Mom and I headed to the airport on Monday morning armed with my two over-flowing suitcases, the two cats, and our carry-ons. I had been worried about my bags being too heavy and didn't want to pay for any heavy bag fees, and I did a lot of extra shuffeling around to try to avoid it... and each bag was around 60 pounds. Definitely "heavy"... yet I didn't get charged for it, which was really what I was concerned about. Josh's mom and Jen came to send us off. Josh's mom brought us a bag of goodies to have while we traveled... and also had a pot of coffee and insulated cups in a tote bag with her. I wish I could make that up, but I'm not... she had an actual coffee pot that she carried into the airport with her. My mom was grateful.
My biggest concern about the whole trip was the cats. I just wanted to make sure that they got to Germany safe without any health issues, and without a major mental melt-down. We gave the cats some sedatives before we went to the airport, and they seemed to be kicking in by the time we checked in. I've never flown with a pet before, and I can see why not many people do. It can be a major pain in the butt. I wasn't sure how the cats would go through security... obviously they don't go through the x-ray scanner... and what we had to do was take the cats out of their carriers (which they were THRILLED about) and send their carriers through the x-ray and then walk through the metal detector while holding the cats. Not even kidding. I don't know if this is normal at all airports... or if this is just how they handle things in poe-dunk Missoula Montana. But my mom and I each walked through the metal detector with a squirming, uncooperative cat in our arms. Clearly, we were a threat to national security.
Saying good-bye to everyone as I left Missoula was hard, but there was never any tears on my part. Sad and hard to say good-bye, but I had the excitment of seeing Josh ahead of me, which overtook any crying. I feel like a lot of my goodbyes were somewhat rushed, on my part. However, as we climbed the stairs out of security up to the gate and I looked down and waved goodbye to Jen and Josh's mom, I found tears springing to my eyes. As our plane taxied away from the gate and up the runway I suddenly found the tears I hadn't had earlier. I said goodbye to Missoula with tears streaming down my face as the plane left the ground.
Many people wondered how my cats would do flying... I wondered how they would do. Many jokes were made about how the cats would behave. I'm happy to say the cats did very well, at least at first. On our first two flights they were relatively quiet. We covered the front of their cages with our sweatshirts to block out the sounds/light, and they seemed to sleep undisturbed. Our flight into Detroit was late. I sat in frustration watching the automated map as our flight circled around the city again and again... and each time it circled the closer our connecting flight was to leaving... Our flight to Germany which I didn't want to miss. For one of the first times in my life, I turned into one of "those people" when we landed... the fasten seatbelt sign had barely been removed and I had lept up out of my seat to dig our bags out of the overhead bin. By the time the door of the plane opened Mom and I were both standing, cats in hand, ready to go. Unfortunately we were towards the back of the plane and had to wait like cattle while everyone else gathered their belongings and left. I did a lot of silent cursing in my head... and a lot of not so silent cursing as well. I pulled a desperate trick out from my skiing days and simply said "on your left!" to people as we shoved past on the jetway. We got into the airport and took off running... we steped into the Detroit airport at 5:20 and our flight to Frankfurt was scheduled to leave at 5:35. Running with two heavy carry-ons and two some-what big boned cats is a challenge... and we arrived at our gate huffing and puffing... but we made the flight, which was all that mattered. We hadn't had time to do any of the necessary checks on the cats that I had wanted to do before our flight. I had to re-drug the cats before the flight took off. Mom would hold the cat carrier on her lap and open the door of it, and I would feed the cat their pill. It all would have been a lot smoother if my cats would cooperatively take pills. We got the cats re-drugged and settled in and covered the front of their cages with a blanket. My boy cat Pucky was meowing, but we figured he would settle down after a few minutes. We were wrong. Poor Pucky cried for the whole flight. The WHOLE flight. At different times we could feel him moving around in his carrier as it shook everything under the seats. I quickly went from being embarrassed, to annoyed, to finally feeling very sorry for Pucky as he cried. It wasn't his fault... I'm sure being stuck in his carrier for that long was getting very old. Finally when there was two hours left in our flight my mom picked up Pucky's carrier and held it on her lap while she stuck her hand inside to pet him. He was quiet. In fact, he slept. Had we known that would have worked we would have done it a long time ago.
I had heard from other people that bringing their pet into Germany through the Frankfurt airport wasn't a big deal. They were right. The longest part of the whole process of customs was standing in the line. The man at the customs counter glanced at my passport and stamped it. That was in. No questions, no having to show the multitude of forms I had to carry about the cats. Before I left I had to update some of the cats shots which they weren't even due for, but they had to be less than a year old for Germany to recognize them... yet no one asked about it. Hmmmm.
From the Frankfurt airport to our house is a little under a two hour drive. Since the cats had been in their carriers for about 18 hours at this point, we decided to take them our of their carriers and let them be loose in the car. They did well being loose. Pucky slept (probably because he'd worn himself out on the flight over), and Vega decided that riding the car is actually pretty great and spent a lot of the ride sitting on Mom's lap looking out the window. We got a picture of it, it was pretty entertaining.
We got to the house and decided to carry the cats up by hand rather than put them back in their carriers. The shirt I had worn for the flight over will never be worn again as Pucky tore multiple holes in it as I carried him. I had warned Josh that Vega likes to hide, and will find a way to hide in the most unlikely of places. She proved me right. Within the first hour of us being here she had wedged herself under a chair, behind the washing machine, and then went under one of the wardrobes/closets in the house. Josh went on a kitty-recon mission to try to and find ways to block Vega out from some areas.... I think this may be an on-going battle.
When I woke up this morning there was a big black Pucky cat curled up by our feet. Down the hallway I could see the siloutte of Vega looking out the window. It seems that the cats have recovered from their adventure.
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