Monday, January 12, 2026

Last night I took my Diphenhydramine and Zopiclona tablets and went to bed at 9pm, finally waking/getting up by alarm at 5am.

I took my shower, dressed, and quickly finished the last of my packing.

Kely arrived with her van by 6:15 and took us to the airport for 170,000 pesos. (I was expecting closer to 150,000 pesos.)

We got in a long line by the COPA desk and when it was our turn the girl at the counter asked for my DR Customs form. I gave her the e-ticket application code QD9AKO but she said she needed this and showed me a QR Code. I tried to explain they never gave me a QR Code. They need a QR Code so I scanned the QR Code she showed me in order to download the form. We moved to a counter in Juan Valdez where we could start the process again. I could no longer find the form on my cellphone (careful where you put your fingers) so I had to return to the desk and wait for her to finish with someone else. I got the form and returned to Juan Valdez. There was a young lady there helping Teresa with the form on Teresa’s cellphone. I started working on my cellphone but when I got to my date of birth it was to be in YY/MM/DD order. I was able to enter the year but the drop-down boxes for the rest didn’t work. The young lady tried it too, scrolling up and down the form but couldn’t get it to work either. She started to take out her laptop so I took out mine and we started working in tandem on it. We got the form entered, thanked her, and returned to the desk. By then it was 8:30 for our 9:17 flight so we had missed it.

Now we had to book a new flight. The girl gave us the US COPA Call Center phone number of +1 601 357-2030 and sent us over to the Customer Service desk to rebook our flight. Teresa talked to the lady and she dialed a number on her landline and handed me the phone. Their automated system asked for the Airline Reservation Code she had written down as B6HJBI and the first 3 letters of my last name. I was told they couldn’t find it in their system. After a couple more attempts I realized the “6” she had written down was actually a “G”. ☹  I gave them the correct Reservation Code and it was a short wait to be connected to an agent. I talked to someone in English and we discussed taking a new flight. She said we would have to go through someone else that handled Expedia accounts and I was put on hold for a few minutes. He came back on and informed me that the next flight only has one seat available and I would have to upgrade to Business Class. I asked how much that would cost and was put on hold again. He came back a few minutes later and was told $1,143.30 per person or $2,286.60 total. I communicated that to Teresa then asked when the next regular flight would be. I was put on hold and when he returned I was told it would be Wednesday for $146 per person. Much more reasonable. I didn’t have that many dollars with me so I asked how much that would be in pesos. He put me on hold then came back and said there would be a $75 per person penalty of some kind. I asked him to give me the total, just two numbers in dollars and pesos. He said the total would be $319.55 or 1,187,786 pesos. I tried to pay for it with my Capital One debit card but it said my expiration date was invalid. (I’m guessing somehow this was because my new debit card was in the mail.)  I asked him to enter the amount in the system and thanked him and we stopped at the ATMs but Davivienda was out of order. Banco de Bogota worked so I withdrew 1,000,000 pesos. I took the cash back to the check-in desk and when it was our turn gave her my Expedia Reservation Code of BGHJBI. She checked the system and informed me that the 1,187,786 pesos was per person. Now we were stuck because I can only make one withdrawal daily from my Capital One account. ☹ I tried using my debit card and she scanned my card and it worked (probably because they don’t have to enter an expiration date). She gave us a receipt for 2,605,573 pesos (later Capital One showed 2,751,546 pesos ($737)) and a “passenger receipt” with our new flight information and we went outside the terminal to catch a taxi. It was raining as I asked Teresa if she realized this was the departure terminal not the arrivals but a taxi was just dropping someone off and he was happy to take us to Envigado for 100,000 pesos.

We were both exhausted and we both hit the hay for about an hour.

Teresa found enough food to make us lunch and I basically crashed on the recliner the remainder of the day. I’m not sure if I was angry with myself or depressed but I didn’t even feel like working on my blog at that point.

I found a Dominican Republic form online and started filling it out. When it came to my birthday, it brought up a calendar for January, 2026 and I had to press the left key 963 times to get to my birth month. Later I had to repeat the process for Teresa to get to 1958. ☹ After completing the form it wanted $39 per person before submitting the form. I know it should be free but I guess I got caught by some service and it took so long to complete I paid the fee. I got an email acknowledging the payment but so far haven’t received the necessary QR Code. ☹

I watched another episode of Run Away, watched the 40’ version of the Bears game again then some news. About 10pm I read some from my Kindle before going to bed at 10:30.

 

RELEASE ALL THE EPSTEIN FILES NOW!

 

FUNNY