The Big Move

Well, it's Sunday, May 1, 2011. The Big Day. Adam and I wake up at 5 am in TLF. There's still so much to do, and the shuttle will be at the house at 8 am. We get ourselves ready and pack up the carry-on bags (the checked luggage is already at the house waiting). We wake up the kids, who are less than thrilled to be up at 6 in the morning, and get them ready. Adam loads up the Granny car and we all pile in. We're heading off base for the very last time before 7 am--we're early.

Speaking of last time, there have been a lot of 'last times' for us lately: last time to eat at our favorite restaurants, last time to see our friends, last time to drive around our familiar stomping grounds. We realize this will be the last time we drive off Hill AFB. Again, I surprise myself by not being very weepy about this. I feel rather Zen about it all. It's actually kind of creeping me out, but, whatever... I have more important things to be thinking about today.

As we're driving to the house, Adam has me call the shuttle service just to make sure someone will be there at 8 am to pick us up. I call. My heart stops. The lady on the other end says they have no record of our request. "What's your confirmation number? (Dunno) ...Your telephone number? (###)... I'm sorry. We don't have you scheduled. Let me check something. Can you hold?" Adam and I immediately start planning contingencies: Will Heather help us take stuff to the airport? Jerry and Julie can pick up the Granny car there instead of at the house? How will we get all that luggage down there?! The lady gets on the line again: "Oh, yes, we have a driver scheduled to pick you up at 8 am at your home. Is this correct? (YES!!!!!) Ok, then. (BTW: What's he driving?) A Toyota Sienna. Sorry about giving you a mild heart attack. Bye!" My heart resumes beating; then Adam and I look at each other: a Toyota Sienna?!?!?  But it won't all fit! Adam told them we had a large dog crate, loads of luggage, four people, and a driver. How the **** will it all fit?!...

Whatever... we still have Granny car if we need it. I call Heather a few times. (Do you have Shasta? All her stuff? What about a scale? Heather? Heather?!) We finally make it to the house, do some last minute stuffing of crap into the checked bags, continue freaking out about the shuttle, and finally have nothing left to do but wait... Heather arrives with Shasta, and her stuff, and even a scale. We weigh the luggage. Three bags are under 50 pounds (Yay =), and one is over 60 pounds. NBD. Adam's allowed a few up to 70 pounds. Perfect. The animals are all set. It's 7:58. Where's the shuttle?! At 8:00 am on the dot, it gets here. Somehow or another, the driver gets Shasta's kennel, Steve's kennel, four huge luggage bags, and a Pack'n'Play all in the back. Amazing! Everything fits! Heather gets her last snuggles in on Zach and Rachael. As we're climbing in the van, I give her a quick hug (quick, because I know I can't handle anything more). Well, apparently, I can't even handle that. She's walking to her Jeep; I'm climbing in the van. I'm bawling. This is so hard. I'm leaving everything, including Heather, whom I've known for seven years now. I knew this was coming. Why did it have to be in the shuttle with a stranger to see it? Well, the guy seems rather unfazed. I guess he gets this all the time in his line of work. He usually has tissues, but not today. No worries. I've got my shirt sleeves to wipe away these massive tears. This is it. We're on our way...

The people at the airport must think we're nuts when we arrive. Adam has to get two carts to help us move all our stuff. I'm wearing one diaper bag, one huge backpack, and one baby, pushing a cart carrying a huge dog crate and a cat. Adam had the other one, piled so high I have no idea how it doesn't all come crashing down at some point. Our zoo of a family comes walking in to the Delta terminal. Thankfully, they have people there watching out for nutzos like us, with kids and animals and crap. They fast-tracked us to the desk, where everything actually went pretty smoothly. We off-loaded a couple hundred pounds of stuff and said good-bye to our animals. Poor Shasta is whining. She has just been returned to her people. Are we abandoning her... again? Poor thing.

Security is difficult. Everything we have strapped to and hanging off of us has to be taken off, sent through the scanners, shoes, belts, bags, everything. Thankfully, they recognize that we are not terrorists and let us through un-molested. We put everything back on again and head to the gate.

Rachael is very excited when she sees her plane pull up to the jet-way. The four-hour plane ride from Salt Lake City to New York's JFK is pretty easy, except for another momentary heart failure. As we're sitting on the plane waiting to leave, an attendant comes up to me, sitting in the middle seat with Zach by the window in his car seat, and says we have a problem with his ticket. Apparently, he is supposed to be about 10 rows back. How could that be? Adam had all this taken care of. How did we miss this? She says, "Don't worry. I'll make sure you'll be seated with him." Then she leaves. Crap! Adam and I are going to be split up, but we'll make it to the next stop, so we'll just suck it up. Well, the attendant never comes back. Common sense prevails. I guess the guy with Zach's seat number took the other one instead, and we were off!

