Arrived on the other side

After 2 nights in a hotel the day came for Emma, the dogs and I to fly back home. What a day!

Imagine: 4 suitcases, two big crates and 2 backpacks! I invested $6 for a airport luggage cart, after some consideration we thought it best to load all suitcases on a cart.

The path was in and out of elevators, down long hallways, ride the train, all with rather big gaps that required some navigation of wheels. Best decision ever to buy crates with wheels though. All accompanied by Rags barking ferociously at anyone coming to close. Imagine there are all these random people walking about and getting too close to us, laugh!

Waiting at check in, ignoring the looks from the other passengers, trying to calm Rags down and hoping everything will go well. Once it was our turn we had to show dog paperwork, negative Covid tests, passports. Then more paperwork to fill out, paying for the transport of the dogs and check in all the bags.

Side Tangent: payment needed to be at a different counter and the person handled some ones canceled flight rebooking and me paying with calm, friendly demeanor and efficiency. Actually both women dealing with us at the Lufthansa counter were most impressive, calm and friendly despite the chaos.

One more hurdle before we were handing the dogs off. They tested the crates for explosives! Can you imagine that, I was speechless and horrified. But from the airports perspective it is just a precaution.

It did feel really strange to leave Rags and Mia behind, giving up control is not easy in the best of times, but those two are quite precious to me....

We did feel relived that the whole Terminal stopped looking at us. Emma in particular was dreading transporting Rags through the airport. He is so squeaky in his territorial fits and his voice travels.

I could tell Covid has left deep marks in travel, we had the fastest security check ever, in one of the busiest cities, less than 10 minutes and we were at our gate.

The feelings coming through at that moment are hard to fathom. Relief that all was done, car sold to Carvana just a day before, at a hotel no less, dogs checked in and we made it all in time. But also Anxiety about what was coming next.

Then, Emma spots one crate being brought to our plane, ONE! I looked at her incredulous, how dare they separated my dogs.

We got to Germany 30 minutes early, who has heard of that before. Rung my mom out of bed to let her know she needed to get going to the airport sooner.

The next unexpected turn. Fastest entry into Germany ever, show passport right at getting of from plane, then scanning at automated passport control and off we were to get our bags and precious cargo. As we turn the corner there were the crates rolling in. What a relief!

We grabbed the dogs and as we move on to get our luggage, they are already whizzing by on the belt. What? We were out the door in about 40 minutes, never have I ever!

One thing to note, Frankfurt is not dog friendly, as in finding a relief area near by. But Emma managed to find a little square spot of green for them.

Now we wait, and wait and wait. My mom had to still come and get us.

We waited and waited for my mom now, as the timeline had shifted so unexpectly. As the car pulls in the questions begs will everything fit?

But we made it work, another "clown car" moment, I am getting good at this!

7 hours later, 2 traffic jams and complaining about tourist, who are like locust coming to the Baltic sea for vacation, we arrived! Last thing we had to do, get 4 suitcases up 50 stairs to my mom's apartment. Let me tell you...

But we all made it, safe and sound!