so christian left for moldova on monday evening and arrived on wednesday afternoon. i decided to take him, even though it was a late night trip for me. we had five bins going over with him that i had packed. each one weighed under 50 pounds and was filled with clothing, books, etc. we decided to send as much as possible with him because american airlines *only* charges $150 per extra piece of baggage (after one free bag) and when we go in january, lufthansa charges $200 per extra bag.
monday night we had dinner, put addy to bed, i nursed mercy and we left (with auntie sarah babysitting of course!). we left early, ready for any “glitch” that might come up. when we were getting there, we were trying to decide if we should do curbside drop off or just park and get a luggage cart – – but those bins were really big and we had five. we decided to pull up to the curb and see what we could find. christian immediately found a young man (skycap?) with a flat bed type luggage cart. they loaded the bins and headed in while i went and parked the car. when i got back inside, christian had just gotten to the counter. the ticket agent checking him in was friendly and chatty. while i was parking the car, they had weighed one bin at 49 pounds and then the ticket agent told christian, “i’m pretty sure they all weigh 49 pounds.” on top of that, after checking a few things on his computer, he told us that we actually had to pay turkish airlines fees instead of american airlines fees because christian switched to turkish before leaving the country. what a praise when we found out our fees came to $225, not $510!
at that point, the skycap who had stayed there with us said to christian, “check it out – – i’m gonna take you somewhere it will be easy to x-ray the bags. i’ve gotcha all the way.” he took us to the far end (first class area) where he helped send all the bags through the xray machine and on the other side, he secured each bin with eight zip ties. what a blessing! finally he loaded them all up again and took them to the other side of the ticket counters where they were sent with oversize baggage. christian had the opportunity to share a little with him about what we were doing and he was very receptive.
after that, christian and i walked over to the international terminal and enjoyed some coffee and frozen yogurt before i decided to head home. christian called me about thirty minutes later saying that he had gone through security without an issue. mind you, he had quite the carry-on luggage – – two laptops, two routers, a nebulizer, our wii and all the wii accessories just to name a few things. he had to go through security at lax and jfk and both times everything went through flawlessly. when he got to jfk, he planned to sleep but changed his mind and took the subway to see the freedom tower (memorial for 9-11). from what he told me, turkey was a pretty quiet layover and by that point he just stayed in the terminal because he was tired. the only “unexpected” cost of the entire trip was going through chisinau. i guess the customs official told christian that those bins were full of things christian was going to sell and make a profit so he would have to pay a “tax” of $50. oh eastern europe, we’ve missed your “fines” and “taxes.” 🙂
hopefully christian will blog about his entire trip when he gets home. i have been able to talk to him a few times on skype and he seems to be doing great. they have been staying in chisinau getting steven and teresa’s new apartment ready and then will head back to briceni on sunday to get everything and move into the chisinau apartment on tuesday. he should be nice and tired when he gets home, just in time to move us up north!
the days are going faster and faster it seems. we move up north in twenty days. weird.
