The Week Worth Waiting For!

Since I left Portland a month ago, Erin and I have been privileged to have technology on our side. With video chat (Skype, Gmail, and ichat) it makes the trip and time separation bearable. Although it is not her next to me, it is great to see her everyday and have conversations with video. I have seen and talked to my entire family through Skype and it is great to catch up with everyone each day or week.

So, here I am in Paderborn, playing again, patiently waiting with the thought of people visiting and seeing me play for the first time in Germany. Erin has already decided to come in July so we can travel during the European Baseball Cup. (The league takes a few weeks off each year so each countries previous champions can participate in the European Baseball Championships) What a long wait it seems like! Erin has been doing and having a great time in Portland. She loves it! She got into school, found a fantastic place to live, and has done a great job finding work as she has been offered a very lucrative job with a great company! Not to mention she has had friends and family visit. Although she starts soon, she had not yet been given a start date. The thought of her hanging out in Portland with nothing to do the next few weeks led to one thought. Get Erin over to Germany! With a few weeks to spare before she starts work, we called the worlds greatest travel agent (my mom) and found a good deal. Like that, our countdown went from 85 days to only a weeks wait with the click of a mouse.

The journey however, became much harder than we had originally planned. Within 24 hours of getting her a flight, the Iceland Volcano exploded dumping so much ash into the Atlantic sky that all flights to and from the U.S. and Europe were cancelled. One day, two days, three days, four days went by. All flights still cancelled into Northern Europe. By Sunday night I was very worried! Still no flights, and she was due to come out on Tuesday morning PST and arrive Wednesday morning in Germany.

With news circulating that flights would continue on Tuesday, Erin made the courageous voyage to Atlanta where her connecting flight was still "on-time" to Dusseldorf. When she left Portland we knew there was a very good possibility of it being cancelled when she was in the air, which would have stranded her in Atlanta with countless others trying to get overseas.

Fifteen minutes before she landed in Atlanta her flight to Germany was cancelled. At this time very few flights were leaving from the U.S. to Europe. Although there were a few, the problem became she was one of thousands stranded and trying to get over the Atlantic. Chances were very slim. However, with the bat of her pretty eyes, a contagious smile, luck of the irish, along with good advice from the worlds greatest travel agent, (my Mom) Erin managed to find a flight to Amsterdam with a Delta customer support agent in Atlanta. She got on the plane and headed to Amsterdam, about 350 Kilometers from Paderborn. She was getting over the Atlantic!

With Erin in the sky, my mom once again came through and helped us devise a plan to connect. I drove two hours northeast to Duisburg, Germany while Erin got on a train and headed south into the area. After blind faith on the autobahn and google maps, as well as frantically searching the large Duisburg train station for twenty minutes, she appeared out of nowhere with a smile and a kiss! What a great moment! She was finally here! It is funny, but we picked up right where we left off a month ago and it was as if nothing had changed, which it really had not.

Erin traveled for over 24 hours, wheeled and dealed in Atlanta with little hope, got to Amsterdam to find out she had no luggage, then jumped on a train in a place she had never been and had no real idea where she was going. After all of that, she still found me! Pretty cool!

The drive home was great and we soon started making plans for the week. Travel and quality time were in store for the two of us, and even though I had baseball everyday, we would still find a way.

We rode around Paderborn with the bikes the next morning, got her some clothes and enjoyed our time together. We had a great time catching up and actually seeing each-other in real life and not on a computer screen. She really loved Paderborn and by the time we got home on Friday, her bag had arrived. What a great feeling! Having her in Germany meant so much, and she was finally going to see me play baseball.