Going home

We get to the Quad Cities International Airport two hours before our flight. They want to charge us for our extra bags. Dan is a super dee dooper flier with Delta. His second bag is free. If we fly on the same reservation as him, our second bags are free as well. Well, if you remember, the kids and my reservations were not booked with his. In fact, our time in Amsterdam on the way over has completely messed up our reservations. We are now all booked seperately, which is stressing out the agent. AND they don’t show Derek and me booked on our last leg from Amsterdam to Helsinki. (Ah, Amsterdam. The gift that keeps on giving.) As soon as the agent sees she has a huge mess to deal with she waives our bag fees. Nice. We stand there for an hour as she sorts it out. Boarding passes are printed for everyone except Derek and me for the last leg. Delta isn’t able to assign seats on a KLM flight. She tells us all we have to do is check in at the gate in Amsterdam. Dan is not pleased. After the fiasco on the way over he insists that we have some written/printed confirmation. Agent doesn’t know what to do. Dan gets on the phone with KLM. Miraculously, agent tries printing boarding passes again and the KLM ones come up. She says someone must be helping her. Boarding pass angels?

We board without incident. A gate agent comes on the plane looking for Derek. Does he have a visa to be in Finland? Yes, we all do. OK. Have a nice flight. Weird.

Detroit to Amsterdam. Derek hadn’t been feeling well. He ate Quzinos before the flight and very little on it. About 30 minutes before landing he heads to the restroom. When he gets back, I ask if he’s feeling OK. He says, “Well, I threw up on the bathroom floor, but my stomach feels better!” (Ulu and Marion, he womitted.) He said he pressed the call button and a flight attendant came and helped him. Apparently, the attendant just locked the door so no one else could go in. Way cool that he thought to use the call button. Cleaning up puke was not on my list of things to do during the flight.

At Amsterdam walking through the airport Lauren kept saying, “I have bad memories of this place.” Amen, sister. Fortunately, we were there long enough to get through passport control and walk quickly to our connecting flight. Yahoo! Derek and my boarding passes don’t scan correctly. Don’t know why, but they fix us and we board.

In Helsinki, 8^th checked bag did not show up. In it, Lauren’s winter boots that she only took off because she got some stylin’ high tops, Dan’s trip kit, ALL the books I bought as a Christmas present to myself, L gravy packets (Yep, I stink at making gravy so I loaded up on packets.) and other things we will remember and miss as soon as we see them. It’s been 48 hours and still no word. OH YEAH! It’s a brand new piece of luggage we got in Iowa to handle the overflow. Double boo.

Update: Dan just emailed. They found our bag. In Paris.

The taxi company that took us to the airport assured us that we did not need a reservation for the trip home. Just visit the desk at the airport. We visit the desk. I tell her we need a taxi big enough for 4 people and 10 bags. She says she can’t help us. And nothing more. No explanation. I ask her questions. Why can’t you help us? She doesn’t have anything available for 45 minutes. Is there another company we can contact? Yes, downstairs. I go downstairs. The guy at the desk is equally unhelpful. Can you get us a large taxi? No. Stares at me. Now, usually I’d be really angry at this total lack of customer service. But not here. It’s the Finnish way. ‘I’ve answered your question. Can’t help you. End of discussion.’ You have to coax more information out of people. It’s annoying and often difficult NOT to take personally.

SO! Getting one taxi for all of us is not an option. Time to split up. We go to the taxi line and approach the first two taxis. First driver shakes his head and waves us away. Ohhhkay. He thinks we all want to go in his little sedan. When he sees we’re splitting up, he pops his trunk and starts loading bags. Kids and I go with him. Dan and most of the luggage go with another guy. Our guy is in his 60’s and speaks zero English. He doesn’t use his GPS and doesn’t know where our street is. I tell him the area of Espoo. Laaksolahti. A faint recognition. He takes us home a way I am not familiar with. It’s snowed so much that everything looks way different and I miss our street. Taxi driver is annoyed as evidenced by his exasperated sighs. No tip for you.

Ahh, home at last. Someone, we suspect the neighbor, has shoveled our part of the driveway. Kiitos!

 Did it snow every day we were gone?

It sure looks like it!