Finally in Italy!

I am in Italy! Stevie (the cat) and I made it to our hotel fine with no major issues. I never in a million years would have pictured that I would take a cat on an airplane, and an international flight at that.

Stevie did really well with the whole thing, it went better than I expected. He really didn’t even meow. We sedated him in the morning and he was pretty freaked out at the beginning. Did you know that you have to take the cat OUT of the crate to go through security? I didn’t! But Portland security is nice to offer a private screening – where we went into a room and I took Stevie out and then they ran the crate through the x-ray machine while I stayed in the room. Stevie has never been happier to get back into his crate! In Frankfurt, I just held him through the security walk through and he did fine.

Stevie in the Frankfurt airport, waiting for our connecting flight to Milan:


They didn’t even want to see any paperwork at customs once we arrived. I was surprised, here we had done all of this work to get the right paperwork, and no one even cared. But if we hadn’t they probably would have wanted to see it, so it’s just as well. I wouldn’t want to start my residency in Italy on the wrong foot. 

The biggest CAT-astrophy (that one is for you Brandon!) was in my suitcase when I got to the hotel. The travel cat litter box had opened and I had cat litter (unused, of course!) all over the suitcase. I’ve got that cleaned up, I’m finally showered and Stevie is hiding under the bed. Maybe he’ll come out if I sit on the bed and watch some TV, but if I do that I might fall asleep.

I need to make it 4.5 more hours to dinner and then I can go to sleep. I’m struggling…