Eras Tour: Zurich

It's insane that I flew my 12-year-old to Zurich to see Taylor Swift.  I just want it to be clear up front that I realize what madness that is. 

We made dozens of friendship bracelets; we studied footage of the tour and made a dress to match one of Taylor's from Georgia's favorite Era. I made a top that was inspired by my favorite thing I've ever seen Taylor wear. 

But, how?  How did we get to a place where we decided "Yes.  Flying to Europe to see a concert."

It happened in a MacDonald's play place, very much like the one I'm sitting in, now. Taylor fever was rampant at Georgia's school.  Taylor's birthday was unofficially designated Taylor Swift Day.  Her math teacher was adding to the whole thing by passing out Friendship Bracelets From a Real Taylor Swift Concert.  Because Taylor was touring in the US last summer/fall.  I thought the tour was over.  Nobody was talking about it anymore. But my daughter looked her beautiful eyes into my cute husband's sucker face and said, "I wish I could go to a Taylor Swift concert."

He said something along the lines of "It is now my mission in life to get you to that concert no matter what it takes." 

Turns out, she was still on tour.

In Europe, at the time, and would still be in Europe when we were slated to be there.  We had a family cruise booked out of London in the middle of July.  Taylor was going to be in Switzerland at the time.  Short little flights and yadda yadda yadda.  So, it was possible, feasible, and as it turned out, her cousins already had tickets, so the deal was sealed.  We (took a deep breath because cha-ching) bought floor seats in the same areas as the cousins, and friendship bracelet-making supplies.  

We planned the outfits.  We researched the stadium, the rules, read blogs about what you really need (sunglasses, protein bars and a collapsible water bottles).  We booked a hotel right down the street so we could just walk from the concert and not worry about traffic or getting around at night in a weird city.  Zurich isn't weird, its lovely.  I digress.  More and more people kept joining our party.  It was the biggest thing happening to any of us.  Hyrum booked us flights that would let us rest on the way so that we wouldn't arrive and fall asleep on our feet at the show. 

So the day arrives, we double check this and that.  I make sure I have the link to my digital tickets, and clear purses to get through security easily.  And we go to the airport with all the excitement that this kind of nonsense warrants.  The first flight we went to Chicago, and stayed the night.  We got our nails done and went to bed early.  The next day we flew to London and stayed in an airport Hilton where the man at the desk was so excited to see a CHILD that he gave her a stuffed bear and a coloring book.  We got up early and flew to Zurich, where a Portuguese woman picked us up in an Uber and drove us to our Hotel that was so close to the concert that the roads were blocked off and we had to walk the last half mile to get to it.  

Thinking about this part of it makes me physically sick.  I don't even really know why I'm typing this out.  I don't want to remember it.  I wouldn't have much to say about this whole experience because who cares how we got to Switzerland?  But it matters that after all the preparation, we then took 3 full days to travel to this thing... only to get there and hear the opening act starting up through our window, while I click through the links to access our tickets and they aren't there. 

Disbelief.  Denial.  Searching.

Email.  History. Concert Tickets website.  Reset password. 

Texting my husband for help.  Texting the group to not wait for us.

Concert tickets app download.  Ticket history.  Credit card statement.

Our group says "there's a place where you could check."

We walk over to the stadium with no idea where to find this office, but its directly in front of us, and there's no line.  Thank heaven.

But I didn't bring my passport.  No proof I'm me.  Walk back to the hotel, trying to remain calm.

Grab passport and *briskly* walk back to the outdoor office, where the woman clearly does want to help me. But what can she do?

All along, Georgia is following me wearing a beautiful purple dress covered in thousands of jewels.  I have told her, "We have no proof of our tickets.  But we bought tickets.  I wouldn't think we had tickets if we hadn't bought tickets.  We're going to figure this out."

