Proving to myself once and for all that I have a cool demeanor when things go to shit

To the list of places we will spend time before ultimately arriving in Barcelona, which was the first planned stop on our vacation, the first to involve a hotel and museums and exploring, and maybe Sangria, we can now add one more city, two more airports, and one more airline. And by the time it's said and done, six cab rides. Oh, and one more country. We're headed to Paris. Tonight. From New York.

Paris was never in the itinerary. For that matter, neither was New York.

This is the story of a passport lost somewhere between Houston and Cleveland. It's a story of some wonderful and helpful people at Continental Airlines, from the staff in the President's Club to the staff in Baggage and the people at OnePass. It's the story of bags being pulled from the flight we were supposed to be on, and nobody being able to do a thing but so many people wanting to do so much. International travel laws, the ones about having to have a Passport, they don't bend. It's also a story of a cab driver who last night gave us so much good advice and information that as I write, my friend is at a Passport office he suggested, the one that's not the busiest in the city, getting a new passport. In record time. In this city.

Our trip resumes in ten hours. Or so we think. In the meantime, I'm heading out for a stroll. Might as well see some sights while I'm here.