The second day of packing was a little tougher....I woke up to realize I had no couches to sit on, no TV to watch (not like I actually had time to, but hey it is funny what your brain thinks during a time like this), and no printer. The house is half empty and that is when "it" really began to feel real. "It" is the realization that you have rented your house to someone else, taken a job in a foreign country that you only know how to say a few words, and there is no going back now.....
So 3 very full days later it is 10 pm on Thursday and we driving back to Illinois the next day. I am sure you are wondering why we would drive from Texas to Illinois to fly to Italy? Weird...well, it was too hot in Texas to fly with our dog, Sasha, and since the temperatures had been cooler in Illinois, it was a safer bet. LOL it was cooler until the day before we flew out! Ok, so back to Thursday night, the movers are gone and we realize we have too much stuff to fit into the truck. We had been so overwhelmed with what to take with us for 2 months (we won't get our air shipment until we move into a house so we had to bring what we needed for Sasha and us) that we didn't realize how much we didn't ask the movers to pack up. How do 2 engineers not figure out that the amount of "stuff" we wanted to take back to our parents for safe keeping in combination with our suitcases, a dog cage, 2 cats and cages, etc was about double of what we could fit into the f-150? Embarrassing! But I came to realize the brain doesn't function as well on lack of sleep and the mounds of paperwork and last minute tasks that come with expatriation. At midnight we had the truck packed and then Matt says "we forgot to put our fire proof safe in the truck!" and I just sat down and cried..... LOL
With amazing help from friends, we left some things behind and our dear friends helped us get rid of stuff (thanks Susan, Paul, and Chris!) and we were on our way!
At this point we thought all ducks were aligned, Sasha's paperwork was all set, our paperwork....oh wait...no....Monday morning when I checked on Sasha's paperwork it still hadn't been sent to us from Austin! My pet mover (they took care of all of the paperwork and details) failed to tell me that the USDA had a $38 fee and they needed 48 hours to sign it and overnight it. SIGH! So Monday morning I scrambled and worked with the USDA myself to get the fee taken care of a pay for fedex to hand deliver ($$) the paperwork to Schaumburg by 8AM Tuesday. (PS trust me don't ever call fedex to ship a package, just take care of it yourself online).
Here we are at Tuesday morning (flying day) and I get a call from the pet movers and it appears the rabies vaccine paperwork is not correct, because it needs to be a signature in blue ink, yup that is right, it can't be a stamp! Who would have known that? So my vet is at Banfield in Fort Worth, I am in Schaumburg so what shall I do? I call Banfield in Schaumburg and they were by far the very least helpful people in the world. I will never give Banfield another penny! My in-laws vet came to our rescue and got our paperwork taken care of (he will be getting a gift from Italy!!). I really need a glass of wine at this point......
Then we find out it is too hot to fly Sasha out at her scheduled time (It was 70 two days ago and now it is in the 90s!). Sasha will now have to fly out at night and Mom and Dad Sodergren took her to the airport at 10pm and we left at 4:40 pm. Apparently she had the saddest face when they dropped her off! But, I will skip ahead and say the good news was the very next day she arrived happy and healthy and full of licks upon arrival!
Back to our flight, the good news is we got business class and admirals club so we could finally take advantage of a little relaxing time (Ok, I was still a little worried about my Sasha at this point and wondering if her journey would be safe ;-) ). Here are the pics from the admirals club and business class!
I thought I was smart and pulled some money out of the ATM before we left so I would have US $ to exchange at the airport upon our arrival. Airports always have money exchanges so that should be nice and easy...right? No. At MXP (milpensa) they shuffle you right to baggage claim. This is where we discovered you are locked into the baggage claim area until you get all of your luggage and you can't go back. Ok, that shouldn't be a problem until we discovered that you can't get a baggage cart without Euros in hand, they don't have an ATM (or bancomat) and no money exchange at baggage claim and we have 2 bicycles and 6 pieces of luggage! Here are the attempts we made to legally obtain a baggage care: asked a guy in an orange vest and he didn't care, asked a police officer and he told me to go to the next locked room, exchange money, and tell them he said it was ok to return. I got over there to find out they didn't have an exchange, but an ATM so I got some money and then the people on the intercom didn't believe me and wouldn't buzz me back in so I waited until someone passed through and I snuck back in! Ok, so now I have committed a minor offense, I have Euros in hand, but I can't find anyone willing to give me smaller change. I attempt to go buy coffee, a water, a train ticket, anything to give me change, but guess what, nothing will accept more than a 10 Euro bill, but the ATM will only give a 20 Euro bill. And believe it or not not a single person will break down a 20 for me not even when I smile! AGGGHHHHH!! I will end this with my resourceful husband found a cart and we were on our way! LOL
The fruit of the labor was arriving at the hotel and seeing this....
The room is pretty small and we made it smaller with 2 bicycles, a dog, and all of our luggage, but this balcony is just great!
I will conclude this portion of our adventure by saying I hope you had some good laughs and smiles about the trials and tribulations of moving across the world, because I know I can laugh about it now! And, yes, I would do it all again!
Next post will be about our first days in Arona, Italy.....
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