But we couldn't figure it out.  The email I had was a link to an empty cart- a reminder that I should pay for the tickets I left in my cart another time.  "Your Taylor Swift tickets are only a few clicks away!"  It was from when I mean to order them, but my credit card wouldn't go through because I don't usually buy things in Switzerland and they were suspicious. So I got Hyrum and we called and made sure the card was going to work, and then we gulped, because *cha ching* and hit "purchase".  We bought tickets.  I just had no proof.  I couldn't get Hyrum or the credit card company on the phone. I had nothing.  And the woman couldn't help me.

We stumbled away from the window and I turned to Georgia, and I whispered "I'm so sorry." and she collapsed in sobs on my chest. 

I was numb with disbelief and in physical agony about how many times Georgia was going to have to relive this every time someone asks how her adventure to go see Taylor Swift in Switzerland was.  Three days.  Hotels.  Sleeping pills to get on the right schedule.  Hundreds of hours of preparation.  This concert had been sold out for weeks.  I even checked to make sure I had the StubHub link to the tickets, weeks before.  But when we went to Paris last December, I bought an e-sim card that I clicked on too many times and it stopped working.*  I didn't want to open the tickets and make it so they couldn't be scanned, or... I didn't know.  The email said I was a few clicks away from MY tickets so I didn't investigate further.  We bought tickets.  I wouldn't think we had tickets if we didn't buy tickets.

Georgia is still sobbing on my chest.

A tall blond woman walks over awkwardly and gestures to the office while speaking German.  I look at her blankly and say, "She couldn't help us.  We don't have proof of our tickets. She sent us away."

She gestures again still speaking German but with a bit of panic, and sweeps her hands toward her; we should follow her.  We should go back to the window.  The same woman is looking at me meaningfully.

She asks for my passport, again.  She looks up my name.  It's not there.  What about your husband?  Was it his name on the card?  Where did you order them?  Do you have the app?  What about your credit card statement?  Can you get him on the phone?  

Finally, my phone works enough to get Hyrum on the phone.  She asks a few questions and we determine as a 3-person trifecta of helplessness that we just don't have tickets.

She lowers her voice- I don't know if because she doesn't want anyone to hear and riot or because she's afraid I'll be mad- and she says, eyes boring into my eyes, "I can sell you 2 tickets... They're not together, but you can stand together on the field..." I relay this to Hyrum automatically, and ask, "How much are they?" certain they're going to be $2,000+ each because that's what a base ticket costs at home and... "Two hundred and sixty for the two." 

Like such an idiot, I spit, "Dollars?!"  "Well, Franks, but, yes."+ Hyrum is screaming, from the USA, "Yes!  Buy them!"

Before she could finish the sentence I was pushing my credit card at her aggressively at the bullet-proof glass and would have screamed "TAKE MY MONEY!" if there had been any breath in my body.  Even now, I'm tearing up.  I only just barely kept it together long enough to get my big beautiful paper tickets with stars and QR codes and my receipt and credit card back.  I was shaking so much she said, "Now you have to promise you will have fun!"  She was not being cute.  She was completely serious.  She did not just sell us ghost tickets just for me to go in the concert and cry all my makeup off.  Big ol' fat rain dripping off my face, I gather the tickets and put away my credit card while lamely whispering "thank you so much!  thank you!  Oh my gosh thank you so so much!"  

She watched us anxiously as we ran to the ticket takers and security in total disbelief, and I was physically overcome by the desperation to thank her in some way and the purity of the elation.  Not only was the horror over and we were saved, but we were at the thing we had been preparing for, for months!  

We got tickets to the very section we tried to buy, with the rest of our group.  It took a few minutes to find them.  They only knew that we probably weren't going to make it inside.  When they saw us they all screamed, and I buried my face in my sister-in-law's new Eras Tour t-shirt.  I wept like all of my daughter's dreams 

had almost just been destroyed but were saved by the kindness of some random Swiss woman who saw her crying.  

