International travel: S**t's gonna happen.

We had three objectives in mind for our travels to India on Nov. 3.

1. No checked luggage; 

2. Connect through Lisbon, Portugal, as we intend to spend March 14- through April 12 there before returning to the USA.

3. Reach Delhi by Nov. 5 to meetup with our friends for a trip to southern India.

We had so many connnections this time to accommodate the Lisbon connection and our timeframe, that we knew there would be a good chance our bags would not make it to our final destination, Delhi. 

Our planned itinerary began in Minneapolis then to Chicago, Chicago to Paris, Paris to Lisbon, Lisbon to Dubai, Dubai to Delhi. 

It turned out to be a very wise move on our part to have only carry-on, as once we reached Paris, we got hung up in security (so short -staffed) that we missed our flight to Lisbon. And that, caused a cascade of issues. The next flight to Lisbon, would have had us miss the Dubai connection, and then possibly the Delhi connection. So, as we sometimes have to do, we had to suck up the financial loss and rebook a direct flight the next day from Paris to Dubai (skipping Lisbon) which meant we had to spend the night in a Paris hotel near the airport.

Pretty confusing! We reached Delhi about 2 a.m. on Nov. 5.

Take-away lessons:

• Go non-stop if at all possible, when flying international;
• Make sure your phone is charged at all times;
• Log into the airport wifi, whenever possible;
• Carry airline customer service numbers with you. You may not be able to locate a "live" person to help you at the airport, especially if your connections involve multiple airlines. You will save a lot of time and headache trying to work out connection issues;
• Be sure to carry water and some snack, your "dollar" may be no good in the foreign airport terminal.
• Most important- stay calm, take it from me getting worked up will get you nowhere. Shit's gonna happen when you travel, it is best to just stay calm.