I'm Here - What a Trip

    I'm exhausted.  Luckily the new house has a nice couch.

      The drive from Kosice to Vienna was uneventful (thanks Jozef).  I behaved and didn't get car sick.  Everybody was happy.  We checked into a big hotel at the airport and I had a bed all to myself.  Pretty nice.  There were no problems at all, at least for me.  I did bark a bit too much whenever I heard noises in the hallway but, heck, I'm a dog.  We got up Wednesday morning and headed for the airport terminal just as planned.  So far, so good.

      When asked, I walked straight into my crate.  And that's when the bad stuff started.  The crate door was shut and latched and before I could turn around to see what was happening I was carried off to some vaguely industrial looking part of the airport.  And there I sat for about an hour when the whole process was reversed and I was back in the terminal, out of the crate and heading back to our hotel was my best friend Traci.  My thought...  Well, that wasn't really too bad.  Heck, I didn't even realize we had gotten off the ground.  But what do I know?

      From listening to Traci I found out that our airplane was broken and that we couldn't use it to fly to America.  So now, instead of flying straight to Washington DC and getting there around 2PM, we were going to sit around the hotel for a few hours and then fly to Frankfort in Germany where we would sit around for a while longer and then get on another airplane that wasn't broken and fly to America.  I would get to experience two takeoffs and two landings and now we would get to Washington at just before 8PM.  OK, the world's not perfect, we can handle this.  Actually, I thought I was handling everything quite well, thank you very much.  Traci was definitely not as calm.

      When we returned to the terminal for the flight to Frankfort I was not in the least cooperative about getting back in that crate.  I was a little smarter now about what they really had planned for me.  But I'm just a dog so eventually I ended up in the crate.

      And that's where I stayed for the next 14 hours until they finally rolled my crate into a big room at Washington's Dulles Airport where I saw Traci again.

      The flight to Frankfurt was only about an hour and I have to admit that until the very end of the flight it was not that bad an experience.  Very noisy, very cramped, no other dogs or humans, water sloshing, but not that bad.  Then my ears started popping and the noises changed several times.  There was a lot of whirring and clanking, and a dozens of loud thuds.  And then, without any warning at all, it felt like I had fallen out of one of the windows in our old flat and hit the sidewalk with the biggest thud of all.  Later, Traci told me that it was the hardest airplane landing she had ever experienced.  Something about her shoulders and her butt touching.  I didn't really understand that but I sure understood the "hard" part.  And I was standing up in my crate at the time with no seat belt!  I'm going to be sore for a month.

      Then it was off to another industrial smelling place in the Frankfort airport where my crate, with me in it, just sat for about an hour.  Traci later told me that she had tried to come and see me but that security wouldn't allow it.  Jerks.

      At long last they shoved me into the cargo hold of the airplane that would fly us to America.  It was another experience just like the first flight except a LOT longer.  The big thud (not as big as the first one) didn't come for nine hours.

      I got to the Vienna terminal the first time at about 9AM and it was now just before 8PM.  With the six hour time difference, that's 17 hours.  And I'm still in the crate.  They took my crate and I out of the airplane and placed us on a small truck which drove in and around dozens of other airplanes that looked pretty much like ours until we finally got to what they called "International Baggage Claim and Customs."  I think that's what the sign on the big door said but I'm a dog and can't read too well, especially from inside my crate.  The driver of the truck and another guy stood at the closed door for a very long time not looking very happy.  Then they went away and came back with two other guys.  These two were some kind of security.  You can tell by their uniforms and all the stuff hanging from their belts.  I've been sitting outside this door for an hour and a half and these four still can't get it open.  Something about an electrical failure.  After two hours on the loading dock they managed to open the door

      And there was Traci with tears in her eyes.  We quickly loaded up my crate and me and Traci's huge suitcases on a couple of carts (with the help of a very nice airport employee) and headed for Customs.  This is where I was thinking there could be more problems, but they didn't even ask to see my papers (I have an EU Dog Passport).  All they wanted to know was whether we were bringing any dog food into the country.  We quickly disclosed our hidden stash of Purina kibble and were cleared to enter the United States of America.

      My other best friend, Drew was waiting for me just outside of Customs and after a little more than 14 hours I emerged from my embarrassingly soggy crate.  With a smile on my face!  It took another five hours to get a car and drive to Pittsburgh but I slept most of the time.  I arrived at my new home at 2:35AM this morning.

      I know that this was a long narrative and probably not very exciting to many readers, but I feel obligated to put the whole thing on record and thank everyone who helped me get to America.  Now I will be able to begin reporting on what I find here.  But that's for tomorrow.  Now I think I'll sleep for awhile.