Merry Christmas from Montana!

After a great last two nights out in Helsinki with friends, I slept for only two hours the night before I made my way back to San Francisco waking up at 5am to meet my 6am taxi with all six of my obnoxiously huge and overweight pieces of luggage – not including carry-ons. I was very well packed and just had to jimmy the last few items in my last bag that morning. This, of course, still turned out to be quite a feat and required me having a prolonged fight with the last bag (it was tough but I won). Having just packed the six “big boy” checked bags, literally wrestling them to the ground and into the wall in order to force the zipper, I was beginning to become a pro! I had asked my friend Laura to call the taxi company the night before to ensure that the message of, “This chick has six enormous bags she needs to get to the airport. Make sure you send a big enough vehicle…and a strong driver!” got across. The dispatcher told Laura, “No problem, I will send a mini-bus.” Great. Now I’m the girl who needs a mini-bus just to move her shoes!

When I walked out of my building dragging the first two of the big bags, the driver asked, “Are you coming alone or is there someone else?” I said, “No one else, but four more big bags. Didn’t they tell you?” He said, “No, but it doesn’t matter to me.” It didn’t matter to him until he lifted the first bag…and then saw the others appear one by one (and only getting heavier) as I dragged them through the snow and out to the street. At about bag four he said, “$%@&!! What the hell are you doing? Moving to another country or something?” I said, “Yes, actually I am.” and unhelpfully added, “Sorry! I called last night to warn you!” Apparently, the “many unbelievably heavy bags” message didn’t get passed on as I had hoped.

The driver loaded the last one into the van (I was very happy it wasn’t really a mini-bus – embarrassing!) as I closed up my apartment and carried my smaller but also very heavy carry-ons out. As it had been for the last six weeks, it was snowing to beat the band and I rushed as fast as I could in big boots and with two bags and tried to jump in the back. The door was locked and the driver yelled out the passenger window, “Just come up here. Come right up here.” He patted the seat next to him. I knew I had a lot of luggage but I was surprised that it had taken up the entire back of a van! I threw my carry-ons in and then had to jimmy myself in. There wasn’t really a lot of space up there! I said, “Wow, I’m sorry. I didn’t realize I had enough stuff to fill the entire back!” He replied, “Oh, you didn’t. I would just rather shoot myself than put a beautiful woman like yourself in the back when I could have you sit up here with me.” Oh boy. Here we go.

So, ironically, in my last couple hours in Finland and after complaining all year that it was hard to meet people and no stranger would talk to me I happened to get the most talkative, most overtly and bizarrely confident, most annoying Finn I met all year. This guy started talking a mile a minute about hockey, his favorite team the Pittsburgh Penguins, how he liked New York but people in Pittsburgh were much more friendly – people in New York are so busy they make you feel busy you know?!?, about a restaurant in Philly called Fathead’s which made one of the best hamburgers on the east coast and how he ordered only the third biggest one which was 60 OUNCES – HOLY COW – and it came with tomato and lettuce and pickles – and two liters of Coca-Cola and a huge mountain of fries and you just wouldn’t believe it but he ate the entire thing including the whole two liters of Coke and they even asked him how he wanted that burger cooked and they never ask you that in Finland. Just when I thought he might stop to take a breath he asked me how old I was and then he said, “Wow! I am 29 too. It is such a shame you are leaving because we almost have matching birthdays (uh, not really considering his is in February and mine in July…) and we could have had our birthday celebrations together!!! There is this amazing place which has 500 tons of sand indoors and it’s always 20-30°C so you can play sand volleyball and just drink beer and then they have the Megazone where you can shoot your friends with these guns with lasers and run around behind walls in steam – smoke – fog – whatever it is – you know what I mean?! And then you can go bowling and rock climbing and…”

