As far as our last few days, here's a little run down of our final hours in Chile. We were picked up to go the the airport (mostly ready) at about 5 (our flight was at 8:40) by our pastor and his wife. We loaded up all 8 of our HEAVY, checked bags and our 6 carry-ons (who said you can only have 1??? ;-) including our cat. We dropped off our car at a church family's home and headed to the airport. We had 4 bags over and above our checked bag limit so we were expecting to pay about $400 for those 4 bags. The church had offered to pay for $300 to help us get home so Matt and I were ready with our $100 to pay the overage on the last bag. BUT, the good Lord stepped in. We were informed there was a tax with DELTA for our cat (we had finished all his shots and paperwork and thought he was good to go, this was completely new information) of $50. Bummer!! We told the guy at the check-in counter that we didn't know about it and hadn't seen it on the website and he said since we already had to pay the baggage overage to "see if we could make a deal" with the woman we were paying. Viva Chile! He suggested we only pay for some of the bags and the cat. When we told the baggage-money-collecting-lady his idea, she said that was fine, we could pay for 3 extra checked bags and the cat instead of 4 extra bags and the cat. SO...... the total cost came to $350 instead of $450. Since the church was already paying $300, we only had to pay $50 instead of the original $100 we were sure we'd have to pay for our extra bag. So really DELTA paid us $50 to take our cat home. I don't know if that made any sense, but we found it extremely funny and definitely an unexpected blessing!!
Unfortunately that unexpected blessing ended up taking us until about 8:10, still needing to go through customs and get to the gate and board, so we had a slightly rushed goodbye with Sam and Lois (who are wonderful and we'll miss like crazy!) and then got to the plane as quickly as we could. The plane...of course, sat on the tarmac for 1 hour while they fixed some light or something and after 9 1/2 hours of flying we missed our connecting flight from Atlanta to Asheville by 15 minutes. After Matt got us on the next flight we had a little while to relax before we flew back to Asheville, and were greatly surprised by ALL of our bags arriving, even after all of the craziness and changing of flights.
So after much fun relaxing with Matt's family (and a little peeking at real estate in CA) we are off to do some shopping and get some Burritos for lunch!! The last 48 hours were a very wild ride (not to mention how our drugged cat handled everything) but the adventure is over, we have moved internationally and we are still in love!! I don't think you can ask for more than that.
We'll have more up later about our last week or so in Chile and leaving the beloved country that has given so much to Matt and to us both. And many many new adventures to come. As for now, we are in action in North Carolina, soon to be in California...with many many fond farewells to Chile!
And by the way....you can successfully travel (for 2 people) with 2 large carry-on duffel bags, a cat in carrier, an electric guitar, a computer case, and a huge backpack with 2 computers inside and NEVER be stopped or questioned about the number of carry-ons you have. Not that I would recommend trying to do that. :-)
