mexican restaurant. …The menu items were listed in Spanish, and the descriptions were in German. I ordered the spare ribs, mainly because I have never seen ribs on a Mexican menu, and I will say the food was tasty. The barbecue sauce was sweet and spicy (red pepper flakes, sugar and cumin, I think), the garnish was an orange slice, a radish cut into a flower shape, and a small purple blossom. The side dish appeared to be a small cup of sautéed vegetables, but turned out to be a mix of cold and lightly pickled vegetables. Definitely a local touch. After lunch we found the local bus service and returned to School, briefly meeting another School group heading further up the mountain for a weekend aiding the foresters and learning about the regional trees and wildlife.
Now it’s mid-afternoon (we’re six hours ahead of eastern standard time), and we’re back at School, sharing our pictures and writing about our trip – so far.
More to come!
Posted: daily log
28
May
2008
It’s almost 3pm and we’re on campus at BMCC, having our last meeting before we gather at the JFK.
Dr. Garely has given us the handbook for our host school (the Swiss School of Tourism and Hospitality), gone over the basics for dress codes and airport packing and all… and we’ve all got our new shoes. (Thank you Gore-Tex).
For the next three weeks, whenever dress shoes are not required, I will be wearing Gore-Tex shoes (I think my grandmother would approve). Already they feel lighter than my old sneakers, and they definitely have a more aesthetically-pleasing silhouette. I don’t know the technical term for it, but they aren’t a flat sole – the front angles up, and I think this might aid in walking/jogging, etc. (We’ll see).
So this afternoon I will be running around purchasing the last wardrobe touches (thanks to my theatrical background, much of my business attire is too colorful to be appropriately conservative), and packing.
Friday morning we will be meeting up at JFK, taking a behind – the- scenes tour of American Airlines, and then departing for Zurich, Switzerland. From Zurich we will travel to Chur and our new school.
For the next three weeks we will be learning in classrooms (textbook, lectures, and all), as well as through trips and tours in Switzerland. The goal is to become fluent in Tour Management, and for each of us to lead our own short tours while abroad. Each day we’ll be posting to our own blogs (like I’m doing right now), as well as collectively posting to a group blog for BMCC, so check back to read about the events and discoveries!
Posted: daily log