The guy was making my head spin. This went on and on and on until finally he realized that I was staring listlessly out the passenger window just nodding and spitting out random niceties, “Uh huh….oh, wow…sounds nice…” and then he finally stopped talking, paused, and said, “You seem a little preoccupied. Are you?” I said, “Yes, I am. Sorry. I’m moving to another continent today and I’m worried about moving all those bags and whether or not they’ll even let me check them…” “I mean, did you even need all that stuff?!” And, before I could even attempt to answer, he continued, “I would say just burn it. Burn it all.” Awesome. Self-aware, charming, and sensitive. Ugh. He, of course, then continued where he left off before I interrupted him with my preoccupation, “What do you think about Finnish people? I, for one, don’t like them much. They are too quiet. It is much easier for me to make friends in the US. In fact, I’m going back to the US again very soon because the last time I was in Philadelphia I made a friend at a bar and he told me that I should come back and that I could even stay with him for nothing. He told me that my accommodations would be taken care of any time I came for a visit…” Needless to say, it was a painful ride.

We finally arrived at the terminal and he pulled up in the normal spot for drop-offs which is actually a bit far from the door and requires crossing another airport road. Not only did I have a million pounds of luggage, it was also 6:30am, pitch black, about 10°F and snowing like crazy. I asked if he thought he could get any closer given all of my luggage. Before I could even get the question mark out of my mouth he had interrupted with, “They might not like it but I can probably get a bit closer…” and then hit the gas, jumped the curb, drove over the median to the other side and pulled up to the closer curb. Yikes! This guy was sure eager to please but a little unwieldy! I paid him, asked him if he would unload the bags while I ran in to get a trolley, and then high-tailed it inside. I came back out with one trolley and then, upon seeing my pile of bags stacked in the snow, realized that there was no way that one was going to do the job. This was going to be fun! The driver hopped back out of the van where he was warming his hands (it was freezing!), ran over to me hand outstretched, shook my hand and said farewell with a, “Well, it was so nice to meet you and if you were staying then I would ask to take you out for a beer but we have had bad luck!” Yes, what a shame. So sorry to have missed more hamburger and hockey conversation! He hopped back in his van and drove away leaving me standing there in the snow next to the pile of bags which were strewn about in the snow like we’d just knocked over a Jenga tower of gratuitously over packed luggage. Here’s a little tip, buddy, if you’re reading this. Skip the hamburger and hockey chit-chat and help a girl out with her bags!

Alone again (yay!), in the snow, in the dark, I decided I’d better get to it and try to make my way in with my small army of bags. I loaded up the first set of bags, pushed them just inside the door, ran down the terminal to get another trolley, and ran back hoping that no cop had shown up and quarantined the enormous set of bags left sitting ominously outside all by their lonesome. Thankfully, the bags were still sitting there completely untouched and likely completely unnoticed. I loaded up the second set of bags and then ran that trolley in to meet the first. I did a couple rounds of “push trolley one as far as you can with trolley two still in sight” to try to make forward progress with the whole load, passing a hockey team multiple times throughout the process (it was Finland after all – I swear that every time you fly in or out of Helsinki you run into a hockey team!). They saw me run by once, twice to get to trolleys, and then once, twice with the trolleys stacked and toppling over with too many bags. The highlight was when I tried to push one of the trolleys in through a door and there was a hole in the floor which, of course, I pushed the front wheel directly into bringing the trip, the trolley, and me to a very abrupt halt as the back end of the trolley kicked up and literally launched one of the bags up off the top of the stack and about six feet forward. If the hockey team wasn’t already staring at the spectacle that was me before that they definitely were after! (And, again, not a single one of these athletes even attempted to get up and help. What is wrong with these guys?!)

I finally got myself and the bags up to check-in and was very nervous about this part of the process…I had gotten my ticket through United but was flying some little Danish carrier out of Helsinki and had to play by their luggage rules which were either unknown or, even if known, still unclear. The woman at the desk didn’t react too strongly as I pushed the trolleys forward but I definitely got one heck of an eyebrow raise! Meanwhile, I was babbling trying to make jokes about all the bags in an attempt to befriend her a little bit. I definitely didn’t want to annoy her! She held so much power in her hands!

