Carolyn Has a Ding-Dong Day.

The best laid plans of mice, men, and dogs . . .

Sometimes I am a ding-dong. Je fais des bêtises (I do stupid things). I feel lucky if I catch my ding-dong-edness before it has major repercussions.

Yesterday was a ding-dong day.

Our journey to and from France now involves three separate legs - United Airlines from Austin to Newark, La Compagnie Airlines from Newark to Paris, and a train from Paris to Montpellier. We have decided that this route is the least stressful way to do the trip with our two dogs - for them and for us.

The downside is that these legs are completely separate reservations. We have to book separately with two airlines who don’t work with each other. The result is that our flights are not on one itinerary and when we arrive in Newark we have to grab our bags and recheck them. It also means calling each airline separately to make sure there is room on the plane for the dogs.

I have written about this before - the airlines make you purchase the ticket before you know if there is space for your dog. You have to call within 24 hours of purchase, so if there is no space, you can change your flight with no charge. I don’t know why you can’t call and ask before purchase. Did they have an overflow of random people calling about dogs who then never bought a ticket? I mean that does sound like a delightful pastime: this Sunday I just want to relax and be on hold with an airline for a few hours.

Yesterday it was time to book the train from Paris to Montpellier (which I recommend doing at least a month before travel if you want to make sure to get the cheapest, most direct journey). We have learned we need to be on the first level of a two-tier train. Being on the second level means going up a very narrow passageway with all our luggage and the dogs in their carriers. We can’t do it in one trip and it becomes a game of a fox, a chicken, and a bag of chicken food are on one side of the river, how do you get them across the river without eating each other?

I went to double check the arrival time of our plane in Paris and saw something alarming. The itinerary said we were leaving Newark on October 8 and arriving in Paris on October 9. On our calendar it says that we leave Austin on October 10 and arrive on the 11th. WTF?

I quickly checked the United leg of the trip - it said October 10, as I had thought. I checked my confirmation emails about 100 times, sure that I was missing something. Alas no. Somehow I had made reservations for these flights two days apart, with the Paris leg leaving two days before our flight to New York.

It’s not completely random that this could happen. I probably began by making reservations for both flights on the 8th, and when United said there was no space for the dogs I changed it to the 10th. But that means I just FORGOT to call the other airline and do the same??

That doesn’t sound right, even for a ding-dong like me. I like to think that I changed both flights and someone at the airline forgot to press “Save.”

Yes. It was definitely the fault of the airline.

I called both United and La Compagnie to figure out a course of action and of course both said there would be a fee. But thank GOD, the French airline’s fee was less AND they had space for the dogs on the 10th.

Whew. Crisis averted. (Stop having heart-attack. Laugh and pretend it was no big deal so Roberto won’t start calling me “Ding-dong Cohagan.”)

These moments are becoming par for the course, not just because I am getting older and losing my mind memory. There are so many balls in the air when one tries to live abroad, it’s inevitable that you miss things. People say to us, “You live part time in France? That must be so dreamy!” And it is. But sometimes there are a million steps and a LOT of stress to attain that dream.

Jusqu’à la prochaine fois,

Carolyn & Roberto

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