We made it.  All of us.  And all four of us seem happy.

At the hotel this morning: “Could we bring plates to our room to put the cat food please? Sure, no problem Madam.”  They come back a few minutes later with little black plastic dishes.  “We are sorry, our cat is allergic to plastic.” They stare, and we feel like idiots!  But it’s true, our little one is allergic to plastic bowls and develops acne, then has to have her chin shaved and looks all funny!  So no plastic bowls, we leave with two saucers and a cereal bowl.

We have been here for only a few hours and we feel like celebrities.  We are famous because of the cats.  A lot of people bring dogs, but cats are rather unusual.  The chef came to introduce herself at breakfast and not only knew who we are, but had already seen pictures of the kittens.  Last night, so many people at the airport came to take a peek at the fur balls!

The transaction at the India Customs was painless.  Slow, but painless.  It was neat to see them write the information in an old-fashioned ledger, pen and paper instead of computers.  It took one person to read the information off the Quarantine Officer form, and another to write it down.

Two vans were waiting for us.  One for luggage and one for the “live” luggage, ie, two humans and two felines.  And of course, everybody at the hotel was ready for our arrival, at 3:30 am.  Litter boxes were in place in the room as we had requested.  Efficient.

Talking about efficiency, the Frankfurt airport gets a big fat zero.  We had to speed-walk for 40 minutes (no, this is no exaggeration), had to be subjected to 30-minute “random” search of our luggage (no, the photo equipment is not a bomb) and almost missed our flight.  Lufthansa made up for it with their kindness, even finding a dry shirt for my hubby.

The kittens didn’t like the trip.  Although we gave them “kitty valium”, our little one threw a fit almost the entire time, trying to claw her way out of her carrier.  She rubbed her nose raw pushing through the mesh fabric.  But they are now running around, for as much as you can run around on marble-like floors when you’re a cat.  They don’t seem to hold a grudge.

 As I type this, they are at the foot of the bed, sleeping together.