We have arrived....

So, after 2 weeks of camping out in a hotel we loaded everything up into the monster SUV the rental company gave us for the day and drove to Logan via the newly opened I-90->airport tunnel. How fitting after years of snarled traffic and billions of dollars spent on the Big Dig that we be able to drive from Belmont to the airport in 25 minutes in a giant SUV so large that other SUV drivers were looking up at us with a gleam of fear in their eyes.

We arrived at the airport a bit too early as the international terminal is usually packed come 5pm due to all the red-eye flights leaving between 6-9pm. But, as Murphy's Law dictates, the extra time we added for dealing with HoneyBear proved to be pointless as the terminal was almost empty. Amazingly, HB hopped right into his crate without having to entice, plead or smoosh him into it as I had prepared myself to do. The Iceland Air crew seemed to really like HB too as he had to sit there in his crate next to the check-in desk until it was time to load him on the plane. I watched him be unloaded from the plane in Iceland where all of the ground crew went over and had a look at him with smiles on their faces. I imagine they were amused at his name since the little yappy dogs are usually named Killer and Brutus while the giant dogs are named Daisy and HoneyBear :)

Everything went great until they couldn't fit his crate into the plane in Stockholm which had a few tense, irate moments since we thought there had been due diligence done more than once before departure in Boston to be certain this wouldn't happen. We had to go down to the tarmac and hold HB while they disassembled the crate and reassembled it inside the cargo hold. HB was such a good boy as he would have had every right to throw a tantrum considering all the jostling and stress. When we arrived in Helsinki the customs person just looked at his papers to make sure he had his shots and waved us on through the gate. All things considered, it went far better than I had hoped.

Jarkko's mother and father met us at the airport and helped us move our small mountain of stuff, decidedly not euro-sized :), to the apartment. They had also bought a few lamps, brought over some household stuff like glasses and chairs, and made sure we had a few rolls of toilet paper so we wouldn't have to dash out before the shops closed on Friday night which earned my eternal gratitude.

I start my intensive Finnish classes tomorrow and, hopefully, my sinus cold that I caught on the plane will have moved on to greener sinuses so I won't bother the class every time I honk my nose. :)

It's good to be home :)