Dodging A Bullet

We've all read news stories about a business going under and wondered what happened to the people who had tickets for the cruise or the flight, but Earl and I had never faced that ourselves -- until this week.
Earl was scheduled to fly back to the States next month on Wow Air. That's the cheap airline that lands in Iceland, and they went belly-up on Thursday, leaving him holding useless tickets.
We hadn't heard about Wow Air until our friend Najah flew over last year. She drove from Columbus to Pittsburgh and flew Pittsburgh to Reykjavik to Paris.

Iceland looks a bit bleak

When Earl needed to go home quickly last August (the height of airfare costs from Europe to the States) he flew Wow. Then when I rushed home in February, going one way, the cost was cheapest again on Wow.
I returned on Norwegian, another low cost airfare.
Our experiences were fine, although, at one point when they announced, is there a doctor on board, I thought, "Really, would a doctor fly Wow Air?"
Unlike most airlines, Wow did not have in-seat entertainment. Maybe it seems spoiled to want to have movie and TV choices on an 8 or 9-hour flight, but it sure does make the flights go faster.
When we learned on Thursday about the death of Wow Air, we wondered if we should have been more aware. I had seen an article with the headline like "Why It's Safe to Fly on Wow Air" and I tried to click on it but I was blocked because I didn't have a subscription to The Guardian. That just made me think, huh, I wonder if we shouldn't be flying on Wow.
There was some muttering about financing, but other articles assured that the funding always comes through at the end through Iceland.
So we obliviously scheduled a flight on Wow.
When we saw through our online news that the company had gone under, we regretted not buying the flight insurance. Then we hopped on and rearranged another flight for Earl. We figured that everyone would be looking for replacement flights.
On Travelocity, we found a flight that was even cheaper than the Wow Air flight. So we booked it (he will have to pay for checked luggage since he's taking his backpack home for a hiking trip) but we felt fortunate to be able to schedule so last minute for $631 (561 euros).
Then we had to worry about how to get our money back. CNN told us we were basically screwed. We could file with the company but we would become one of many creditors asking for our money back. Another article suggested that credit card companies might have been keep track of the shaky finances of the airline and have held back money instead of paying upfront.
Earl contacted our credit card company the next day and they said the money would be refunded within 7 days! What a relief, and a reminder that using the right credit card company is important.
So no more WOW, but I'm convinced that we'll be better off choosing a specific airline and flying with them every time to earn points.
And will we be using that credit card again? Yep, whenever we book travel, count on us using our Sapphire card.

Dreaming of France -- Language Practice

This is it -- crunch time. We leave for France in just a few days.
And I'm feeling the pressure to dredge up all that French language I once knew so well. I've been doing Duolingo, but I also have been listening to a podcast called Coffee Break French.

If you haven't discovered podcasts yet, I urge you to give them a try. I listen to some of my favorite radio programs on my podcasts, which I simply download to my phone so that they are there to listen to whenever I have the time.

Coffee Break French has four seasons and I started with the first one. I know the language too well for season one, but it's nice to be reminded about specific sounds.
The lessons last about 15-20 minutes, the time of a good coffee break. The first season goes through the basics like numbers, days, directions, ordering in a restaurant. It's helpful just to listen to the French.
It's also made a bit more fun by the narrator, A Scottish professor of French. I love listening to his accent in English.
We'll see when we arrive if listening to Coffee Break French helped me prepare for my latest trip to France.
It's possible (maybe probable) that the next time I blog, it will be from France.
And, one of the best pieces of news my husband has received is that we scored an exit row for our flight to Paris. That means he'll have a little extra knee room.
Here's how much room he had on the last flight.

So this week, I'm not just dreaming of France, I'm going. Lucky me. 

À toute à l’heure!
Thanks for playing along with Dreaming of France today. I hope you'll visit each others blogs and leave comments too.

Book Review -- Abby's Journey

In the novel Abby's Journey by Steena Holmes, the author tells the story of Abby, a 20-year-old girl who has battled illness all of her life, suddenly healthy for a year.

Her grandmother swoops in with a surprise trip to Europe, especially the Christmas markets in Germany that her mother always dreamed of visiting. Her father, who raised her alone after Abby's mother died in childbirth, resists allowing her to go, fearing for her health and for what his life might be without her at home. This story changes perspective so the story is told through Abby's eyes, through the grandmother, Millie's, viewpoint, and through the father's voice.
What I liked about this book: This was a sweet book with some lovely descriptions. Anyone who enjoys travel will be carried away to Europe in the author's descriptive passages, like this one about the Christmas market in Salzburg from the grandmother's viewpoint:

Author Steena Holmes

Abby grabbed her hand to pull her close, and together they walked arm in arm, down the street. The roads were cobbled, and streetlights in the shape of stars were strung along the lanes, casting a soft glow onto the shops and people as they walked. 

The music, the setting, the large Christmas trees, the illuminated castle up on the hill -- it was all perfect. Everything she'd thought a Christmas market would be and should be. 

 The characters were well developed with many side twists so that Abby's Journey was not the only complication going on. The support of family and of a charming Canadian village added to the overall positive feel of the book.

What could have improved: The tension and drama in the book could have been intensified so that the reader got caught up more, wondering what would occur. I also had a hard time with the basic premise, which was carried out in the first book Saving Abby. In that book, Abby's mother became pregnant with her and realized she had a brain tumor. She refused treatment so that Abby could be born, thus leading to her own death and Abby growing up ill and without a mother. If it were my daughter, no chance that I would let her wait for treatment if she was pregnant. The life we have is more precious than the potential life, in my opinion, plus the sacrifices that the father had to make in order to raise his baby alone. So those controversies played in my mind while I read this novel.

This is definitely a novel that I enjoyed reading, in spite of, or maybe because of, some of the controversies that went with it.

The publisher has offered one free copy of this book to someone in the United States or Canada, so let me know if you're interested and I'll enter you in the giveaway. Make sure I can get in touch with you to get your address if you win.

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