All 12 family feet are on European soil

Thursday April 7, 2016

My computer says that it's 8:43 a.m. but here en route from Luxembourg to Metz, It's 4:44 p.m. (I guess it took a minute to write that sentence.)

Holy exhausting day. However, thanks to our best friend Henry's booking genius, not an impossible day. 

This coul perhaps use some editing but never mind, I wrote it on our last train bit and we're going to head out to walk in Metz. That seems more important than editing just now.

Itinerary:

Calgary to Frankfurt, air: 9 hours 10 min.

Frankfurt to Luxembourg, puddle-jumper plane: 30 minutes, but that much time and more again to get the bus to the plane in Frankfurt. We actually had that "passengers on the flight to Luxembourg, your flight will be closing very soon..." just as we rushed up with the cats and all. Anyway, we got there. Thank goodness. (we took a detour through a totally unnecessary security line -- sleepy mistake)

Bus, Luxembourg airport to Luxembourg train station -- free, because the bus driver thought it was easier to be nice to tourists than try to explain the ticketing system to us. :)

Luxembourg to Metz, on the train, about an hour. Hopefully we can find a taxi to the Cecil Hotel though it's only 3 blocks. We're all wheeled out. Here's how we have it: mom, backpack on back and backpack on front, wheeling one, carrying one cat. Boy: backpack on back, carrying one cat, wheeling two. It's doable except when the wheels tip over and when the wheels tip it's superhard. Contemplating getting duct tape and wrapping it round and round to make it stay. :) Just dragging it in a great hurry as had to happen a bit today isn't completely ideal. :) But it's okay if the bags are trashed when we arrive, provided Gigi can take care of it all when we get there! (Gigi is our van, if you're uninitiated.)

At 5:45 last night (so, 15 hours ago only), we left Calgary airport. Inventory: 2 cats. 2 carry ons. 2 people. 1 50-pound backpack full of schoolbooks. 1 70-pound suitcase full of kitchen knives and cutlery and games and household stuffs. 2 green duffel bags each full of 50 pounds of stuff. Me, mostly clothes, and cut back I had to alot! Yarrow: all the clothes he owns that fits, plus sports stuff like footballs and volleyballs and badminton rackets. As you see, we're packed to live, not just holiday. We still had to cut back a ton on stuff we wanted to bring, but we haven't done too badly.

8 bags and 2 people is bordering on nearly impossible, particularly since the wheels that we bought for the duffel bags easily limp over sideways. We lost a piece of metal at the Luxembourg train station and a skinhead kinda looking guy ran after us to give it back to Yarrow but Yarrow said don't worry it's garbage as we rushed along, which is kind of too bad as we might have duct taped it back on. 

Money spent today:

12.60 at Starbucks in Luxembourg on a venti hot chocolate (there called a chocolat viennois) because they didn't have Yarrow's favourite green tea latte, and a venti honey macchiato for me. Honey... honey something. I forget the name now. It's really funny for the Starbucks menu be kind of in English and mostly speak in French. A lot of people asked if we speak German today too because we came through Frankfurt.

14.40 + 16.70 = 31.10 Euros on train ticket to Metz.

Cecil Hotel, cat-friendly (so they say, we hope it's true!): 60 euros

We had nice Air Canada employees all the way through -- they even let us preboard with the cats, after the little kids, and the baggage lady was patient with us when we needed to rearrange a bit of our weight so the bags would all get in under the wire. (One was over by a pound, but she said, let's change it to kilos, and then it wasn't over by much so it squeaked through). 

Then we found the people in the Frankfurt airport nice too. The guys in the security lineup that we didn't have to go through got a lot of fun out of our Star Wars laptop speaker which keeps playing epic star wars music any time the button gets pushed (which has been a lot today).

When we ended up running like crazy for the plane in Frankfurt, the speaker kept blaring star wars music and we were running too hard to stop and turn it off. 

The cats have been megachamps. They've also been really good conversation pieces. The airline attendant on our last leg even let me keep Ala on the seat beside me, and gave Yarrow an extra row for him and Clara, and showed me photos of her cats. The airline attendant on our first flight also got us a row to ourselves, which was absolutely wonderful because originally we were squashed in with this old guy who kept elbowing Yarrow. 

Anyway poor kitties have put up with being squashed under seats, and worse, swung along as we ran to and fro. We did get free to the train station in Luxembourg, but then we had to schlep our luggage quite a way. Some kind guys took the time to help us carry it about a block, for which we were very grateful as one of the duffels was off its wheels and 50 pounds is a lot when you're tired.

I think, tired mistake, that I put my iPhone in my pocket of my dress in Luxembourg and it might have fallen out. Well, I did say i wanted less internet! It may be that we're now smartphoneless. I can get a small phone in Ireland I guess! We are going straight to our first farm when we arrive, and we'll sort out details from there.

Lots of stress around fetching the van and trying to insure her. Hopefully it will be figure-out-able once we arrive. However, today's been all about just getting from point A to point B, and tomorrow will be about that, and about getting pet passports from the vet. On the map, it seems that Hotel L'Ambassadeur is pretty close to the train and then to the vet, but we will see! They sent us a nice welcoming message when they got our booking, which is lovely.

Before we took the plane with the scream-all-night toddler (I guess the parents don't believe in soothers), I was really looking forward to Metz and walking around. Maybe we still will a little, though Boy is TIRED and so am I. We've also been both sick, me to the extent of using the airplane sick bag as we were landing and then throwing away my white shirt because it was grossed up. So maybe we'll rest a bit first, brush the good kitties and feed them some Fancy Feast. But we must stroll around Metz a little at least!

Oh -- iPhone not lost! good.