On our way and a travel nightmare

April 17, 2013, 9:00 AM 

Departure day has finally come!  We're ready and eager to get back to the Camino and start walking again.

Our flight just took off from San Diego.  We can now turn on our electronic devices in airplane mode.  This iPad is still new to me.  At the terminal while we were waiting to board, the iPad said it was connected to wifi but nothing worked.  Hope that's not a sign of what's to come while we are on the Camino and hoping to connect to Internet, email and blog.  

April 18, 3:00 AM (Dallas time), somewhere over the Atlantic

We boarded our connecting flight in Dallas as scheduled.  Then after all the passengers were all seated on the aircraft the announcement came...'bad news, we would all have to disembark so they could check the plane'.  At the gate we were told that our plane could not cross the Atlantic.  We would have to wait for another plane. 

The delay would not have been that bad except that this flight was only getting us to Paris.  We had booked a separate flight to Toulouse, via Lyon.  Now we would miss that flight.  The change fee and new flight charge was steep so our next option is to see about taking a train once we get there.

We finally boarded the flight and I checked email on my phone one last time, just on time to receive two fraud alerts from American Express.  Had just enough time to call and learn that my card had been used for several questionable transactions in Canada.  Was able to cancel the transactions and the card immediately.

While we now aren't sure how we will get to Toulouse because of this flight delay, there is a silver lining.  We found out about the credit card fraud right when it happened and were able to take care of it before the problem could get worse.  

April 18, 4:00 pm, Lyon, France

We actually made it to our next flight with literally one minute to spare.  The plane made up some time with the help of tail winds.  We had a half hour to get thru customs, baggage claim, shuttle to a different terminal, and run to ticketing, then found that the flight was delayed 20 minutes.  We're now in Lyon waiting for our connecting flight to Toulouse.  We're back on schedule again!

Not quite a nightmare any more, but plenty of excitement for sure!