Rule My Heart & Mi Chabela: Bella's journey - goodbye USA, hello Germany

So we moved back to Germany. Heart got lovely new home at Bits&Bytes farm and Bella would move to Germany with us. While we returned to Germany Bella moved to Houston, Texas for a 30 day quarantine.

Day of flight was April 10th. It turned out to be April 11th due to bad weather in Houston. We drove to Luxembourg to pick her up on Friday April 12th. They were due do touch down the day before, then they changed it to Friday morning. It ended up being Friday 11:40am. For us that meant long hours of waiting in the cold at the airports cargo pick up.

funny truck we passed on the way - "Caution, toys on the fly" lol

gorgeous rainbow on our way to pick up Bella

Basti taking our new SUV apart to kill time while waiting

Our Toyota and trailer waiting for Bella...

a container with horses on it's way to the stalls. Maybe Bella inside?

The wind and rain disheveled both of us, but other than me I think Basti kind of looked cute like that ;)

disheveled me

the gate behind which Bella is waiting

Around 3:30pm we finally got the go to drive in and pick up Bella. They asked us if we knew our horse and when we affirmed that, they sent us in to go look for her. She was nibbling at her hay and I almost didn't recognize her. Her summer coat is so much darker than her winter one and she has changed to summer almost all the way since I left her in the USA. She also looked like she was really puzzled to see us there :) We took her out and wanted to load her, but Bella thought otherwise. I think she was sick of getting stuck in a trailer. It took us a couple of attempts and trying every single method we could think of. When all other horses were loaded and I almost out of ideas, she finally just walked in after me and a handful of hay.

Bella waiting in her stall at the airport

first attempt of loading her. It took three.

non mum, not another trailer!


two hoofs, that's as much as she would give us for a long time...

I think it was around 5 by the time we finally had her loaded and headed out on the road back home. Another 7 hour drive ahead of us... I guess it could have been a bit less of a drive, but our GPS decided to fail just there and than and the first part of the trip until it finally decided to do it's job again was a bit of a pass and fail without any type of a map.

We arrived at Bella's new home around midnight. All of us more than exhausted.

a gorgeous little castle on the way home

so which are hills and which are clouds?

Bella's first glimps at her new home. Not much to see in the dark...

inspecting her new stall and her new neighbours

When I came to the barn this morning to check on her she was in the indoor arena. They had put her in there around 7 in the morning so she could stretch her legs. She looked at me when I came in, but stayed at the opposite end like she was afraid I would stick her in a trailer again. I took her out and we went for a walk around the barn. Later the barn owner gave us a small grass paddock for her to enjoy the nice weather.