siamo completo! Bill writes!

To everyone who has been following our blog, our apologies for there not having been an installment recently. Now that I’m more or less settled (although to be honest, being disoccupato is not the type of ‘settling’ I want to maintain for very long), I finally feel that things are sufficiently on autopilot that I can take a little time to put some words together.
It’s been a little over six weeks now since I said goodbye to the village of Goshen NY, paid the good folks at Lufthansa a small fortune in excess baggage fees for a 65lb furry red dog, two cats, a bicycle case and a second checked bag, and settled into my seat on the overnight flight to Munich with my seatbelt securely fastened low and tight across my waist. Somewhere past St. John’s, high up in the night sky over the inky-black Atlantic I was finally able to enjoy that one special moment which I’d been anticipating for weeks -a single satisfying couplet of breaths, one in, one out - that to me officially marked the end of my life in New York, and the beginning of my life in a foreign country. Although, not that foreign, really. There was something about the thought of living in Italy that to me seemed new and different, sure, but at the same time comfortably familiar, as if my heart had always been ready to live there but my mind had to come around to the idea in its own good time. So as I settled back into my seat in the intimately-lit cabin nursing my second glass of red wine, John Hiatt singing from The Open Road through the standard-issue headphones, I was illogically reassured by that by-then-familiar combination of excitement, irresponsibility, hopefulness, stupidity, and confidence I’d long been feeling about our decision to move there. And I looked forward to us all being one big, brown, furry family again, wrapping my longing arms around mybaby mybaby mybaby mybaby, and settling into our comfortable abode, complete with its lack-of-furniture echo in every room.
The next morning found me at Munich’s airport, winding my way along with my fellow travelers up and down stairs and escalators and on moving sidewalks in the gleaming white-pipe-and-glass terminal buildings. In my arm, Leo our tabby cat was curious and talkative in his soft carrier (and I thought surprisingly calm considering he’s not a big fan of traveling!). I arrived at the oversize baggage claim area to find the bike case, dog crate, and cat crate already laid out by the attendant, perfectly orderly and respectfully spaced from each other (should I have expected anything less?). I indicated to the gentleman that all three items were mine (his eyes got noticeably bigger), and I took a moment to have a brief but slobbery reunion with Dog Chandler aka Red Dog, and a hug with Rachmaninov the Havana Brown. Rachi had already been a bit talkative as I approached, but after I returned him to his crate post-hug he grew much more vocal, so much so that he attracted the attention of a large woman dressed smartly in Lufthansa blue with red accents, who strode directly over as she asked with a perfect combination of helpfulness and authority what was the meaning of all this katzenjammer –ing that was going on? She offered to get a baggage porter for me, so I waited for a while for that to happen (as Rachi called after her asking where she was going, why she hadn’t stayed to pet him, and can she please bring him some salmon). Some curious travelers ambled over to us to admire my imaginative choices of oversized baggage as well as to shake their heads at my complete and utter failure to travel light. Finally here came the baggage porter, with a longish baggage cart whose shape reminded me of one of those little boat-things that banana splits are served in. Except thankfully it wasn’t made of that flimsy thin plastic, and a good thing really as there’s no way it would have stood up to three critters, two Pullmans and a Trico Iron Case. Plus it was much, much larger and if anyone ever finished a banana split that size, well, they’d wind up like Mr Creosote for sure. Anyway, the porter and I loaded up the banana-split cart and he asked me where to, and I explained to him in my best German (which even after two years of high school class wasn’t all that great – I really didn’t think it appropriate to say “hier kommt die Strassenbahn!” , “Sommerschlussverkauf”, or “Siegfried war unverwundbar”, which left little else in my repertoire – why the textbooks had that stuff in there I’ll never know) that my wife was going to be picking me up in the car. So he wheeled my bags and my furry entourage through a long passageway lined with shops and out a large sliding door at the end, where we landed on a wide concrete sidewalk next to a small parking lot. In our hallway travels, I’d managed to retrieve a ten-dollar bill from my wallet (I had decided incorrectly that I could get by without exchanging any euro pre-departure), and tipped him, explaining es tut mir leid, aber ich habe kein Euro. He seemed ok with that.
So, with bags unloaded from the cart and one final round of danke sehr! / bitte, I claimed the newly-discovered Baggage Island on the sidewalk. I set the critters up with more food and water, and put Leo in Rachi’s crate with the shoebox litterbox, and took Chandler briefly to a patch of grass a few feet away to let her sample the scent of German dogs who hang around airports. Then we settled in to wait for LeAnn’s arrival, which I really really hoped would happen where we were, since we weren’t really equipped to wander around to look for her! Happy to be out of her travel crate, Chandler was extremely content lying on her side on the shady sidewalk, so that’s what she did, and we passed the time saying ‘hi’ to various people and looking cute (well I'd given up trying to look cute, and instead tried to act as if I hadn't in fact been forgotten, and that hanging around the airport with bulky travel items was exactly what I and my critter posse had decided to do when we woke up that morning and we were being terrifically successful at doing it thank you very much). Eventually, after what seemed like a long time – mostly because it was – we managed to be found! Hugs, barking, meowing, and slobbery kisses all around! We rolled everyone and everything over to LeAnn’s car, loaded things and cats into the car and set up food and water and litterbox, ate some picnic nibbles, took the remaining baggage to the rental car area, rented a smart new black VW Golf for me to drive back (as there was no way baggage, critters, and people were going to fit into LeAnn’s Mercedes Doorstop) and finally - after running out of reasons to hang around the Munich airport any longer - we began our drive to Italy.
You gotta love renting cars in Europe – my Golf had a six-speed manual tranny! Even better than the 5-speed that I first thought it was until just past the Italian border ;-)
After a relaxing and scenic drive we arrived in Mestrino late that afternoon. HOME! We were all at home together once again. Welcome to the Land of Prosecco and Prosciutto e Melone!!!

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The story of my travels here wouldn’t be complete without saying a HUGE thank you to our wonderful friend Marsha, who patiently accepted my pre-trip anxiety and graciously gave us all a ride to JFK, even allowing me to drive the good old Land Rover Disco II through the potholed expressways of NYC one last time.

BTW, I’ve traveled Lufthansa, and I’ve traveled other airlines, and Lufthansa stands above. They simply provide a superior air travel experience for both people and critters.

Next time, less time between posts. Promise!!! a' presto!