After flying to New York for 5 hours, taking a fun tour of the Statue of Liberty, and then to Zurich for 8 hours, we were tired. Neither of us slept very well, we were both pretty grumpy, and we had just landed in Zurich. Landing here a few things hit me right away:
- The eSIM I got to work in all of Europe DID NOT turn on, so my phone was still showing the time in New York, which was stressing me out because I knew we needed to board a plane soon, I just didn’t know when.
- No one was speaking English.
- We had to go through some sort of passport checkpoint and I was worried it meant we would need to go back through security.
These things, while at the time even I knew was small, I was so tired and it overwhelmed me so much that I just wanted to freeze.
Fortunately, I had Kai. He was able to take in the situation and send us in the right direction, despite my protests to go the direction I thought was right (it was not).
We successfully made it on the train, went to the new terminal, and made it to the passport checkpoint. They asked us where we were going, how long we are staying, and what we are doing there.
It was this third point, where the customs agent looked shocked – we were going to Greece, for three weeks, for Medical?
It may have been he was expecting us to say vacation so that threw him off, but my mind took it as “He is surprised we are going to Greece for Medical care, maybe they are known in Europe as having poor medical care?”
I then sat in this thought for the next five hours, from waiting to board the plane, to the plane ride over the Adriatic Sea to Thessaloniki, from waiting at the airport until we could check-in to the AirBnB, to finally arriving at the AirBnB.
We finally got here, to the AirBnB lugged our suitcases up three flights of stairs, closed the door and were here, aaaaaaaand I was so let down.
The room didn’t have air conditioning in the bedroom, and it was HOT. The windows were all closed to keep out the sun, so it was dark. And finally, it was just us. I felt so alone in a foreign country. And we are going to be here for so long. To get MEDICAL care of all things.
I was ready to cry. Had we made a terrible mistake?
Thank God for Kai. He knew what to do, we unpacked the bags so they weren’t cluttering the space and so it would feel a little bit more like home. He figured out how to open the metal shutters that were covering the windows, and then we took a nap.
While sitting at the airport listening to all the people walk by speaking Greek, I felt so alone. I felt myself just wishing for a familiar face. I had this sudden picture in my head of Jesus finding us in the airport and felt better. We know him, he is here too. I started praying we could find Him here too.
I woke up feeling so much better. We could do this, as alone as we felt we were not alone, and how great is it to have people in my life that I miss so much when I am gone from them?
And also, thank God that Kai was here.
He almost wasn’t, we found out three days before we left that he could even go.
So, while a lot of the trip here felt like everything went wrong – I had the wrong tickets into New York, we had to wait at the airport for a few hours to check-in to AirBnB, the flights were honestly so uncomfortable for so long, so far NO ONE we have met has spoken English. The things that needed to go right (at least in my opinion), did. I think that was the Grace of God in this. Kai, my loving and amazing husband is here. We are in a good neighborhood with a truly beautiful apartment, we are able to learn a new Language. And. We are not alone. The things that matter are the things we have. Thank God for that.
No, I don’t know how the next three weeks will be. It is scary to have a medical procedure done in a foreign country, but we have made it this far. So we keep going.