For those of you who wish to know the challenges of a transatlantic move, this post is for you. I had no idea how long it would take, and how difficult it would be for me to move to Barcelona with my dog. So this will be more a journalistic approach than anything else.

 

Washington DC – 10:30 AM, August 25th – Start  – My journey began earlier in the morning, but I finally pushed off from DC at around 10:30. I had to wake up around 6 to metro out to Washington Reagan International Airport where I picked up a car to drive to Newark. Why not fly out of Reagan or one of the many other airports in the region you ask? Because I have some strange loyalty to a two year old mutt, who has a penchant for biting the hand of my grandfather, and I’ve decided to haul her over to Europe with me. So, I spent that morning getting a Chevy Tahoe to make the trek up to Newark where a pet friendly airline (United) had a direct flight to Barcelona.

After loading the car, cleaning the apartment for my tenant, and saying a couple last goodbyes we were off. Normally I would’ve been starting my second day of classes in a new school year. But this year I decided to take a break from teaching. My girlfriend and I are moving to Spain so I can be closer to her while she studies at a business school. So while my friends are all preparing a new batch of students and teaching them how to raise their hand correctly, and where the bathrooms are, Taji and I drove the four hours to Newark.

Besides a minor incident on the New Jersey Turnpike, where I momentarily lost my cash and couldn’t pay the toll, everything went well. We stopped at a little patch of grass behind a Target, and she ran around, oblivious to the odyssey we would be facing ahead.

 

Newark, NJ – 3:30 PM, August 25th – I pulled up to the United Pet Safe area and unloaded the dog. I’ve determined that quotes at the time of a reservation are becoming less and less meaningful to me, as the actual price to ship Taji was double what I was told back in July. No matter. At that point, I was invested and I couldn’t turn back. So after my haggling skills got me no where, I swiped the plastic, and headed out to drop off the car.

Once I located the drop off point, I headed back to the airport via their transit system. At this point, I was starting to get nervous. The dog drop off had taken too long, and the car rental was a ways away from the airport, so I was concerned I might not even be able to make my flight.

Luckily, Newark’s shuttle and train system is pretty good, and it took me less time to get to the airport from Alamo than it did for me to drive their from the United desk in the first place. Ok, we can fast forward through the airport part. Everyone knows how that works. Go in, wait in line, get patted down, drink a beer, get on the plane. Ok, got it.

 

Gate 102, Newark International Airport – 6:30 PM, August 25th – The following is a reenactment of actual events:

Me to gate attendant “Excuse me ma’am. I was wondering if you could help me. I have a dog that’s to be transported below, and I was wondering if there was any way I could get confirmation once she’s been placed on board?”

Gate attendant, “Oh honey, she gonna be put on there. We don’t need to tell you. She gonna be put on there cuz if she don’t we get sued.”

Me, “So, there’s no way to check if she’s on the plane?”

Gate attendant, “No. This is our job. We do it every day.”

Oh… Ok…

 

On board flight UA120, Newark International Airport, – 6:45 PM, August 25th – The following is a reenactment of actual events:

Me to a well dressed Anderson Cooper impersonator, doubling as a flight attendant, “Excuse me sir. I was wondering if you could help me. I have a dog that’s to be transported below, and I was wondering if there was any way I could get confirmation once she’s been placed on board?”

Anderson Cooper Flight Attendant, “Oh you have a pet? What is she? A dog? Ok Let me check…”

Wait for the call…

Anderson Cooper Flight Attendant, “Oh yes, she’s there.”

Phew. Thank god.

 

Flight takes off – Yada Yada Yada

 

Barcelona International Airport – International Terminal – 9:10 AM, August 26th –  This is when stuff starts to get crazy

I immediately walked off the plane and asked one of the gate attendants where I could find Taji. They told me a location, which I kept in my head as I went through customs. On the other side of customs, I picked up all my bags by 9:30 and started walking around looking for this place, WSF. I assumed it was some sort of a customs room, near customs, because, you know, this is a live animal… Well after an hour of not being able to find this room, and walking the entire airport twice, inside and outside of the security area. I was finally told that the WSF room is not a room at all, in fact it is a building that is part of a Cargo Complex two miles away, halfway between this terminal and the domestic terminal.

