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DEPARTURE & DISASTER AT THE AIRPORT - Sunday, April 29, 2012

Our planned departure day was preceded by many warm meetings with dear Kalyves people - with our landlord Giorgios and landlady Maria; with our neighbour Dimitris; with Michalis and Michele, our friends running the taverna Icarus; and, ofcourse, with our Dear Elfman, Nikos; plus with many other villagers, and with Mikko & Merja, and with Anna & Olle!

With all the warm feelings in our hearts (and a longing to return home) Hannu drove Kiti and Milli to the Hania airport in the morning. Then came the DISASTER!

We had asked our veterinarian, Giorgios Mousourakis, to sign a friendly note to the airport personnel, urging them to treat our Milli as a living creature, not as luggage (as we've experienced happening previously), when delivered to the airplane's cargo area. This seemed to upset a "lady" official at the airport. She revealed her instincts of a bureaucratic robot. Without permitting any conversation, she denied Milli's entry into the airplane!

All this resulted in the fact that neither Kiti or Milli flew home as planned. We returned to Kalyves to look for a place for them to stay for the next 5 days - before the next flight to Helsinki.

First everything looked fine for Kiti and Milli. A previously known hotel owner gave a room for them, BUT after one night Kiti came to realise that the owner didn't allow a dog, or it's cage and mattrass, inside the room!

With the help of our friends, Michele and Michalis, Kiti and Milli found a nice, quiet and friendly hotel by the beach, a hotel where pets were treated "humanely"!

Hannu had his return trip, with the car, all planned and booked, so there was no escaping his departure from Souda (to Pireus) with a ferryboat on the evening of the disastrous morning in the Hania airport.

So, Kiti and Milli boarded the next plane and arrived safely in Helsinki three days (instead of more than a week) before Hannu's arrival - after a series of five nights in three boats, two nights in hotels, and some nearly 3000 kms of driving.

Hannu's return journey follows in the rest of this website...