The morning of Friday, the 19th of August was busy with getting all the last minute stuff together. We were starting to get nervous and upset. I was so emotional, that I could not get through a conversation without tearing up. The airport car came for us at 1:00pm. We had told the company to expect a lot of luggage and to make certain that it would fit. They sent a Lincoln Town Car and the drive right away said, ”It won’t fit!” He did not even want to try, I explained to him that we brought the luggage in a Ford Five Hundred and it was able to fit if he stood it up and not laid it down. Luckily, Allison was coming to the airport to help us; she brought one large bag and the cats. This limo driver was not too bright; he did not exude any confidence in where he was going or how to get there. Anyhow, David and I sat in the backseat with a bag in the third seat as well.
The check-in at the airport went rather smoothly, we only had to pay for two extra bags and no overweight charges. Thank goodness, you would not believe how many times we had weighed the bags to make certain they were within the weight limit of 50 pounds. We had to say good bye to Tiqui and Tess after they were scanned by TSA to make sure they were all clear. They were a bit confused as to all that was happening.
We went to the President’s Club for a snack and to make our final phone calls to our family. Thank goodness, I had David; there was no way that I could get a phone call made without crying. We boarded the plane at about 4:25 for our 5:15 departure. We had very nice seats together by the window. Things were looking positive and we were happy with how smoothly the whole thing was coming together. Well that was the end of happiness! Suddenly it was 6:00 pm and we still had not taken off. What was going on? Well, there were storms somewhere in our flight plan and we were not allowed to take off. About 3 hours after we were supposed to take off, they decided on a new route, but first we would have to go to remote parking and get refueled. So exactly 4 hours after our scheduled departure we finally took off! The rest of the flight was fairly uneventful, just dinner, movie and tried to sleep.
During this time, I was concerned about Tiqui and Tess. They would have to be in the carrier for 4 additional hours and I am certain they did not understand what was going on. I will write a Tiqui story later about her time in the cargo hold of the airplane.
We arrived about 4 hours later than we planned. We got all of our bags and reclaimed Tiqui and Tess. Tiqui seemed to be in a state of shock – she was very mellow and quiet, very unlike Tiqui. We claimed our rental car; we were contemplating on our way to Copenhagen what we were going to do if they gave us a small car that would not accommodate our luggage. They did not. We were able to fit our luggage without any problems and started on our way to Älmhult. We drove for a ways and then stopped to get an ice cream along with the kitty litter, litter box and food for the cats. We wanted to be able to get them out of the kennel as soon as we got to the house. The drive was quite nice from Copenhagen to Älmhult. The scenery goes from farmland to forest. It felt like we were in Wisconsin and then in Colorado or going from Eastern Colorado to the foothills of Denver. We arrived in Älmhult about 4:00 in the afternoon. Poor Tiqui and Tess ended up being in their carrier for 20 hours! I am going to have a hard time getting them to go in it again.
Not long after our arrival, the owner of our rented house showed up, he had just flown in from China and Dubai. He had been up for 40 hours. So I guess there was no complaining by me about being up for the amount of time I was up.David and I realized that IKEA is only open to 6:00pm and we needed to get bedding for our bed. So we went into town, bought bedding quickly, and bought some basic groceries, just to get by on Sunday morning. We then stopped at Elme for dinner. That burger and glass of wine tasted pretty good about then.
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