When we get to JFK, it's a zoo. Go figure. We walk about a mile and a half from Gate 26 to Gate 10, heavily loaded down with kids and crap. We only have to wait about a half hour to get boarded on the next flight. Perfect! The animals are below us again. And we fly. Oh. My. Word! The eight hour flight from JFK to Brussels seemed to take FOR. EVER. We leave about 7 pm New York time. The sun is still up, though it gets dark soon after. They keep the lights on in the cabin for WAY too long. We should be sleeping to start working on our jet lag. No such luck. The meal isn't bad, though. Adam's sitting with Zach this time and they seem to do ok. Rachael won't sleep, with the lights on or off. She can't get comfortable, can't lay down, can't sleep. Thus, I can't do any of those things either. She gets very whiny for several hours. I'm exhausted. Will the flight ever end? Eventually, she falls into a restless sleep; then the plane lands. It's daylight again, 8 or 9 am in Brussels. That was the shortest night I have ever seen. We're in Belgium! In Europe! I can't stop smiling. Even tired Rachael is running down the (empty? where is everybody?) concourses, pulling her little Trunki around behind her.  
I can't believe this is actually happening! A Coke machine in the airport is big and red and has an image of a baby statue peeing a fountain of glorious Coke. Only in Europe!

Picking up our bags is fun. The place is a zoo! Everyone is going everywhere at lightning speed. This old lady in black with a long skirt over pants comes up to Adam, seemingly frantic, and asks for something in some other language. He starts waving his arms around (sign language? =) and says, "I only speak English." She walks quickly away. Adam gathers up the luggage, and we start wondering how it is we're going to get our pets. Remember the import license freak-out? Today is a Belgian holiday. Their Labor day was Sunday, the first, and they are celebrating it today, Monday. Does this mean we'll be dealing with the hard-core security folks willing to work even on holidays, or will there be so few working that they'll just pass the animals through? Maybe neither. We find them sitting in the over-sized luggage zone next to the carousel. Just sitting there. Waiting to be picked up. Did they even go through customs? We don't know; we don't care. Let's get them the Sam Hill outta here, Quick!

We now have three carts. I have one, and Adam's trying to drive the other two out of the secure area. People are just staring at us like we're crazy, or they're busy trying to walk around us as quickly as possible (jerks! =). Finally, someone kindly helps Adam by taking charge of the third cart. Thank you kind woman!

We're met on the ground by Ralph, Adam's sponsor, the guy Adam's been e-mailing for several months with many Belgium- and moving-related questions. Ralph is great. He is so laid back and easy going.  He tells us Osama Bin Laden's been killed. "You mean Gadhafi, right?" "No. Bin Laden!!" How crazy is it that, after 10 years of searching, this horrible awful person is finally destroyed while we're up in the air? Odd, but, whatever...

Anyways, we load everything up into the next shuttle--a much bigger van than the last one we were in! =) We drive for about an hour, hour and a half. My eyes can't take in everything! It's so Beautiful, so Green! Everywhere there are neat little fields with perfect rows of dirt and plants, little farms, cows and sheep. Ralph calls them 'villages.' I am in love! All the while, I can hear Ralph in the front seat talking to Adam in the second row about everything and anything we need to know. I catch about half of it. Belgium is small, everything in Belgium is small, and everything happens slowly. All the conveniences we're used to just don't exist here. Stores close early. In fact, there is a niche market called Night Shops that are open from about 4 pm through 4 am selling whatever you absolutely have to have, for about double the price you would pay during regular hours. This should be easy for us, right? We're from po-dunk Idaho. It almost feels the same, seems to run the same way. I guess maybe we got a little spoiled living in Utah where we had five--count them, five--24/7 Wal-marts within a 15-minute radius. Somewhere along this drive it hits me: This place is going to change us.

We get to the hotel and walk up the stairs, and up and up. (What, no elevators?) Ralph has found for us a loft apartment to rent. I really like it now, but upon entering, I was totally shocked! One room leads to the next. At the top of the stairs, turning right, you come to the living area, then the dining area, then the kitchen, all separated by glass doors. The kitchen is green; the fridge blends into the cupboards. The largest cupboard is actually a wine rack. Turning left at the stairs is a hallway. Walk down it to the first bedroom, the only one with a double bed. Continue walking to the second bedroom, then the bathroom. Then, keep walking down to the master bedroom, with two twin beds and a sitting room. The bathroom is huge, with some steps in it, two sinks, a tub, and a weird shower. Then, I never thought I'd hear myself say this, but I have to yell at Shasta: "Don't drink out of the bidet!" Then, an even weirder thought crosses my mind: I need to Google  "How to use a bidet."

Anyways, here we are, in a hotel in Belgium, completely exhausted. We are so glad to finally be living with our animals again, and even gladder to have a place to lay down. For the last couple months, Adam has been buying transformers, adapters, cords, etc., all in an effort to make our gadgets work over here. He starts testing his stuff. Lo and behold, it works! Ralph said you can't get Netflix streaming over here; we beg to differ. Adam has us set up with a VPN to give us an American IP address. We get Netflix. We can plug in our electrical stuff using the transformer and some other stuff. The Vulkano, set up while we were in Idaho, records American shows at his parents' house and allows us to watch them here! I don't know how he does this or where he learns about this kind of stuff, but he does, and it's awesome!

So, we're getting settled in. Shasta and Steve are 'playing' with each other. Steve gets cornered between the wall and one of the glass doors. She runs smack into it. Adam and I just bust a gut laughing about it. Minutes later, Zach does the same thing!  It's hilarious! I sit there just thinking, "Man, I really love Belgium!" And then I start looking for the bed.

By the way, I still haven't figured out how to use the bidet =) Ta ta!