We Just Moved to Europe!

The Anti-Climactic Beginnings of a New Life: Calm After Airport Chaos

Have you ever stepped into a new chapter of your life that defied your expectations? Share your journey below!

I’ll go first…

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It wasn’t easy.

It took a lot of work to get here.

We have spent the last three months running a marathon of apostilles, real estate showings, packing materials, and Craig’s Listings all with the sole intent of getting us over the ocean and living in the Netherlands…so, why did it feel so anti-climactic when we arrived?

We had a late checkout of the extended stay and spent the time drugging the cats for the flight. We spun around in circles fifteen times as we packed, weighed, repacked, and reweighed our suitcases over and over again until we were sure they were going to be under the limit because those fees are INSANE. Our Uber driver had a very overblown sense of how much his car would hold but thanks to William’s expertise with Tetris, we managed to squeeze four large suitcases, two cats, two backpacks, two humans, and the last of our worries about what we were bringing into Abu’s Lincoln Aviator.

At the ticket counter, the scale had to be recalibrated since it was showing +2 before we put anything on it. Even with the tipped scales, we were underweight on all four bags.

That particular ticket agent doesn’t do a lot of international flights so she was very deliberate in reviewing everything, including the documentation legally required to bring a pet into the EU. In order to travel with Guillermo and Bear, we had them examined by a specific vet, whose exam basically confirmed they are microchipped, vaccinated against rabies, and have a heartbeat. In true bureaucratic fashion, that vet can electronically apply their signature to the certificates but in order to travel abroad with said documents, the USDA must crimp them with one of those fancy things that some notaries use and send back paper copies.

Anyone who wasn’t planning to leave the United States with their pets in the few days before Trump’s second inauguration wouldn’t know that the Animal and Plant Health Inspection Service (APHIS) website was down for several days in early January 2025. As it happens, the international law also requires the exam to be within ten days of travel. If you’re good at spotting clues, those are all the pieces that came together to result in our pet health certificates to be stuck in a purgatory from which no one seemed to have any idea about how to free them. Several phone calls to the USDA’s customer service line only convinced us that they had no ability to service their customers and we were pacing the hotel room in a panic.