Back to Switzerland!

I have to be honest and say that I was not ready to come back to Switzerland yet. Not because I don't like it...because I really do. However, like I said before, 2 weeks was just NOT long enough!! Everyone else was staying for 3 weeks and we really needed that extra week to spend more time with family and friends. We had left our puppies in Europe and it was costing us a small fortune to board them. Plus we felt terrible because we have never left them for such a long time so we knew we needed to get back. Needless to say, I did not have the best attitude on the day we were leaving to head back. I hate flying so I was not in the right mind frame to make the trip back and then there it was.....isn't it funny how God likes to humble us when we are at our worst? As we walked to our gate to catch the plane we ran into one of David's co-workers who was on her way back to the Philippines. I was like...well shoot, now I can't complain at all!! The flight she was taking that day was twice as long as our flight. Let me be honest, you couldn't pay me enough to make that flight again anytime soon. It's an incredibly long trip and she is headed even farther away from her family and friends than we were so it put things in perspective. I realized I needed to adjust my attitude and be grateful for the experience we were being given!!

Anyway, once we got to Detroit we only had about 20 minutes before our flight took off for Amsterdam. We were running behind because our plane had to wait awhile before unloading in Detroit. So we separated, and David ran and got us some food and I ran and picked up some necessities (i.e. People, Elle, In Style, and Light and Tasty)!! I know your probably thinking that these aren't necessities....but just ask any lady over here...they are definitely necessities!! They are also a necessity for David! They keep me distracted while on the flight so he doesn't have to listen to me freaking out! I think we sat on the tarmac for an hour before taking off. There were so many large families traveling together and they would get on the plane and sit where ever they wanted. They messed up all the seating arrangements and everything became unorganized really quickly. There wasn't room for anyone's luggage, they couldn't find seats for people, it was a mess. I've never seen such confusion on a flight before. Everyone was so annoyed by the time we took off. Then, they kept having problems with the t.v.'s on the back of the seats. So for the next hour, they kept turning the system on and off.

Since it was after Christmas there were so many couples flying with young children. There was a couple sitting several rows up and a row over with two young children. We felt terrible for the parents but one of the kids screamed (didn't cry, but screamed) for the last half of the trip. I"ll be honest it was really frustrating for everyone on the plane because everyone was so exhausted by that point. As frustrating as it was for everyone else my heart always goes out to the parents in those situations. I mean seriously people, it's not like the parents weren't trying everything to make the child happy. They have to deal with the frustration of not being able to make the child calm down and then have a plane full of angry passengers staring at them. So I'm sure you can understand that we were in total shock when the lady behind us and the lady in front of us started screaming at the child to be quiet, and mortified that they would do this to these parents. And seriously, you would think grown women would know that screaming back at a child would not help solve the problem. I wanted to turn around and start screaming at both of them. I bit my tongue though...if people are really that selfish and crazy then nothing I would have said could have made them realize how cruel that was. Then, if we hadn't had enough excitement, while the plane was trying to land a guy, who was dressed in a way that might make some people nervous, starts getting a box down from the over head bin. He was sitting on the other side of the plane and several rows behind us so we didn't see him getting up. We just saw flight attendants screaming and running down the isle. Let me just say....this is not a comforting feeling at all!! I was never so happy when we landed in one piece in Amsterdam!!

By the time we got to Geneva it was Friday morning. We picked up our friends car at David's work, since we were going to be house sitting for them and picking up there dog at the boarders along with ours. David dropped me off at the apartment so I could run and get some food for us for the day. He had to run into work for awhile. I unpacked all four suitcases and then repacked for staying at their house for the week. When David got finished with work, he picked me up and we ran to get all 3 dogs. At this point we hadn't slept in about a day and a half. We were exhausted!! The dogs were all so thrilled to see us. We got back to our friends house and realized that their was something wrong with their heat. We were on the phone with them back in the states and they were trying to get a hold of their landlord to get someone over asap to fix the problem. It was cold in the house so we bundled up to try and stay warm. We napped on and off while waiting for the guy to come and fix the heater. He finally showed up and thought he fixed the problem but then realized he didn't. Finally, by that evening, we realized it was going to be way too cold to stay there.

We loaded the car back up (third time that day),got our dogs in the car, and Sammie, the big yellow lab and head back to our apartment. I grabbed our dogs and David got Sammie and we start walking into the our building. Sammie stops and freezes and we can't get him in the apartment. At this point is 11:00 at night. We are exhausted and we are trying to coax this dog inside or our apartment quietly. Seriously, I wish I had gotten it on video or at least a picture but at this point we were only focused on getting Sammie in the building. He is a pretty big dog. He definitely ways more than me so we knew we couldn't just pick him up and carry him in so I ran inside and put our dogs up and grabbed some dog treats. I ran back down stairs trying to get Sammie to eat his way inside. It didn't work. So finally David takes him back home. When David returned to the apartment and we realized we couldn't leave Sammie there by himself all night because it was way too cold. We remembered someone had given us a little space heater so we grabbed that and loaded dogs, suitcases, and food back into the car (fourth time that day) and headed back over to Sammie. So finally, after incredibly exhausting 48 hours, we were getting settled in and getting some sleep. At this point we make the biggest rookie mistake you can make while traveling. We didn't set the alarm for the next morning.

We knew better...but we thought it would be fine. It wasn't. We slept till about 2p.m. I am a morning person. I have never slept till 2p.m. I've really never slept till 10:30a.m. The next day was New Year's Eve and we didn't even realize it until it was pretty late. We were still too tired to care!! We were so tired that we remembered after it was too late that we had needed to go to the grocery to get food for the rest of the weekend. By the time we realized it, the grocery stores were closed. We had no food. We ended up at McDonald's and had to eat there several times over the weekend since grocery stores are closed on Sunday's in Geneva and for the most most part that is the only fast place to eat. When you go out to eat in Europe it's a commitment and when you are jet lagged the last thing you want to do is sit through a two hour meal. On Monday we still slept late and rushed to the grocery store that afternoon. Since it was New Year's Day the grocery stores were closed again. Eventually we found a store open in France and were thankfully able to eat something other than McDonald's.