The Move - 4/11/07

Arrived!


Us not looking so "fresh" after our arrival!


The Rathaus in Basel & Open Air Market

The Move

April 10th came like the blink of an eye. Before we knew it, we were throwing all of our belongings together and leaving our temporary housing. With five large pieces of luggage, and two hysterical cats in the car, we couldn’t help but look at one another with doubt in our eyes, wondering if we had done the right thing. After all, there was no need to leave a perfectly comfortable life where we understood the language, loved our home, were close to family and friends – what are we doing came to mind more than once! But life is an adventure – so we decided to press on!

Having never traveled with pets before, it is quite the experience. As many of you know, Robert and I really love our cats (we often refer to them as our fuzzy children) and had prepared for months to get them ready for the 7.5 hour international flight. We crate trained them, we took them to the vet (several times) we played loud flight sounds for them and we even read story after story on ways to minimize their stress levels for this journey.

Checking in for our flight took over an hour – and I didn’t feel overly confident about leaving Josie with complete strangers, especially as the airline kept referring to Josie as “it.” “Just put “it” with the baggage or “I don’t know where to put “it”, or can you just stuff some of your luggage in its’ crate so you won’t have to pay the extra fee?” What????? So needless to say, the tears feel as I handed over Josie to be loaded as cargo.

Toby, on the other hand – had the privilege of flying in the cabin with us. We know what some of you are thinking – they must like Toby better – no, it simply came down to size. Josie is a whopping 16.8 lbs. and Toby weighs only 8lbs. For the sake of comfort and airline regulations, Toby was our only choice. Robert and I said if ever there were a reward for the best flying cat – Toby would receive it hands down. We “stowed” him under our seat or on our lap for most of the flight and he never made a sound.

Claiming our Baggage…
We had no idea where we would claim Josie – so after asking several people, we determined that she would be waiting with the luggage. Once we turned the corner to enter the baggage claim, there was no doubt where she was. Josie was crying so loud that you could hear her across the room. She made it through the flight – but was certainly traumatized. After cleaning out her cage, we loaded both cats into the rental and drove from Zurich to Basel. From our temporary housing in Eagleville, PA to Basel, CH took over 14 hours.
Once in Basel we met with our relocation specialist who handed us the keys to our apartment, showed us a few things and left us to take the rest of the afternoon to unwind. That evening,exhausted from the move, we slept almost 11 hours. The best rest we have had in over three months!