She had no problem checking in the bags and didn’t even blink at the weight which was teetering right around the maximum for “overweight” bags at 70lbs. She checked one, two, three, four, five, and we were almost there when, uh oh, bag six was over the maximum for overweight bags…by about twelve pounds. Oops. She pushed it back at me. “I am sorry but this one is too heavy. It will not be loaded. You must fix it.” I didn’t have many options but she kind of shrugged and said, “I must leave for a few minutes but you can fix your bag while I’m gone. “ Great. Now what? I opened the bag and found a big purse which I then started stuffing with anything heavy I could get my hands on and after playing with it a bit finally found the right balance between taking enough weight out of the big bag and not completely overloading the little bag. The only problem was that this meant I had created yet another bag to check. This was going to cost me my savings in extra fees!

I waited nervously for her to come back and tried not to think about how much she was going to charge me for the (many!) extra bags let alone the weight overage. She returned and before I could get a word out to explain that the scale was clearly messed up because it said 29 kg ten seconds before and now said 33 kg (and the limit was 32 kg), she said, “I have talked to my manager and because of the very special situation we will not charge for your bag overage.” Well, that’s a bit of good news, I was thinking. At least they won’t charge me for the last bag being over the max! She continued, “Your flight leaves from gate 13A so you just must go upstairs through security.” Whoa, whoa, whoa. Did she mean they weren’t going to charge me for any of my bags?! Yep, miracle of miracles, she had for some reason decided to ask her supervisor to exempt me from the extra baggage charges and he / she had actually agreed to it. I’m not exactly sure what “special situation” she was referring to besides my being an idiot and bringing so much stuff in the first place but I must have been a very good girl this year to get a Christmas present like that! I was expecting to be charged around 800 euros for those bags and instead and for no apparent reason at all got handed the “check seven enormous bags for free” card. I really thought about jumping over the counter and hugging her! (NOT appropriate in Finland!)

With the big bags out of the way, I was extremely relieved…it felt exactly like taking 450 lbs of weight off of my shoulders – literally! Incidentally, when I picked up my boarding pass in Munich for my Munich to San Francisco flight the woman at the Lufthansa desk had to scan each of my seven luggage tags. “You have this many bags?!” Yes, unfortunately so. She scanned the bags and the weight apparently came up on the computer as she did so because her eyes just got wider and wider with every scan, “And they are all quite heavy.” Yes, also unfortunately so.

Twenty-four hours after loading the taxi in Helsinki, I finally landed in San Francisco. I was pretty tired given the long and rather stressful trip but the worst was behind me. I just hoped that all my bags had made it with me to California…and that the process of getting them out of the airport and into my friend Ron’s car would be relatively uneventful (but successful!). I landed and checked my emails and found that, unfortunately, my ride (and baggage help!) had fallen through as Ron was stuck in SoCal due to the recent storms and subsequently canceled flights. Bummer. But, bad weather happens and at least I was back in the US where I knew how to get things done and how to find an alternate solution! I called a car service that I had used quite a lot in 2009 but was a little worried about getting a last minute driver with a large enough vehicle. The woman on the phone told me she’d have to talk to her “operations manager” and see if they could figure something out. I realized that this was a relatively difficult ask without any advance notice so texted another friend to ask if he knew of another car service I could try. Instead of offering another car service, my friend Tristan offered to pick me up himself. What a gift!

I got through immigration without a problem after getting asked the standard questions. “Where are you coming from?” “What were you doing there?” “How long will you be in the United States?” To the last one I replied, “I’m moving back…so, I’m staying.” The immigration officer looked up at me and said, “Wow, is Europe really that expensive?” as if that was the deciding factor (it was one of them!), stamped my passport, and pushed it through the window. I was almost home free! There was just that pesky little issue of getting my bags out of the building…ugh!

