Getting here...

...was much more complicated than expected :) I know you probably want to read more about Sweden, but I feel like the days leading up to our arrival (and our arrival itself) is a pretty interesting story.

So after moving out of our house (and forgetting to leave one of our garage remotes, more on that in a sec) and getting everything we packed up to Nick and Erika's house (I did finally get up there before midnight on that last day of July), all we had left to do was:
-fit all of our stuff into a single car
-drive to Chicago
-stay one night in a hotel
-drive to the Airport
-check Laska in
-check ourselves in
-leave our car someplace for Sam to pick up
-get back to the airport
-get through security
-board the plane
-get off the plane
-get through passport control
-pick up our luggage
-pick up Laska
-get through customs
-somehow get to our apartment
-meet the housing relocation agent at the apartment to get the keys
-"continue life as normal"

What could go wrong?

The answer ended up being "none of the truly important things" which were checking in, boarding the plan, and getting through passport control and customs. All of those things went by swimmingly. I was actually a bit (irrationally) upset that the work visa and dog immigration documentation together weren't examined in minute detail. Alls the better it wasn't, but some part of me really did wish they put us through "the ringer."

What ended up providing the most interesting bits of our "getting here" story related to fitting all of our stuff into a single car. All I can say is a big THANK YOU to Nick and Erika for solving our problem for us. We used a large black waterproof (though we put that to the test) bag to tie three pieces of luggage and the BoB to the roof of our Subari. This enabled the rest of the car to be completely filled with stuff. All told, we ended up checking six (6) pieces of luggage, one extra-large dog crate (that took up the entire trunk of the car), gate-checked the BoB, and carried on two bags, a car seat (w/ base), and two long umbrellas. Fun fact: we only ended up leaving Laska's dog leash and harness, the changing pad from our diaper bag, the "Beourdeux's Butt Paste" (could have a more toned-down name but it's the best one out there in our opinion, thanks Erika), and some wipes on the plane when we rushed off - all in all a pretty good outcome. So back to the car: on the way I learned that the ties of the black bag strapped to the roof of our car would loosen to the point of becoming unstrapped due to the friction of the wind over time. Luckily, after stopping at Mirror Lake State Park near the Dells (where Mirror Lake was not too mirror like, quite icky on the beach and covered with lots of green stuff) and attempting to buy Subway (line was too long but, upon walking back from not buying anything I noticed one strap completely undone and the others loose) I re-tightened the straps and tied the ends in a knot (while waiting in the Taco Bell drive thru, FYI their chicken quesadilla is delicious) to prevent it from happening again. Whew. Oh, and Sam, if you are reading this, could you return that black bag from the trunk to Nick and Erika for us? We also left a couple of their baby toy's and two coffee mugs in there. Maybe I should email you too. Thanks Sam. And thanks to Nick and Erika (and kids!) again.

We did arrive in Chicago safely - for those who weren't aware we flew out of Chicago instead of Minneapolis-St. Paul because there was a direct flight using SAS to Stockholm that was ideal for Laska. Any option out of Minnesota made going through customs quite a hurdle. Oh yeah! When in Chicago we took a non-toll way of getting to the hotel that took us through incredibly beautiful farm land where it seemed like every farm house was mansion-esque. It was quite remarkable. Though I was driving and didn't see it all Stephanie was constantly oohing and ahhing over them all. Who would have known? It was on Illinois 64 between 39 and 355. Anywho, we got to Chicago and checked in at our quite pleasant hotel quite easily where they gave Kateri quite the interesting welcome present that changes colors:

We enjoyed walking around the hotel area for a bit and seeing a massive thundercloud-storm-head roll in. Apparently just hours before we arrived it had hailed! Crazy weather, that Chicago. It did end up raining quite a good bit during the night. It put that black bag (still strapped) on the top of our car to the test. Only a little moisture made it through, no damages but duly noted that you shouldn't just leave water sitting on it waiting for evaporation to somehow sneak it's way through the zipper and into the inside (at least that's my assumption on what happened ;) We also took time to mail the remote control to our garage back to our house that we forgot to leave and print out some critical documents, one being a note on Laska's crate to endear him to all the various handlers through the travel process:

When we finally landed in the Stockholm Arlanda airport (one of only two you can fly in to with a dog from the US, the other is in Gothenburg), made it through passport control (quite easily as I mentioned), Laska actually was delivered to us before the bags were! Upon boarding we had actually told one of the flight attendants about Laska in the belly of the plane and she so kindly confirmed that he was okay. It really set our hearts at rest and let us enjoy the flight. All in all superb service (though the check-in process did take about 2 hours). Needless to say,he wasn't happy until he was out of the crate:

We did end up getting all our bags, stacked on a single push trolly and the BoB, and went to the taxi stand...where they all just looked at us. Let me explain, the taxi stand is different there than in the US. In the US, things are a bit more orderly in that you wait in a line, and the taxi's wait in a line, and you just meet up like a zipper. Not so here. There were just several rows of taxi's lined up calling at each person who walks up to them. There was a person to help control the potential chaos, but I only saw him help us while we were there, noone else. So, seeing us walk up: 2 adults, one baby, one dog, 8 bags, and a big stroller - they simply looked at us. The controller-of-chaos did find us two cabs that we fit things in. One of them was a Mercedes van type thing, quite posh.

Well, we made it to our apartment safe and sound. Met our housing relocation agent. Was let in to the apartment, and we "continued to live life as normal"...ha. More on that later ;)