We Survived....The Worst Travel Day Ever

After making the fairly easy decision to uproot our lives, give up my career and move overseas things seemed to be moving along fairly quickly. Given the insane housing market we were able to rent out our townhome within 24 hours to a wonderful family that didn't even see the property in person. We also had help from my husband's company with via their mobility team which kept us in check with everything we needed to accomplish prior to departure...or so we thought.

I am a planner in that I like to write lists and check off every single "to-do" item that needs to be accomplished prior to a big trip. This is a quality I got from my father who needed to schedule every minute of every family vacation we ever took. This was likely the biggest trip we will ever make so the list was quite long. To add to the chaos, traveling during Covid times comes with its own set of challenges. My husband and I were lucky enough to get vaccinated prior to leaving for Germany. Given the rollout overseas was much slower we knew it would be some time before we would be able to receive the vaccine in country.

That was not enough though as every country has its own requirements such as needing to be able to show proof of a negative Covid test within a certain timeframe prior to leaving for your trip. To make matters more confusing, each country has a different time frame (24, 48, 72 hours, etc.). I thought I had taken care of everything making sure that we both went and got our Covid testing done the afternoon before we left. I checked the Hamburg website and saw the different types of tests they would accept, the timeframe they needed to be done in and whether or not our vaccination cards meant anything. I also knew we had a connecting flight in Amsterdam and they would also need proof. What I didn't anticipate was the fact that they would only accept one kind of test- a PCR test. The fact that we were just a quick layover there did not matter. We only got the rapid antigen test (which was fully accepted by Hamburg, the country we were actually going to).

Fast forward to Friday May 14, 2021. I booked our Uber XL (necessary given the amount of luggage we were bringing with us) to come at 1pm. I wanted to make sure we had extra time to check our bags, get to our gate and get Calvin something to eat. I was stressed out enough worrying about this move, how Cal would be on the long flight, did I bring enough clothes for us. You know, the usual thoughts when making an International move I guess. The Uber was about 40 minutes late. We arrived at the airport around 2:15 pm. Our flight was set to take off at 5:50pm so I was thinking "ok, not ideal but we still have plenty of time." It is a lot to unload a toddler, a car seat, 3 large suitcases, a stroller, a pack n' play, three carry on suitcases, a diaper bag and a back pack. We managed to get it all on 2 carts and off we went to baggage claim.

As you can imagine the baby was not one to wait in line so maneuvering through the line was difficult but we managed. The woman checking us in began her process and once she saw me struggling to keep Cal near us she let us go and dealt directly with Aaron. Things were going fine until I looked over and saw Aaron starting to roll the carts out of line...with the bags still on them...WTF! Apparently the attendant said the Amsterdam would not accept our tests, that we needed PCR tests and we would have to go to a facility close by toget the tests, wait for the results and bring them back before continuing check in. ARE YOU KIDDING ME!?!?!?! It's 3pm now and I am starting to panic. We were told a bus would be picking us up in 10-15 minutes so we waited on the curb with all of our stuff and a toddler who would not sit still. 30 minutes go by and no bus. I can feel the anxiety and stress rising minute by minute. Finally my husband got the direct number of this testing facility and called them. They were not on their way. We had to call another Uber XL- another $75 dollar trip to go 10 minutes down the road.

This angel of a man finally pulled up about 15 minutes later so at this point its about 3:45pm. I am now sure we are going to miss the flight but in we load all our bags, set up the car seat, throw Calvin in and to the sketchy testing center we go. When I say sketchy this place was in the basement of a seedy office/apartment park in a not so good area of Atlanta. We had to pay $150 per test to add insult to injury. Thank goodness the Uber driver agreed to wait for us. It meant we didn't have to unload everything, get another car and reload it all and even helped me entertain Calvin after we took our tests and were waiting in the parking lot for 30 more minutes to get our proof. We threw him a handful of cash. He flew back to the airport where we repeated the first drop off unloading all of our stuff, throwing it onto the carts and running into to baggage check. By the time we got to baggage check it was 4:50 pm and our flight was set to take off at 5:50pm. We managed to get our bags checked and ran through the airport and onto the tram to go to a farther gate where we were set to take off. We got to our gate only to be told we had to go to another gate around the corner first to have them check our Covid tests and ok them before actually boarding! We could not catch a break. I was a second away from screaming.

When I tell you that we boarded as the very last people to get on the flight, it is no exaggeration. It was 5:40pm. I was a hot mess, bumping people left and right with my arms full of bags the entire way down the aisle and just apologizing profusely and at the same time not caring because all I wanted to do was sit down in my seat and cry. The saving grace was sweet Calvin who was in my husbands arms behind me. I heard him say hi and turned around to see he was talking to the entire plane. A couple of people laughed and he smiled again and yelled "Hi!" and this time the whole plane yelled "Hi!" back and waved to him. It was a moment that if caught on camera could have gone viral.

We finally made it to our seats only to find out the flight was going to be delayed about an hour. Vibrating with tension still I was so relieved we made it onto the flight and were starting our adventure overseas. Then I remembered the fact that now we had to entertain an 18 month old boy in his seat for as long as necessary until he went to sleep. In case anyone was wondering he stayed up another 5 hours before finally succumbing to his overwhelming exhaustion. But we survived!