The month-long Italian birthday extravaganza is officially over—but apparently getting home required one final humiliation. On this episode of Currently Cringing, we’re leaving Italy for one last day in Zurich, where I’m already on my period, my joints hurt, I don’t feel well, and my definition of sightseeing has become buying exceptional Swiss fruit and cheese and going home. We need to discuss why I barely eat at restaurants in America anymore, why a $150 dinner full of mediocre ingredients no longer excites me, and why at forty-one I would genuinely rather have my closest friends come to my house than spend three hours screaming over music while somebody brings me a $26 salad. Then we arrive at the Zurich airport, where the Swiss business-class lounge has an entire individually packaged ice-cream bar—Magnums, cones, sandwiches, popsicles—plus à la carte breakfast, beer, outdoor seating and views of the planes taking off. Naturally, despite already feeling terrible and knowing sugar can trigger a migraine, I decide that if my body has already betrayed me, I might as well have a bite of ice cream. Foreshadowing. We board our flight home and immediately the man in front of us discovers his business-class seat won’t recline. He is furious. He wants answers. He wants compensation. He wants Switzerland held accountable. The crew eventually manages to manually fix his seat, he settles down, and I quietly think, Thank God that’s not us. Never think that thought. Because shortly after takeoff, I get a migraine. I take my triptan like the reformed pharmaceutical enthusiast I now am, wait for the seatbelt sign to disappear and prepare for the one thing I specifically paid thousands of dollars to do: lie completely flat and become unconscious over the Atlantic. Except my business-class seat reclines halfway… …and stops. The buttons don’t work. The seat won’t move. My head is exploding, my joints are aching, I’m actively menstruating, and fifteen minutes later the handsome, muscular captain of the flight crew has removed his jacket, rolled up his sleeves and is literally underneath my seat like a mechanic changing the transmission on a Honda Civic. Oh my God, that poor woman. Followed immediately by: Thank God it isn’t me. And just when we thought the trip was finally over, we got home and Italy apparently received permission to lose its mind. Mount Etna started erupting, the summer heat arrived, travel disruptions followed, and people were dealing with the exact peak-season chaos I had spent the entire trip warning you about. Which brings us to the final lesson of this month in Italy: GO IN EARLY JUNE. This episode is the grand finale to our Italian adventure: Zurich, Swiss food, airport lounge ice cream, migraines, periods, marriage, broken business-class seats, airline economics, travel chaos, Mount Etna, European heat waves and why sometimes the greatest luxury of an international vacation is getting back to your own bed. Italy was magical. The flight home rearranged my spine. And somehow, I’d do the whole thing again. Topics: Italy travel, Switzerland travel, Zurich Airport, Swiss Air business class, SWISS business class review, broken lie-flat seat, luxury travel disasters, airline complaints, business class travel, Italy in June, best time to visit Italy, Sicily travel, Mount Etna, European summer heat, migraine while traveling, couples travel, luxury travel reviews, funny travel stories, Italian summer, and the final chapter of the Currently Cringing Italy series. #FunnyPodcast #Relatable #ComedyPodcast #FunnyGirls #GirlsPodcast #WomenPodcast #MillennialPodcast #femalepodcast #popculture Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.
