Home, sweet home....

So....we are here! After a year of waiting/planning/thinking about it, we are finally in our new home. We arrived at our apartment safe and sound last night at about eight o'clock after a very, very, very long day. Let me fill you in......







We had a fabulous time in Florida. The brunch was wonderful (mmmmmmmm......creme brulee' french toast) and it was nice to sleep and relax after the utter chaos of our last few days in Portland. We set off for the Tampa airport on Monday afternoon and caught a quick flight up to Atlanta. Then of course we had nothing to do but wait a few hours for our long (11 hours!) flight to Tel Aviv. And of course it was delayed by an hour so we had to wait even longer. But the traumatic part was yet to come.







So about 45 minutes before the flight they begin to board the plane. Because we are flying into Israel they have extra security measures in place and you must go through another round of metal detectors/taking off your shoes/putting all your tiny toiletry items into a ziploc baggie. Same ol', same ol'. Now to get Pumpkin through we have to take her out of her carrier so they can X-ray the bag while I carry the poor shaking scared-you- know-what-less cat through the metal detector. By now we have already done this twice before (once in Portland, once in Atlanta) with absolutely no problems. Pumpkin was scared but calm and practically nosed dived back into her carrier once it came through the metal detector.







This time, however, was a different story. So the wonderful TSA people were, for some reason, in an incredible hurry. They we screaming and yelling and basically throwing people's belongings through the detectors as fast as they could. Pretty much being rude and unprofessional. Well, quite naturally, all this noise and chaos absolutely FREAKED Pumpkin out. She started squirming violently, digging her claws into my chest and used all of her tiny little muscles to try to break free. I tell the oh-so-wonderful TSA employees that I need to get the carrier through the detector ASAP or there is going to be a loose kitty in the airport (apparently, I heard later that this has actually happened at this same airport before. And they never found the cat again!). They proceed to basically stand there, tell me they can't help me and watch me get mauled by my poor freaking out kitty. They were completely unfazed by the fact that she could spring loose at any second.







Meanwhile, they are carelessly throwing our things through the detector with complete and utter disregard for our personal belongings and completely forgetting the rule that you should be in possession of your baggage at all times. Finally, we get the carrier through and it takes me, Phil and another helpful passenger to wrangle Pumpkin back in. I'm completely pissed off because my dear sweet natured cat just might be traumatized for life and I now have several large bleeding gashes on my chest. Phil is pissed off because TSA all but throws his laptop through the detector and they then proceed to leave it easily available for anyone who might decide they would like to pick-up new laptop today.







So then it happens....the first emotional breakdown of the adventure. I begin crying as I find some tissues to dab at my bleeding chest and Phil is having a few words /with the TSA employees for their complete rudeness and lack of respect for our belongings. Oh, what a sight we were to see.







In the end we make it on the plane (with my new ruined and bloody shirt) and a cat that looks as if she may have a heart attack and die at any second, and we proceed to wait, that's right wait, for one single passenger who does not want to sit in his seat and is demanding a new one. And we wait. And wait some more. Good thing TSA rushed us through the security line and traumatized our cat for life so that we can sit on this stupid plane and wait for one single person to get his damned seat! Oy Gevalt!!!!!







So other than that little event and the scars I will have to remind me of it, the trip went on without a hitch. We made it through customs/security in a relatively quick manner and some wonderful friends from Intel were waiting there to give us our car and temporary cell phone. We fought some traffic, rude drivers and many one way streets but made it to our apartment fairly quickly, all things considered. Then came the task of parking the car. Now it's a relatively small car, a Ford Focus, but our parking spot is extremely small. Somehow, Phil managed to finagle/wedge our car in and I think that we just may leave it there for the next two years never, ever, drive it again.







Our apartment was fairly in order except for a few annoyances. Like, they took away all the nice new appliances and replaced them with less attactive older ones. Yeah, not so cool in my book. *sigh* I was so looking forward to my nice new silver fridge. Also, Israeli standards of "clean" are not quite what one would expect in the US. By no means was the place super dirty, just not quite as clean as one might expect. Apparently the landlord was too tired after removing our nice appliances to bother to wipe down the dirty walls. I am also very glad we have our own towels with us and that we shipped a lot of our kitchen supplies. The supplies they left for us leave much to be desired. Oh yeah, and I had to take a cold shower. (But that's because we didn't realize that there is a switch to turn on the hot water and I am such a germ freak that I must have a shower before going to bed after being on such a long flight and enduring the nasty airplane restrooms.) So I am going to air my grievances this morning with the relocation specialist, although I do not have high hopes. At least not as far as the appliances are concerned. But ce'st la vie (no clue if that is correct, Cat, a little help here?). I am doing my best to be adaptable and go with the flow. You kind of have to in a situation like this.







Despite all that happened Pumpkin seems to be back to her sweet self and is settling in just fine. What a trooper she is. For some reason she never seems to blame us for all the horrible things that happen to her! She's just glad that we are here with her.







We will spend the next few days shopping for necessities like groceries, cleaning products and cat food/litter, cleaning and settling in to our new place a little bit. This is after all, our home, sweet home....