Strange coincidences and stupidity tax

It's funny how your life can change so dramatically over the course of a day. Today, I took the biggest step of them all: I've now booked my flights to London (via Japan). There's no going back now.

Of course, nothing I do ever seems to go completely to plan. I woke up early this morning, had some breakfast, listened to some music, had a shower - nothing new there. The biggest difference with this particular Saturday morning was that I knew I was going to book the tickets for my trip in just a few hours. I'd actually planned to do this on Thursday night, but fortune struck again when I went up to Victoria Gardens and found out the travel agent was closed (despite it being late night shopping).

Anyway, when I arrived at the travel agent I spent an hour or so discussing my plans and carefully choosing which flights to take with the very lovely Danielle. By the end of it all, I had bought tickets from Sydney to Osaka on the 23rd of February, then from Osaka to London on the 2nd of March. Perfect - I wanted to arrive before my birthday, this gets me there a week and a half early. I figured there was no point wasting time paying, so I handed over my credit card and it was all done. After a quick warning that I couldn't change my flight plans once I'd paid (unless I wanted to pay a $500 cancellation fee), I was on my way home to pick up my passport for a quick visual verification.

I mentioned in my last post about stupidity tax; I don't know if it's a widely known phenomenon, but this is what I like to call money I've wasted doing something rash or impulsive (read: stupid). Last time it looked like I was going to be paying a stupidity tax for not following the visa application instructions properly. If you were wondering why I mentioned the $500 cancellation fee just now, I think it's time to make the connection.

Coming home, I picked up my passport and flipped to my visa. I'd had a nagging feeling in the back of my mind when I'd paid for my tickets, and now it suddenly hit me what it was: my visa wasn't valid until the 8th of March. That's six days after I arrive. Considering I now had to head back to the travel agent and cancel my flights not 30 minutes after I'd booked them, and considering this simple act was going to cost me $500, I think I kept my cool quite well.

With my tail between my legs, I headed back to see Danielle and break the bad news - which is the exact moment when she became one of my favourite people in the whole world. It turns out that, because my tickets hadn't been issued yet, it wasn't necessary for me to pay the cancellation fee. I didn't have to pay stupidity tax. We could organise new flights. Everything was okay again and I could dislodge the knot that had taken up residence in my stomache.

Another hour later, I walked out with a brand new flight itenarary: this time, I fly from Sydney to Tokyo on the 28th of February (which is great, I don't miss out on seeing Tokyo now!), then on the 8th of March I fly from Tokyo to London. Better yet, these new flights were even cheaper than the last lot - I saved a whole two dollars! Hey, when you're facing a $500 fine for being negligent in intelligence, you savour every positive moment where you can.

So that's my travel schedule. It's a little closer than I was expecting, but it's turned out to be perfect. I get to spend an extra day in Japan, I don't have to stay in Newcastle for as long as I thought I would and I get to see in my thirties exactly how I wanted.

Seeing how things had gone so well today, I figured I should celebrate a little tonight. I thought it'd be nice to stay in, eat some junk food and watch a movie, so I strapped on my shoes and headed out the door to visit my favourite pizza place. By strange coincidence, just as I was about to turn the corner to head to my car I noticed something sticking out of my mailbox: a menu for a pizza shop. A menu for the exact pizza shop I was about to drive to. I'm not superstitious by any means, but I figured this was a definite sign that my course was the correct one.