How to travel from Zurich to Germany via India in under eight hours

This was a crazy day for The Geeks.

LGG and I walked to school where I dropped her off.  I then went to get my Swiss driver's license.  In order to speed things up compared to ZMG's experience, I went to the office in person with all my documentation.  I could get used to visiting government offices here -- it took 10 minutes from start to finish, and the folks helping me were friendly and polite.  (Note to the California DMV: It can be done!)

After that, off to work for a whirlwind of meetings before picking LGG up at school and getting her home for lunch before returning her to school and returning to work.  Oh, and in between seeing ZMG for 10 minutes...

Then we get to the title of this post: how to travel from Zurich to India to Germany in under eight hours:

1. Get on a train at the Zurich Hauptbahnhof and ride to Bern (elapsed time: 57 minutes).  
   
2. Buy a Bern bus ticket and ride to the Indian Embassy (80 minutes).
3. Visit the Indian Embassy, which is technically Indian soil, and pick up your passport complete with your shiny new Indian visa (90 minutes).
4. Buy another Bern bus ticket, return to the Bern train station, and get on a train back to Zurich (2 hours).
5. Get lucky, make a 2-minute connection at the Zurich Hauptbahnhof, then another 2-minute connection at your local station, enabling you to be home in time for dinner (3.5 hours).
6. Eat dinner, pack, talk with your wife, play with your daughter, read a book to her, then run to the bus stop for a bus to the train to the airport (4 hours, 45 minutes)
7. Board your plane to Berlin at the Zurich airport and then sit on the ramp for 30 minutes before pushback because you and your fellow passengers were too fast and Berlin isn't ready for you yet (6.5 hours)
8. Fly to Berlin and meet your colleagues for the taxi ride to the hotel (7 hours, 55 minutes).

Step 9 is ride to the hotel.  Step 10, of course, is post to the blog.  Step 11 is collapse.

And of course, while I was doing steps 1-5 above, ZMG was picking LGG up from kindergarten, getting her home for a snack, running her back to her gym class, and running back home to cook dinner.  Eep.  Tuesdays are like this for The Geeks.

The final part of the craziness is more personal.  A member of one of our extended families is in the hospital back in the States and we're trying to keep up with the situation there, knowing there's really nothing we can do but send good thoughts that way.  Nothing more can be said here about that.