Italia! At Last!

At long last, we made it to Italy!  But, let's back up a bit and start from the real fun of the day!

3:15pm (EST) - We fed the cats Fancy Feast laced with Happy Traveler, a miracle herbal cure that helped keep our kitties relatively quiet for nearly 7 hours.  We could actually tell the exact how when the stuff stopped working.  Having taken away their food at noon and depriving them of wet food their entire lives, the drug laced treat was gobbled up in minutes.

4pm (EST) - We pulled the cats from under the beds at Momma and Papa Keenan's house in Jackson, NJ and forced them into their cat carriers.  Unhappiness with parental figures arose as my precious babies began mouthing off.  Flit, especially, was vocal in his distain for me.

4:30 pm (EST) - All four suitcases, two cats, my 25 pound purse, two laptops and 47 cell phone chargers were loaded into the car. 

5:15 pm (EST) - Arrival at Newark airport.

5:30 pm - First attempt at check in using self-check kiosk.  Result: Failure.  We were sent to the desk to be helped by an actual person.  Who informed us that our cats had not been booked as carry ons, as we had confirmed the day before, but were supposed to be checked baggage.  So, someone's manager had to get involved.  And we had to pay an extra fee.  And then there was the fee for the excess baggage and for each bag and for the change in airfare rates.  Wait, that's a thing now?  Thank goodness Tom was talking because I was getting seriously annoyed.  After all of these fees were calculated and another supervisor was involved to deal with the cat carry-on situation of 2011, we were sent to a third line to pay for all of this.  By the time all was said and done it was 6:25.

6:30 pm (EST) - Arrive at security.  Lorraine, Tom's WONDERFUL mom, had held herself together so well during the whole ordeal and then at security, just as we were leaving, a hint of a tear caught her eye.  And I was a goner.  Crying again, she was crying, Tom might have had a tiny tear drop and Joe, his dad, was chuckling in the background.  Haha!  But on we went, though tears were still drying through to security.  While normal security checks are stressful, adding passports, two laptops and two cats adds even more fun!  After filling six tubs with stuff, we asked "And what do we do with the cats?"  "Oh, you have to take them out of the carriers and walk them through the metal detector," said the TSA agent.  And she was serious.  So there we were, shoving tubs through the scanner, waiting to get the line down low enough to sneak two cats over and rush through the metal detector when.... about 50 noisy high school students came thundering into security.  With a cat in each of our arms, we felt the claws slowly begin to dig into flesh as squeals of "OH MY GOD!  THEY'VE GOT CATS!!!" escaped cumulative lips.  And as we were almost home free, the woman ahead of us had serious issues with the belt removal process.  Oh my gosh, really?  Have you not flown in the last year?  This has been a rule for at least a year.  At least!  Belts, watches, shoes, off!!!  I could go on with my rant about security, but in the end, we got the cats through and got to our gate at exactly 7:05pm.

7:07 - 7:27 pm : Drink.  Last song heard in the USA: "No Scrubs" by TLC.  I think that just means that the USA didn't want us to leave.  Or that TLC was awesome.  Or that nobody really wants a scrub.  Either way, I felt like it was a goodwill sign from above.

7:38 pm (EST) - In line to board our flight to Munich aboard Luftansa, a woman dressed in head to toe Lilly Pulitzer, pointed to Tom and I and said, "Of course THEY'RE on our flight!"  I responded with a look that said, "Wow, you've got some nerve, lady!"  And did she ever!  Aboard, her family was seated directly in front of us.  She very loudly made several disparaging comments about us before calling a flight attedent to complain that we had cats aboard and her daughter was allergic.  The flight attendant informed her that federal law allows two cats per plane and offered to get her daughter some benedryl but ol' Lilly Pulitzer requested that we be moved or her daughter get moved.  An exact quote "You can't write this stuff" was repeated over and over and over until the flight attendant moved us to different seats.  I told her "You're Welcome" just to let her know.  I'm still waiting for that thank you, though...

About 3.5 hours into the flight, Flit and Sprout both had a panic attack.  Both cats began clawing at the sides of the carriers like mad!  We had to hold them remainded of the flight on our laps as I thought "Maybe checking them would have been a better idea.  At least then, they don't hate us.  They hate other people..."

10:15 AM (Munich Time) - We landed in Germany!  Tom and I wound our way to our terminal, going through a passport check point along the way.  "And how long will you be staying in Italy?" "Three years," Tom replied.  "Oooooooo"  [Stamp, Stamp.  Passports returned.]

Passing an S&M shop called "Private" in the terminal lead us to realize that we weren't in Kansas anymore.  We tried to do a pitstop with the kitties in a handi-capable water closet but ended up freaking the cats out a lot and passersby likely thought that we had stopped in with merchandise from "Private."  Three people knocked on the door before we gave up the whole thing, shoved both cats into the same carrier and exited the room. 

4:15 pm (Naples Time) We touched down in Naples with the scariest landing of our trip, picked up our millions of suitcases from baggage claim and tried to declare our cats.  The act of trying to get someone to look at our paperwork caused so much confusion that I kept holding up the cats to say "GATTO.  CATS.  These things!"  In the end, they said it wasn't a big deal and they didn't really need to see the paperwork.  Are you kidding?  It took three trips to the vet to get this paperwork!  What a waste of time and money!

But here we are at 9:15 pm.  Showered (because we were smelling a bit too European already), fed (speck for $2 for half a pound!  and $1.05 for fresh mozarella!  and $4 for 2 pounds of tomatoes!), drinking wine ($6 for a sangiovese?!?!  Oh my goodness, all of my food groups are covered!!), we are ready to crawl into bed and sleep the night away.  And maybe a little from last night's sleepless fun.

Big hugs to all!  I'll post pictures of Italia once we get out there.  We love you all and can't wait to explore the Old World!!

Lynne
xoxo