*Phew* sometimes it's complicated!

Well well well.

I love to travel, but sometimes, man o man, it gets complicated.  We're supposed to be leaving tomorrow to go down to Paris and then on to Catalunya, the original plan was a train to Paris, then a couple of days later, a train to Perpignan - cause the train that goes right to BCN doesn't accept dogs (????).  Then a rental car for 2 days from Perpignan to drive down into Catalunya, leave the dog and me behind the man returns the car and comes back on the train.  Complicated enough, you'd have thought...but

The first train, they automatically - as in they told me after I had purchased it and I had not choice - the mailed the ticket to my address in Canada.  Not convenient as I am not in Canada. 

Then the french went on strike.  But it seems that train is travelling!  YIPEE!!!

But, the next train is on a day they are declaring a massive national strike, and so my darling sister got me onto an organization called driiveme, which links people who want a one way rental to car companies who need their cars repositioned and if it lines up, you get a car for a Euro.  Yesterday we waffled around, do we book it or do we reserve it and hope for the best, you see as it is a car rental agency, it is a little risky as all the cars may be needed that day and they cancel on you.  Well, we figured that as it was a national strike there would be a good chance that every rental (I keep typing 'renal' car - something completely different!!!)  anyway, there would be a good chance that every rental car in the city would be rented and we'd be stranded.  So we sucked it up and booked a camper van, on a 48 hour trip Paris to BCN.  Fingers crossed this works out or my sister will be singing that old line that 'guests and fish start to smell bad after three days' except her apt is a little small, so two will likely do it!!!

We got an official notice that the train from Paris south is cancelled, so we had to go through the process of getting our money back for that, and cancelling the rental car from Perpignan.  The car was easy, the train a little trickier, because with so many strikes, there are about six different places to cancel tickets, but I think we did it right in the end. 

Hopefully the actual travel will be easier than this part has been!