Few days ago my mother in law arrived for her three-month visit. Usually there shouldn’t be much to write about yet as it takes few days until her crazy stuff begins but this time she outdid herself. It already started at the airport here in Finland. I believe she just can’t wait to give me material to write about.

The day started pretty normal except that her flight was suddenly one hour early but this didn’t cause us any sweat as we live only 15-20min away from the airport. We managed to arrive just few minutes after the plane landed so we were in no hurry as it takes some time for the passengers to leave the plane and get their luggage. So we waited in the arrival hall, waited a bit more and waited even longer until we stayed there for over one hour. All the time we saw other Chinese passengers from the same flight passing us by but no sign of mother in law. We called some friends who are working at the airport to check the gate and the luggage claim but they could only tell us that there were no Chinese people left in those places and that the sign for the flight from Chongqing was gone as well from the luggage claim.

What had happened to my beloved mother in law? We knew she boarded the flight as she had sent a message before shutting off her phone in the plane and the Helsinki airport is pretty tiny so there are not really many places for her to hide from us and our friends. We went to the information center and made some calls but still nothing. On the way back to the arrival hall we saw a group of people, a very emotional mother in law in company with a not so happy looking border guard and a smiling translator.

The border guard and the translator told us then what all went from after she had left the plane. Apparently she did not go through the passport control but through the transfer area where she ended up in the middle of the airport again. After she got some advice from other people she found her way finally back to the passport control but there a new dilemma started. Sure she had her passport and flight tickets but they also wanted to see her invitation letter which she received from us so she could even get the visa. After much discussion in some special room for passport and visa problems the border guard told her “If we don’t find your daughter in the arrival hall we have to send you back”, wow, very nice, I wonder how he would feel if his mother is in a foreign country and is suddenly forced to show some papers no one even knew before to have with them at the airport…

All ended well, they found us/ we found them and mother in law was allowed to pick up her luggage and leave the airport to come with us. Now we have a full apartment, the noise level is constantly high that I don’t even dare to concentrate on any kind of task which requires my head and hopefully our baby will be born in one of these days.

 

Now I hope that the next posting will be about our baby to be born or it will be about further adventures of my mom in law.