Are We There Yet?

There is light at the end of the tunnel... But the tunnel just got longer.

Well... Yesterday (Wednesday) was the day that Yoav and I had planned to arrive at our new home in Porto, Portugal... Things didn't go as planned. Let me explain...

Thanks to a major miscalculation on my part, I am still in Philadelphia wrapping things up. Everything was set for us to leave on Tuesday (July 23rd) for our red-eye flight to Port with boy Bixby, until this past Saturday. I will write more about it, but let's just say that I severely underestimated how much sh*t we have, and how much space it takes up. In a nutshell, we were filling our second POD on Saturday when we ran out of room and still had too much stuff left and no time to unpack and pull things out. Like I said, I will write more about it soon.

With all the logistics in place for us and Bixby to go on Tuesday, we decided on Sunday that the best thing to do would be for Yoav to travel with Bixby, a dog crate, two checked suitcases, and four giant bins (which were only slightly over the size limit). By far the most complex part of the trip was arranging to bring Bixby along, and we were already nervous that they might not let Bixby fly if the outdoor temps were above 85°F. The weather report for the prior ten days was all over the place.

Yoav standing with his bags and bins in our nearly empty living room just minutes before the car service whisked him away to Newark Liberty International Airport on Tuesday.

I had to wait until Monday to sort out how I was going to resolve the moving issue and decided I would try to fly out on Friday evening. Then when we tried to rebook my ticket, it was an additional $500+ to fly out on Friday, or $160 if I waited until Saturday. This wasn't really a choice given how we were suddenly facing a whole new level of unplanned expenses (because of my occasional unrealistic sense of "I know what I am doing" without really ensuring that I do know what I am doing)

So, Tuesday afternoon, Yoav, Bixby, and all the baggage made their way to Newark Liberty International, and Yoav had the job of figuring out how to check in with Bixby and all those bins of stuff. Bixby for his part managed surprisingly well overall.

He is super terrified of cages, but we managed to ease him into making this crate his safe space over the past few months, and while he was his usual bundle of nerves, Yoav reports that he came through just fine upon arrival in Porto today.

Bixby riding in the car to the new apartment in Porto yesterday. He seems to have come out of this just fine.

While I am sad that I missed out on seeing our new apartment for the first time with Yoav (he described it in one word: “Beautiful”) and I really wish this whole move thing was behind me (I am truly exhausted from packing), I am grateful that we are able to roll with the punches and sort things out.

There is indeed light at the end of the tunnel... Even though the tunnel just got a bit longer.

Okay, I need to get to bed (I’m writing this late on Wednesday night, and the movers arrive early in the morning).

As post was just a quick update on where things are, stay tuned… I will write more next week once I have arrived over the weekend and had a couple of days to come to terms (in what I expect to be a very good way) with my new reality.

I will also finally and officially get to remove the “Almost” in my title.