No sleep till Ashgabat, ie: our trip to the other side of the world.

I was going to post some entries that have been sitting in editing hell, waiting to be posted that (chronologically) take place before this post. But they're going to wait because frankly no one gives a shit about our trip to Hagerstown, or about our 8 billion trips (it at least seemed that many at the time) to BJs for our consumables, or anything else that took place before we got here. So those posts will have to wait for another day. Oh well. Also, this post is super-long.

We 'officially' left Oakwood (the temporary housing we were staying at) at about 5pm on Wednesday, February 2nd. We arranged for a super shuttle van to pick us up and cart our asses to Dulles airport, and that was pretty uneventful. When we got to the airport, I had all the pet information in hand (vaccinations, health certificate, etc. etc.) ready to go for the attendant at the counter. That part went smoothly. Our luggage on the other hand, was one big mess.

We had left Oakwood with four suitcases, two personal item/bags, a cat carrier (my carry on) a carry on for Mike, and Nara in her kennel. When they weighed our four suitcases, they told us we were way, way above the magic 50lb limit we could safely have in each suitcase. Since they were all over 50 lbs (I think our lowest was about 68 lbs), we would be charged extra for our 'big boned' bags. Charged extra translated into being charged about $1200 extra for that weight. Clearly, this was not a good thing. When we asked if there was another, less costly way to get all of our belongings onto the plane without having to shell out an extra $1200 we were not expecting to pay for, they kindly informed us that yes, there was indeed another option.

Option #2 was to purchase two $25 large duffel bags from United, re-pack all our crap so that none of the bags were overweight, then have them reweighed. Then we would have to pay an additional fee for the two additional bags (the duffel bags) we gained. So, instead of paying $1200, we payed something like $600 to get our bags on the plane. This cost did not include the cost for Nara ($250) and Elizabeth ($125) to get on board as excess baggage. Fun Times!

So, after saying goodbye to Nara, we headed off to the terminal to wait for our flight. Thankfully, there was no repeat of the cat escape seen during our last visit to an airport security checkpoint. With about 15 minutes before boarding we got to the terminal, and make our last calls on the cellphones (Sob!), then boarded.

The trip from Dulles to Frankfurt was mainly:

a)super-split-your-lips -borderline-nosebleed-dry
b)crowded like a tin of sardines
c) non-conducive to sleep
d)filled with defective television/audio systems built into the back of each seat, for viewing the in flight movies. You could say I finally saw The Town, but I didn't hear 3/4 of it. Oh well.

But they did have dinner and breakfast which was a good thing. And lots of water and juice. We landed earlier than expected in Frankfurt and had to go to the Lufthansa counter for our connecting flight to Ashgabat. That's where we found out Nara may or may not have made it to Frankfurt. Because the United desk at Dulles did not hand us a baggage ticket for Nara (they instead slapped it onto the crate and handed us a ticket for her that was written by hand), they could tell us nothing. But they did tell us that the Lufthansa employees at the gate might know more.

So, unsure as to whether or not we had a dog on the plane, we rushed through the security checkpoint and half-ran to the gate. Where we were promptly told that they had no clue whether or not the dog made it, and additionally, that the woman working that counter was too busy to deal with us. I can tell you that really didn't go over too well. I kind of just let Mike do the talking at that point. The end result was that Mike learned we would have to go to the United desk and that THEY would be able to tell us if the dog were here or not- and that we had about 20 minutes till our flight left.

So, I stayed at the gate and Mike ran all the way across the damn airport and back to find out that yes, Nara had made it to Frankfurt, and that she was already loaded onto the plane. When he finally made it back to the gate (after being kindly allowed by the Germans working the security checkpoint to cut in line), they had started boarding the flight. Whee!

Thankfully, the flight from Frankfurt to Ashgabat (with a stopover in Baku for cargo, and to drop off passengers) was not that full. And we were able to stretch out a bit. And the in flight audio/video worked. And there was food. And the flight crew was super-nice, the kind of nice that really makes you want to book more flights with this airline. So we left Frankfurt in good spirits, even with the missing dog/not missing dog thing. When we landed in Baku (for those of you wondering where that is, it's located in Azerbaijan), a ton of people got out, leaving only six passengers in total for the flight from Baku to Ashgabat. Since there were only six of us, they invited us to move to the business class area.

