Carol is the only person I have ever known who can turn a fool’s errand into a certain done deal. For almost three years, we’ve been sitting on a pair of Eurail passes that had gone unused originally due to Covid. A series of extensions kept them valid through the period of travel restrictions, but by the time we were ready to activate them for train travel in Europe again, I was positive any reasonable statute of limitations on the passes would have run out. On top of everything else, they were complimentary in the first place, an in-kind compensation for an article I had written for their online magazine.  This is the link:

https://www.interrail.eu/en/magazine/travel-stories/a-magic-carpet-made-of-steel

   But Carol still thought otherwise of the passes expiration. So I wrote an email; Carol wrote an email. Mine was never answered (more the norm in freelance  journalism correspondence). The reply to hers, however, included two freshly minted global passes for 10 days of first class rail travel anywhere in Europe. They are valid for the next 11 months to boot. Carol is now my official (and unpaid) literary agent. And thanks to her knack with the customer service industry, I’m more than likely to be aboard a high speed train in a first class car on my birthday. There will be a glass of wine on our tray tables.

But the flexibility of Eurail means even that broad plan doesn’t have to be worth the cocktail napkin it’s scribbled on.

   Carol chalks it up to a belief in the value of persistence. But it’s more than that. I’m persistent up to a point. But then comes that point where my persistence devolves into an increasing and quite audible frustration that might or might not be interpreted as a live hostage crisis. With Carol, the more the frustration level rises, the sweeter she gets. By the end of what would have become an acrimonious confrontation falling just short restraining orders against me, Carol tends to end all her customer service interactions with the agent believing he or she is now a close family friend. 

   The current rail plan is a loop through France to Barcelona and maybe beyond, and then back to Paris and home. But the flexibility of Eurail means even that broad plan doesn’t have to be worth the cocktail napkin it’s scribbled on. We have ten days of train travel spread out over two months covering a geography as far and wide as, say, Zurich to Vienna, Budapest and Venice – which currently encompasses the second half of our rail odyssey. 

   The open endedness of travel this way has the added pleasure of random discussions of going anywhere and doing anything. So far we’ve had discussions of a soccer game (possibly in Barcelona), a bullfight in Madrid (not the season) and a tour of the wild horses of Camargue. The chances are also excellent that we’ll do none of that; a cozy Cafe or several, a wood fired pizza restaurant and reservations aboard a high speed train are really all the bases that have to be covered. 

   Or I can just follow along behind Carol, which has already proven to be the only way to travel.