To Bogota

On the 8^th, we stuffed the cats in their handy little carriers, loaded our suitcases into the cars and went to the airport. It was in the morning and we had to check in all of our seemingly one thousand suitcases. Damon was at camp, so Elena and I decided that I would take care of Len for the day, and Elena would cart around Ike. Both cats each had a toy in their carriers, but neither really played with them. At first they meowed a lot, but eventually they realized their attempts at making us so guilty of making them unhappy we would take them out, were being more or less ignored. So they quieted down a bit. At the airport, our grandparents, the Elzingas, and the Buists were there to see us off. Finally we said goodbye and walked down the hallway to security. We had to take the cats out of the carriers and walk through with them. They each had a harness on, but we only had one leash and they wouldn't let us take it back through for the second cat. We decided Elena would hold Ike, but the leash would be hooked on as back up, because he was the most squirmy and unhappy of the two. When I went through with Len, he kept trying to get away, but I somehow managed to keep him in my arms and not on the floor running away. We found our terminal and sat down to wait. A lot of people stared at the cats, and everyone liked them. On the plane, we stuck them under our seats, and they didn't make too much noise. When we took off on the other hand, they meowed like crazy. Everyone turned and looked at us saying “are those cats?!” We just kind of laughed and nodded. It was an hour and a half flight, so in the air it was pretty uneventful, but, once again, as we landed they meowed a bit. In Atlanta we dragged all our stuff to the train and took it to our part of the airport. We had a bite to eat in the food court type of place, then put our stuff by our terminal. While Dad stayed with our belongings, us girls went in a few stores and looked at the 'airport art', which was clothes made out of reused materials, like plastic bags and pop cans. We got on the plane, and a lot of people were speaking Spanish. The cats went back under the seats and I took a little nap and watched a movie. The cats weren't quite as noisy during take off or landing, so that was an up. When we got off, we had to stand in a line until we saw a sign for people with diplomatic passports (like us!). We sped past all the other people and went to the desk. They didn't ask at all about the cats, even though a few people came up and looked at them (like the pilot of one of the planes). A man with a sign that had Dad's name on it was waiting for us. We picked up the rest of our luggage and went outside. While we were waiting for our van, a big German Shepard came up and sniffed Len's carrier. Len poofed right up, and he definitely didn't like the dog. Luckily, the owner pulled the dog away pretty quickly. We drove to our apartment and lugged our luggage into the elevator and then into the apartment. We did a little bit of organizing/unpacking in the roomy apartment, then went to bed. We were tired, and it was late.

By Maddie