Ok. Great. How do I get there? Oh a bus goes that way? Awesome. Off I go to the bus depot. What’s that Mr. Bus Driver? You don’t actually stop at the Cargo Complex? Oh. But you can point at it as we drive by and then I can walk? Um. Ok. That’ll work I guess.

 

Barcelona International Airport – Domestic/EU Terminal – 11:30AM, August 26th

Ok. Now I see the buildings. They are a group of buildings about a quarter mile away. So I load up all my luggage onto a cart and start pushing. The sun is starting to cook now, and by the time I reach the complex, I look like I’ve run a marathon. You’d think finding a dog in a complex of seven buildings would be difficult. And it was. Fast forward another two hours of me walking from place to place, each person telling me to go to a different building, some telling me to go back from whence I came, and now we’ve found the company that brought the dog from the plane: WSF.

What’s that Mr. WSF man? You don’t actually have my dog? Where is she? I see. She’s in the big building that I just came from, but they don’t know that. Oh, really? So I have to find the airport veterinarian and bring her to them? Great. How do I do that?

 

Barcelona International Airport – Cargo Terminal – 12:00 PM, August 26th

Vet found. She’s in a very nice air conditioned building where no one speaks English, but that’s ok, because I’m a master of hand gestures and Spanglish. We get along swimmingly.

Some papers get signed and stamped. I finally get to see Taji after she takes me another building. She does a quick check of the dog, we put her back into the crate, everything is starting to move. Ok, off to customs. What’s that Senora Veterinario? It’s not in this building? Oh, it’s back at the domestic terminal? In a building that no one uses? Ok! Great!

 

Barcelona International Airport – Customs – 1:00 PM, August 26th

Ok. So the customs place was exactly where she said it would be. Even though other people told me to walk to the opposite end of the airport. I was beginning to think this was a practical joke. You wouldn’t have known it was a customs room though. It was in an office that had cardboard covering all the windows. There was a small sign that said  to push a button, and then a few minutes later a burly cop came out and asked me what I wanted. Cue more Spanglish and gesticulating. Ok, now I’m in.

The guy who came out from customs looked like he either doubled as a computer coder, or was called in on his day off. As he wiped the crumbs from his sandwich off his shirt, he poured over my documents with the enthusiasm only a government bureaucrat can muster. I showed him both my passports, explained my citizenship, all the stamps on my paperwork, and finally he shrugged and said, ok, whatever. Stamp, stamp, copy, copy. There you go.

Ok back to the land of Cargo buildings.

 

Barcelona International Airport – Cargo Terminal – 2:00, August 26th

Success! Paperwork signed. More stamps. More Copies. Ok. Sure, no problem I’ll wait here…

 

Barcelona International Airport – Cargo Terminal – 2:45, August 26th

 The following is a reenactment of actual events:

A sweaty Spanish man comes in and looks at me: “Tienes perro?

Me: “Si, tengo perro.”

Sweaty Spaniard: “El perro esta aqui, vamonos.”

So we walk out and a group of old Spanish men are standing around looking into her crate making baby noises. It’s at this point that I have to say the most helpful people in my journey stand out. These two old Spanish guys help me get her out of the crate, one of them calls a cab friend of his, who comes and picked me up in his little hatch back. Without these three gentleman, it would have taken me another hour to find a cab who would’ve helped.

 

El Raval, Barcelona, Spain – 3:30 PM – End –  The whole trip has taken just about 24 hours, but I finally made it to my apartment with the help of an overly chatty cab driver. Surprisingly we communicated pretty well in Spanish. He made sure I knew about areas where pickpockets frequent, and some other need to knows.

As he pulled down a small alley way, and made his way to the apartment it finally hit me that I was in Barcelona. The streets are like something out an old movie, with laundry hanging out the windows of three hundred year old buildings. My host showed up after a brief wait, shortly after I arrived and that was it.

Quite the journey. In a lot of ways, it was easier to get deployed with the Army, than it was to do this. So for those of you wanting to move to Europe with your dog, this is what you’re in for. I still am glad we did it.

Now on to some other adventure.