Paris – Getting there

Andrew and I went to Paris last week. My aunt and uncle have an apartment there and they generously gave us a week in it as a wedding present. So for Andrew’s spring break we headed over there. We used miles (one of the benefits of all the travel I do) and with the free place to stay, we actually had a very cheap vacation!

We flew out of Dallas because it took significantly less miles and because we could drop Chuy off at my parents house. As we were getting ready to leave Austin we made the pile of everything we were taking in the living room. Andrew walked out and was shocked at how much stuff we had:

- My suitcase
- My carry-on bag
- Andrew’s suitcase
- Andrew’s carry-on bag
- Andrew’s dress clothes (Andrew had to fly out of Dallas again as soon as we got back to go to a conference and needed a suit)
- Chuy’s crate
- Chuy’s toys, food bowls, leashes, etc
- Cooler (Chuy’s food needs to be refrigerated)
- Bag of books and stuff for Dallas (I think every book a Balaze owns gets read by at least two people in the family and usually more)

It all got in the car, but as dog seems to require about as much stuff as a baby, it appears we are done with traveling light for a while.

We got in the car and headed up to Dallas without incident. After a nice meal and some catching up we went to bed. Early in the morning we headed to DFW. We were taking a flight from Dallas to New York’s La Guardia and then we needed to get to JFK on our own for the evening flight to Paris. We didn’t check any bags, which made the transfer easier. After looking at the options, we could either do a bus/subway/tram combo to get from La Guardia to JFK or we could take a cab. We decided on the cab. Or, I should say, I overruled Andrew and we took a cab.

When we got off the plane in La Guardia we both had cell phone messages from our credit card company. Apparently our card had suspicious activity on it, and sure enough, the number had been stolen. The company said they would send us a new card but in the meantime, we were to cut up our card. Luckily, we have an emergency credit card for just this situation…

After going through a second round of security at JFK and several hours in the Admirals Club we boarded and were off!