Travel Series: Space-A to Europe

For this next instalment of the travel series....I'm going to write about our European adventure. Sometime in early summer, we found out Matt was going to be deploying for six months. Bummer right? Well, as a military family, we know these things are going to happen so while you can't always be 100% ready, we accept it when the news comes. Then we found out where he was going. GERMANY. Say what???? We also found out that the person he would be replacing was a friend of ours from our Lt days in Arizona. Even better! So then we started doing our research and I quickly learned that his deployment was going to be more like a vacation....uh-huh. Ok, don't get me wrong, the guy was going to have to work. His mission was going to be extremely important and it was a huge honor and responsibility but also a wonderful opportunity. While he couldn't tell me too much about what he was doing, I knew it was going to be meaningful. BUT, while he wasn't at work- he would be living it up in a condo, with a rental car, and weekends off. IN EUROPE. Say whaaat? Then we realized- oh my goodness we could visit him. OVER CHRISTMAS. For free!

The military has this awesome perk where we can travel on military aircraft once all the seats have been filled by those actually going on missions. So whatever is available- hence its name Space-A(vailable) they open up to others. There's a hierarchy in who gets selected though. As a dependent traveling without my spouse, I was going to be pretty low on that list. Since he was deployed, it knocked me up on the list a little (woohoo!). I did a ton of research prior to December. Space A is not an easy beast to tackle and the more prepared you are for it the "smoother" it will go but let's be honest here, how smooth can traveling with a 1 and 2 year old be? They post the days they're flying on Facebook and how many seats they think will be available, followed by a "roll call" time. The closer it gets to Christmas, the harder it is to get a flight across the pond. So the second my teaching program was over, I packed up the boys and way too much winter gear, and high tailed it up to Baltimore. Then the fun began.

The number of seats available on the flight I wanted was 56. 5-freaking 6. I knew chances were slim that we'd get on the flight (the next one wouldn't be for another 2 days) but I had to try! The first thing you do when flying Space A is you send a letter of intent to the passenger terminal at least one month in advance. This gets you on a list to get on a list. And your priority is date stamped so the earlier the better! The next step is you go to the military terminal at Baltimore International and check in- for me that required a sponsorship letter from Matt's boss saying he was deployed. That gets you on the real wait list. The earlier you do that, the better. I did this early in the day, roll call wouldn't be until close to midnight that night. Well past the boys' bedtime...this was going to be fun. We drove around Baltimore a little bit to pass the time but I ran out of things to do and just parked my car at long term parking and managed to get two suit cases, a double stroller, and two toddlers on the shuttle and then to the terminal. OH MY GOODNESS. That was so freaking hard. SO HARD. The USO at BWI is well equipped to handle large crowds and they even had a room for kids to play so we hung out there with other anxious Space-A families and too many kids up way past their bed times and getting ridiculously cranky. This was going to be fun. Roll call came and we all lugged our bags over to the terminal- exhausted, cranky, somewhat hungry, really anxious. There were way more than 56 people trying to get on this flight. I knew chances were slim before but now they were really really slim. And still I waited. Well we obviously didn't make the flight and so sometime after midnight I hauled all my stuff back to the shuttle and back to long term parking (I thought it was hard the first time? Hahahaha silly girl). I drove to the nearest place I felt comfortable staying at; Fort Meade billeting, and we all crashed. HARD.

The next day I still felt as if I was in a fog. I was so tired but mom life continues and the kids were refreshed and ready to rock and roll. FML right? I decided to take them into D.C. to explore the museum of natural history because we had a whole day to fill up with adventures because our next attempt at flying wouldn't be til the following evening. Oh joy! Our DC adventure lasted about a half day, at which point I realized I was in way too much of an exhausted haze to be alert enough to manage my children in a busy city. So back to Fort Meade we went! And there we stayed, on the couch, watching cartoons and playing on the ipad. Some days, you just have to hang up the supermom uniform and put on the PJs and just try to survive!

The next morning I felt so much better. SO MUCH BETTER! And this time around I learned from my mistakes the first time and was ready to tackle the monster that was Space A. Oh and the seats available was 200 or something so I felt pretty confident we'd be making this flight. I drove to Baltimore again and got on the wait list; this time parking in short term parking. Then- this is the best part- I met up with my Amanda. You've seen her name sprinkled throughout my blog; she's pretty much my saving grace in a tough situation. We ate dinner, spent some time checking out Christmas décor at National Harbor, and then went on over to Baltimore for the dreaded roll call. I was getting flashbacks of the night before and my palms started getting sweaty. We parked in short term parking (no more shuttle for us!) and she helped me get my bags to the terminal where...we didn't see our name and my heart sank. I frantically asked the front desk what was happening and they said that since I checked in so early, I already had a ticket waiting. REJOICE! I had a ticket to Germany ya'll- and it was free99! Amanda helped me get to security and took my car keys, hugged me bye, and basically saved my ass. She'd be keeping my car safe in DC while I travelled around Europe and then when it was time to come home, she'd have my car at the airport for me. Are you kidding me? Who does that for people? Yeah- I know, I'm insanely blessed. She also stayed up ridiculously late to help me get to roll call even though she had to work the next morning. *blessed* you guys. Seriously.

Ok so that part was done, we got our ticket. Now....we had to wait for our flight to leave, which wouldn't be until 0300. Oh Lord....my poor mom self. My kids stayed up but they were so STINKING tired. We all were. I was able to gate check the stroller and we were able to settle down on our flight. Thank God it was so late. My kids (and me) knocked the F out. It was awesome- Thomas had some moments in his sleep where he stretched out and cried a little but I was able to console him pretty easily. The flight was actually the easy part.

Landing in Germany was surreal. I can't believe we made it. I can't believe I Space A flew across the Atlantic with my two toddlers, all by myself. It was one of those experiences that I'll use to help me get through future challenging times. If I could manage that, I could certainly manage the next obstacle. Resiliency is a beautiful thing. I was surprised to find out that my stroller wouldn't be at the gate and I'd have to pick it up at baggage claim. So, we had to go through the whole customs line (which required waiting on stairs! Oh geez that was fun) with my carryons and the two kids for a ridiculously long time. At least 90 minutes, and then it took another 45 minutes at baggage claim- and guess who's stroller got damaged? Thankfully it was still functioning but the frame was warped and messed up so that required even more waiting as I filed a claim.

FINALLY- after all of that, we were united as a family. Charles was the first to spot Matt and was eagerly pointing him out. I worried that after not seeing him for a while, the boys would be a little apprehensive about dad, but nope. They were excited and completely normal. We had done it- we were going to spend the Christmas season in Europe. What an amazing opportunity!