Joe and I bought tickets this morning. (Woo!) One-way from Cincinnati to Paris on September 25 for $560. That nice fare is courtesy of airfare.com. Not too bad, considering that at Delta’s website, a one-way ticket for the very same flight costs more than $1800.

Airline ticket pricing is a great mystery. Why isn’t the cost of a one-way ticket half the cost of a roundtrip ticket? Trains work that way, so why not planes? And why should seats on the same flight cost $1800 on some websites (Delta, Orbitz, Priceline, etc.) and $560 on others? Even my beloved farecompare.com failed me here. (PS: Vayama is the other website that listed a cheap fare for our tickets. It’s still in beta, but it looks like it’s going to be awesome once it starts really working. Cool design.)

But anyway, we have tickets. I still don’t have my contract, but I have a ticket. That’s something.

Joe and I also have new birth certificates–we’ve been telling people we were reborn. This is not because I lost my original birth certificate, but because apparently the French government wants to see recently (re)issued birth certificates before they hand out, say, a carte de séjour. I can’t imagine why. It’s alright, though, because my real birth certificate says I was born in “PUALSKI” county, rather than Pulaski. I’m sure the officials in Dijon would have noticed.

I also have headshots for my visa application. They are, like all the passport-size photos ever taken of me, drop-dead gorgeous. Mostly I hope they’re exactly centered so that my visa application won’t be rejected because of them.

Although, even if my headshots are perfect and my visa application form is written in the neatest handwriting of all time, nothing matters until I receive my contract. I have been assured that it will arrive soon, as in this week, by my special lady friend, but I have also been asked politely to cease and desist calling. Oops.

Posted in France, Joe, travel by rachel