I loves her! :) When I don't want to kill her :P But that's what being a daughter is all about isn't it?
Did you bring your cat from China home with you?!?!?!?! Yep, remember I... no wait, I don't think I ever wrote that story on LJ since when I got home it was all about my grandfather...
Anyway, yes we got her home, it didn't take anything more than a rabies shot for customs, the problem came from Air Canada. When we booked our tickets we told them we were bringing a cat with us, and was there anything special we needed to do? and they said that we just needed to put her in a carrier and put a dish in for water since they'd give her some on the flight. That seemed a bit too easy, but that's all the person said. Sara then searched the Air Canada website to see if there were anymore requirements, but again, nothing.
So just to play it safe, we show up at the airport 5 hours early. They send us away and said come back 3 hours before our flight, which we did. We waited an hour in line, and when the guy finally looks at the cat in her cage, he pulls out a check list, and tells us our cage doesn't meet the requirements, and we can't take her like that. We argue that we hadn't been told that, all he can suggest is that we go into the city and buy a new one. For one, we spent *months* looking for a cat carrier, all we could find was a hamster cage, for another, we didn't even know where to *go* in Shanghi to find a cage, and thirdly it's an hour taxi ride one way to the city (and about 150 RMB which is a lot, a normal taxi ride for us was 8-12 RMB!). By this time it was 2 hours to take off, we'd never make it! They had over booked our flight and were offering people money to take the flight tomorrow, but that just wasn't an option for us. We spent about an hour arguing with this dude, the highlights of which involve him telling us that the cat is going to be *crushed* in the cage, even though I could *sit* on it. To which we asked what the hell they'd be doing to our cat! And then offered to sign a waiver saying that if our cat was tragically crushed because of the cage we wouldn't hold the airline responsible. To which he replied, and I will never forget this OMG, "You may be ok with taking that risk, but what about the cat? The cat cannot speak, so *I* must speak for the cat!" And he was totally serious and kind of passionate when he said that. Sara and I just stared drop jawed at him for a bit and then said, "It's better than letting loose on the streets of Shanghi!" Nearing the end, he tried to put his foot down and tell us we'd *have* to take the flight tomorrow, and I said it wasn't possible, because I had to get home to my dying grandfather, and started crying. He could just *not* handle that. He grabbed Sara and started taking her to all the stores in the airport to see if *they* sold cat carriers (no, but we were offered a burlap sack and a suit case), meanwhile I'm sitting there, with 7 suit cases, 2 backpacks, my purse, a cat in a hamster cage, bawling my eyes out while others are trying to check their luggage. Some times people would come up and try to pet the cat through the cage, and I'd just cry harder. Finally the guy brought his boss in, who rolled her eyes and did what we first suggested and had us sign a piece of paper saying we wouldn't sue them if the cat died. Sara had to do it, since I was still kind of crying.
How's school going? Good, good. I did well first semester, 3.08 GPA (I hope that means something to you, because it means *nothing* to me, we generally don't use GPAs in Canada). This semester isn't going to be as nice, my schedule sucks, and the two classes that I was looking forward to have crappy teachers (seriously one of them showed up for the *only* class 30 minutes late and announce that he hated this course, didn't know why he had to teach it, and that he isn't going to be very good at teaching it since he hates it so.) I'm sure it'll be ok though.
no subject
Did you bring your cat from China home with you?!?!?!?!
Yep, remember I... no wait, I don't think I ever wrote that story on LJ since when I got home it was all about my grandfather...
Anyway, yes we got her home, it didn't take anything more than a rabies shot for customs, the problem came from Air Canada. When we booked our tickets we told them we were bringing a cat with us, and was there anything special we needed to do? and they said that we just needed to put her in a carrier and put a dish in for water since they'd give her some on the flight. That seemed a bit too easy, but that's all the person said. Sara then searched the Air Canada website to see if there were anymore requirements, but again, nothing.
So just to play it safe, we show up at the airport 5 hours early. They send us away and said come back 3 hours before our flight, which we did. We waited an hour in line, and when the guy finally looks at the cat in her cage, he pulls out a check list, and tells us our cage doesn't meet the requirements, and we can't take her like that. We argue that we hadn't been told that, all he can suggest is that we go into the city and buy a new one. For one, we spent *months* looking for a cat carrier, all we could find was a hamster cage, for another, we didn't even know where to *go* in Shanghi to find a cage, and thirdly it's an hour taxi ride one way to the city (and about 150 RMB which is a lot, a normal taxi ride for us was 8-12 RMB!). By this time it was 2 hours to take off, we'd never make it! They had over booked our flight and were offering people money to take the flight tomorrow, but that just wasn't an option for us. We spent about an hour arguing with this dude, the highlights of which involve him telling us that the cat is going to be *crushed* in the cage, even though I could *sit* on it. To which we asked what the hell they'd be doing to our cat! And then offered to sign a waiver saying that if our cat was tragically crushed because of the cage we wouldn't hold the airline responsible. To which he replied, and I will never forget this OMG, "You may be ok with taking that risk, but what about the cat? The cat cannot speak, so *I* must speak for the cat!" And he was totally serious and kind of passionate when he said that. Sara and I just stared drop jawed at him for a bit and then said, "It's better than letting loose on the streets of Shanghi!"
Nearing the end, he tried to put his foot down and tell us we'd *have* to take the flight tomorrow, and I said it wasn't possible, because I had to get home to my dying grandfather, and started crying. He could just *not* handle that. He grabbed Sara and started taking her to all the stores in the airport to see if *they* sold cat carriers (no, but we were offered a burlap sack and a suit case), meanwhile I'm sitting there, with 7 suit cases, 2 backpacks, my purse, a cat in a hamster cage, bawling my eyes out while others are trying to check their luggage. Some times people would come up and try to pet the cat through the cage, and I'd just cry harder. Finally the guy brought his boss in, who rolled her eyes and did what we first suggested and had us sign a piece of paper saying we wouldn't sue them if the cat died. Sara had to do it, since I was still kind of crying.
How's school going?
Good, good. I did well first semester, 3.08 GPA (I hope that means something to you, because it means *nothing* to me, we generally don't use GPAs in Canada). This semester isn't going to be as nice, my schedule sucks, and the two classes that I was looking forward to have crappy teachers (seriously one of them showed up for the *only* class 30 minutes late and announce that he hated this course, didn't know why he had to teach it, and that he isn't going to be very good at teaching it since he hates it so.) I'm sure it'll be ok though.