Wednesday April 5th –
The start, of the last bit of packing.
I woke with a pounding head and so did Mike.
I don’t know if our heads were anticipating the task ahead or what… but the coffee Inge bought specially for us, helped immensely, if only momentarily 😉👌🏻
And so began the clothes folding and sorting, bag emptying and repacking, item organising and piling everything into stacks according to estimated values, depending when we’d be needing them.
Cactus plants were on the ‘needed’ list so they were carefully transferred into a plastic container, some wrapping paper placed gently around to add support 😋🌵💕
Around noon we went over to Oma and Opa’s with Inge, partly so Mike could help move something and also so we could say goodbye.
For lunch, Inge had made and brought over a broccoli tart, especially for me and I enjoyed it greatly 😉👌🏻
Our goodbyes to the grandparents were said and after a quick stop in Doesburg to buy some last items to take with us, it was back to the house to finish packing.
We were nearly done by suppertime.
I having sorted and Mike having maneuvered it all to fit.
Planning for the next day’s travel, writing down roughly what we were still leaving behind for visits/pick up later on and finally, calling it quits for the night… leaving a small spot in the suitcase free for the little bit that would need packing come morning.
Tomato soup and bread was waiting for us to eat for supper and after enjoying that we relocated to the couch for one last evening.
Thursday April 6th –
Unable to sleep due to thinking of what was or wasn’t packed, trying to know if anything was missed or forgotten and knowing the hours of travel that awaited, I was up by 5:00 am and we planned to leave by 7:00.
John was taking us to the airport and after a quick coffee and filling our bag with goodies Inge had prepared, the goodbyes came 😔
I’d never been the reason behind someone else’s goodbye before… and it didn’t feel real great😬
With one final goodbye and wave, John dropped us off at the airport, where we officially began our journey with the first flight off to Frankfurt.
It was only about 45 minutes of real flying time… just enough to get me tired, fall asleep and then wake up before I got to the ‘rest’ part of sleeping.
All we had time for after landing in Frankfurt, was to use the bathroom and walk across the airport to our next gate, which was already boarding.
During the next flight, the 9 ish hour one, a stewardess opened an overhead bin and a piece of luggage dropped out onto a passengers nose.
Later Mike spotted her holding an ice pack on it, so it must have been fairly unpleasant.
While standing up and stretching my legs a bit, I passed a man talking to a stewardess, asking her, ‘What in the world is wrong with me, because I’ve had five drinks since getting on the plane, but I feel just fine!’ 😜 Not sure what really was wrong with him.
I wanted to use the bathroom and upon looking I seen one was free, so I headed back to use it, double checking to make sure it was empty before pushing the door open.
Only to be met with a mans back and a hand quickly reaching out to slam the door shut?!
Who doesn’t lock the door on a plane and pees in the dark?!
Anyways… once it was REALLY empty I went in, only to be greeted with a nasty smell and a wet floor, which may not have necessarily been water 😣
The adventures of flight 😏
Finally we arrived in Calgary, where Mike had to go to a special area after customs so he could get his official, visitors work visa papers.
It didn’t take too long, but it wouldn’t have mattered if it had since we had six hours to kill😬
We found some chairs without separating arms and I stretched out and fell asleep quickly.
I really wonder what the difference is between the plane and a chair that makes me be able to sleep or not 🙄
But sleep I did… partially waking when Mike came or left for food breaks or whatever he did… I can’t actually remember what he said he’d be doing since my brain was totally messed up due to time change.
Messed up enough to be confused when I’d become semi conscious and hear English news playing on the nearby tv?
What is this English… and why do I know it?! 😜
Maybe Calgary people have more of an accent or something, but suddenly I felt like I could almost hear what the Canadian accent was like and honestly, we don’t sound the brightest 😂
Not sure if my senses were on high alert since I realised I was going home for good, thus causing me to pay more attention to stuff I’d unknowingly missed or what, but it was a humorous observation to me 😋
My throbbing head yearned for a coffee and Starbucks was just over to my left… I kind of mentioned to Mike that I wanted one, thinking he’d have to go order it and after neither of us moved, I sat there a moment before it dawned on me… I could go order the coffee!
Without his help! 😳
I moseyed over to the counter and confidently ordered my venti, iced caramel macchiato, half sweet, extra espresso and the lady paused, marker poised over the plastic cup about to be filled with my magic potion, looked at me and said, ‘ So like, a quad.. that’s FOUR shots of espresso… it has three already…’ followed by a quizzical brow.
…
Yes miss, a ‘quad’ 😏☕️🙌🏻
Mike doesn’t get it that I didn’t like ordering for myself in Holland, but since he knows multiple languages there was no hesitation about going up to order and not being understood or being able to understand.
Sure, many people could speak English there, but that means I’d first have to go up to the till and listen to whatever their spiel was in Dutch, apologetically say that I speak English, hope they answer and when they do, hope that I can understand their accent in the noisy shop and then go about placing my order.
Trusting everything is understood and questions answered correctly, since they may speak some English but that doesn’t mean some words or phrases are missed and for a person who doesn’t like ordering at the best of times, that’s an unnecessarily awkward position to put yourself in.
I hope someone understands what I’m trying to say 🙈
I sipped my drink happily on the way back to our claimed chairs, popping some Tylenol and feeling the caffeinated relief, slowly lifting the foggy curtains from my brain.
Next mission, Chick-fil-A.
The reason Calgary airport wasn’t such an awful place to be stuck in and why we were happy we hadn’t flown on a Sunday.
We walked to the desolate side of the airport, anticipating the chicken nuggets and sauce only to find it closed?!
Not on a Sunday?!
Turns out we’d missed it being open by a few minutes 😫
We found some slightly more cushy chairs and relocated there for the remainder of our wait, until we went through security and down to our empty gate, sleeping on and off again there until 11:10 pm when we finally boarded our flight to Saskatoon.
I dozed most of that flight and once we’d landed we happily retrieved all of our bags… a relieving feeling when transporting your life bits 😜
Mother arrived a few minutes later, slightly laughing at how few suitcases we actually had for people who were moving from Europe, when she normally vacations with the same amount but we explained the flights luggage restrictions and that there was a large suitcase worth, still back in Europe 😏
We arrived home around 2:00 am.
(Fresh loaves of bread with homemade jam and a jar of Nutella adorned our pillows💕)
After a drink of orange juice and not being able to wait until real morning, we ate some of Moms homemade bread and gratefully went to bed.
Canada, we made it 😏🇨🇦
Jemstory 