If you have not been on a Lufthansa flight, let me explain to you why the switch from coach to business was beyond awesome. The coach section of the Lufthansa plane (compared to United) had less seats, so it seemed less like a cattle car than a plane. The business class on the Lufthansa flight was like getting bumped up to first class seats. The business class seat was basically a massage chair/lazy boy that let you sleep like a person not some contorted freak desperately trying to get some rest on a cramped plane...

Clearly, this was TOO GOOD TO BE TRUE.

After about 20 minutes we were told by the Lufthansa flight crew that our departure from Baku was delayed by, get this, SNOW and WIND. At the airport in Ashgabat.

Ashgabat, Turkmenistan- where heavy snow is a rare occurrence.

So, we were told by the flight crew that we would wait another 30 minutes on the plane to see if conditions improved. You can probably guess that no such improvement occurred after the 30 minutes passed. At that point, our flight to Ashgabat was officially CANCELED, and we would have to get out in Baku and spend the night in the airport's 'Business Center' since we did not have entry visas into Azerbaijan.
At that point we told the flight crew (and the station manager, who had joined us in the plane) that we would like our dog to be removed from the hold in order to join us in the 'Business Center' or 'Airport Terminal' since neither would be below freezing, unlike the cargo hold. FYI- Germans love their pets (the flight crew had already been ogling Elizabeth), and they especially love their dogs. When we asked the Captain for our dog, he was really sympathetic, and assured us Nara would be pulled out of the hold and returned to us while we stayed overnight in the airport. The station manager just kind of looked at us as if we'd asked for the moon. Which, in hindsight, I guess I can kind of understand if you hear a request like that and in your culture pets don't rate that high.
Anyways...the captain and the station manager went off to talk and in the end it was sorted out. We'd get Nara, and stay in the business center overnight till the mandatory 12 hours of rest required for the flight crew passed. The stewardesses gave us frankfurters for Nara and baby food for Elizabeth and a big bottle of water. We disembarked, went through another security screening, were shuffled over to the business center (where we ate a little from the buffet provided) and finally got Nara. Who was super-happy to see us and proceeded to whine at a high pitch for us to let her out of the kennel. Which we could not do in the business center. So, we covered her crate with our jackets and hoped for the best as everyone else in the business center gave us the evil eye. She did calm down after about 15 minutes, but it was pretty ugly waiting for her to calm down. Thankfully she did not bark.

So, for 14 hours we ended up waiting in the airport for our flight to Ashgabat. It was 14 ugly hours of pretty much no sleep, one hour (when everyone was asleep in the business center) spent with our dog out of the kennel- we put her back in when the guy running the business center came in and told us to put her back in. Two hours in the terminal outside the business center (where we could take her out of the kennel-but not outside of the airport to pee) where she promptly emptied her bladder on the marble floor and I cleaned it up with the spare puppy pads I brought with me (YAY FOR SPARE PUPPY PADS), and the rest of our time back in the business center (with Nara crashed out in the kennel) having some coffee and breakfast while waiting for the plane. Which we did eventually board.

The flight crew asked us about Nara and Elizabeth- they were all pretty concerned for the animals and for us- real honest-to-goodness concern. They were happy to learn that we all made it through the night ok. They let us know when Nara had been transferred to the cargo hold. I have a really nice thank you letter to write to Lufthansa for the kindness shown by that flight crew, because they deserve it. We had to wait a little bit before taking off because the plane was taking off cargo, adding a few more passengers, and refueling in the event that our flight would be unable to land- but we were assured that the Lufthansa rep in Ashgabat said it was a 90% chance we'd be able to land. Additionally, we learned that the reason they were refueling, dropping cargo and taking on more passengers (passengers headed to Frankfurt) was that overnight the main mobile carrier in Turkmenistan (a Russian company) had pulled out, and that our flight would have to pay in cash for fuel and landing fees upon arrival in Turkmenistan (since they did not have enough cash to pay for both, they refueled in Baku). After learning all that we were handed little baggies with toothpaste and mini toothbrushes and other toiletries so we could clean up before takeoff, and feel a little more human, which was really nice.

The plane did take off, and I really don't remember much of the flight because I was reclined, asleep and dead to the world for about 45 minutes. But we did get to Ashgabat, and we were able to land. We go out of the plane and were basically whisked over to the section of the airport set up to process incoming visas. That's where we met our social sponsor, Ben, and our expediter. So, after 20 minutes we had our visas, and we were out of the airport and on our way to the apartment.

And that, my friends, is how our trip from D.C to Ashgabat went.

As of this writing it has been a week and a half living in Ashgabat. Our utter exhaustion in the end helped us adjust better than anything else.

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