I walked to baggage claim and camped out to wait for my bags. Almost immediately they started arriving…I say “started” as with seven checked bags it takes a while no matter how quickly they unload the plane! I pulled each of them off the belt and stacked them up beside me before heading off to find a trolley. I came back to the pile about 30 seconds later to find a couple women picking their way through them thinking that their bags might be somewhere in there. “Sorry, ladies, these are all mine.” I said as I walked up. They looked at me like, “Really?! All yours?” Yep, all mine.

I loaded up the trolley and, miraculously, was able to get six of the seven bags on it. In addition to pushing the precariously packed trolley with one hand, I was dragging one of the biggest rollerbags with the other and holding two carry-ons on one shoulder. I was getting plenty of stares and, again, no offers to help. I did attract the attention of every random guard walking around the room, however, who would then stop me and proceed to give me the third degree (“Where are you coming from? What are you doing here? Why do you have so many bags?!?”) but, of course, never offered any help. Considering the sheer number of bags I was pushing / dragging / carrying I was doing pretty well…until my Russian matryoshka doll fell out of my shoulder bag and cracked open on the floor scattering hand painted doll heads and bottoms (there are ten dolls in my set so twenty pieces) all over the baggage claim floor. A few kind souls helped me pick them up and I put my Russian humpty dumpty back together again and stuffed her back in my bag, just hoping she and I would both make it out the door to the arrivals area which was at that point only about 30 yards away. Unfortunately, the guard at customs thought that I looked like a perfect candidate for an extra baggage scan and routed me away from the short route out and into yet another line at the end of which I’d have the pleasure of unloading my mountain of bags and then reloading them on the trolley yet again. I was not happy but I didn’t have a choice. I asked another guard, “You mean I have to go through this line and reload all of this stuff again?!” He replied, oh so helpfully, “Something like that.” Thanks a lot! I told him that there was no way I could move all of those bags through the roped off line of switchbacks and he was at least nice enough to let me leave the mountain at the front of the line while I waited my turn. I finally got to the front, now 26 hours into my travel day, and unloaded every one of those ridiculous bags and put them on the belt. The heaviest bag literally stopped the belt and had to be manually pushed through by the attendant. I didn’t feel that sorry for any of the customs staff considering it was their doing that I was in that line in the first place. I fought back the urge to say, “I told you so!” and just kept my mouth shut before reloading all the bags back on the trolley. I could have shaken those guards!

I slowly made my way out to the arrivals area, doing ok through the straight sections but having to stop and carefully adjust the course of the trolley for every turn before proceeding (tough to steer 400+ lbs with one hand through a turn!). I finally made it outside to the curb and was just about to sit down when Tristan pulled up and immediately put me to shame by picking up my bags like they were nothing and loading them into his car. I was so happy to see him! We left for San Francisco, my first time back since I left in January, and it was great to drive back into the city and past many of the places I have missed all year. It also didn’t hurt that it was about 55°F warmer than when I left Helsinki! (Admittedly, California has made me soft!)

After a year away and narrowly escaping the winter weather-induced European air travel cancellations, I finally made it back to San Francisco with all of my stuff in tow. Another ten hours after that, I was back in the airport and on my way to Bozeman, Montana for Christmas with my family. What a whirlwind! Now after a few days of sleeping off jetlag (in addition to twelve months of intense work hours and crazy travel!) and being pampered by my parents I am beginning to feel normal again and once I actually find an apartment and get moved in I may actually even approach being normal again.

So, as I look back at a truly fantastic 2010 and more adventures than I could have even dreamed up a year ago, I’d like to say thank you to BCG for the opportunity to have this experience. Thank you to Finland for your hospitality and my new friends. Thank you to all those at home (and abroad!) who stuck with me and kept reading. And thank you to God for bringing me full circle and back to my invincible summer.

And with that, this story is now Finnished.