I had read on a blog that I should use a waterproof setting pray for the concert because it gets really sweaty.  Once I cried it all out, I asked how bad I looked, and besties, that setting spray works.

The concert started less than 1 minute later.  

The concert was awesome.  I got a video of Georgia in her purple dress and Taylor in the purple dress it was designed after.  Switzerland is beautifully temperate, but all those people in close proximity and the stadium blocking any wind made it pretty hot.  I was prepared to spend half the concert refilling everyone's collapsible water bottles, but Taylor sent around water angels.  No one is fainting on Taylor's watch, and she knows that people will not give up their spots to go get water.  So there were designated avenues where the people with the water came around with huge water bottles and cups and pushing cold cups of water at people even if they said no, and they gave us a cups worths of water in our bottles, SO many times.  I still nearly fainted but Anika, in our group from Germany, was smart and brought cliff bars, for just such a time as this.**

The group gathered at our hotel after the concert to trade friendship bracelets and take pictures. They also needed a bathroom and I was honestly honored to be able to provide relief to the group.  Then they hopped on a new train the city put in to help with the traffic and went off to their various hotels, and we bought a loaf of bread and some savory pastries and giggled until we fell asleep.

It feels like I snuck out from under a guillotine. Or that a random Swiss woman took me by the hand and helped me down from the guillotine and asked if I would like a refund.  In this scenario, she has distractingly soft hands.

I carry the weight of what she did for me.  I don't know her.  I don't know how to find her.  I don't know what I would do if I did find her.  It is on me like an oath, in the way people used to take oaths, that I must do something for someone else, like what she did for me.  What she did for Georgia.

It feels like my daughter's belief in me was saved.  It feels like her innocence, and faith in life was saved.  The destruction this would have done her would have been sickening, for such a truly small thing as it was in reality.  This would have scarred her- and may have still- for life.  

We still don't know what happened that morning in bed when we used this very laptop to buy the tickets.  

I had a thought the first time I left the window at the stadium to retrieve my passport to prove who I was.  "If we knew the end from the beginning, we wouldn't panic during our trials, because we would know where it leads. So I will stay calm, and just keep trying."

It felt like, "...for if they humble themselves before me, then will I make weak things become strong unto them." Ether 12:27  I was in the midst of the weak thing when I thought that.  I knew something spiritual was happening, despite what it seemed.

I don't know if anyone can comprehend, and that's why I wrote it here; no one reads this.  But I wanted a record, not just in my journal.  That woman was moved by a God that knows her, and knows me, and cherishes Georgia, to send someone out to me to help me find a solution. 

But why?  Why does God care about Taylor Swift tickets when there is so much more happening in the world?  When people beg every day for miracles that are not to be? I don't want to say this aloud to anyone because this miracle, is a real miracle, and people need miracles a lot more than I needed those tickets.  I feel so insignificant at having been... saved.  Having been plucked out of a literal crowd, and saved.  Am I being dramatic?  Yeah I can see how it would look that way, but have you ever felt something that you didn't have the words to describe, and knew no one could understand, but it's one of the biggest things you've ever felt and to ignore it would be to be ungrateful?  Dismissive?  I am wholly undeserving, and yet I know it was divine intervention.  It is conceivable that this could happen without intervention.  But it didn't this time.  

*I had to use my minimal French to find an Orange store (cell company) and then explain the problem and get it fixed.  It was humiliating and exhausting.  Ugh. "My cell no go. I want it go. Help? I buy esim.  Esim go and no go. You know?"

+Our original tickets were more than 3 times that.

**Anika's cliff bar is totally similar to Esther offering herself as a sacrifice to save her entire civilization.  

***What I have mixed feelings about is the fact that I'm pretty sure she didn't offer the tickets earlier because she was afraid I'd think she was trying to take advantage of me or something. Mixed with guilt and humor at how hilarious the contrast is between what she was (might have been) afraid of, and what happened.

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