The Best Laid Plans of Mice and Men...

I can't count the number of times my hopes have been dashed on the sight of my empty mailbox in the past week. Every day I hope to find my passport among the petition letters and credit card offers that seem to flood our house, but every day I fail to do just that. When I woke up this morning, I thought I would be flying over the Atlantic ocean 24 hours later. Instead, after just 5 hours of stressful waiting the mail came, and I frantically began calling everyone I could think of, making countless contingency plans - a lost mail claim, a new passport application appointment, flight rescheduling. I finally found a sort of calm when all the chaos was done and I was content - not happy, but content - to wait. I'd canceled my flight and rescheduled it for Monday June 24, soon after what the automated machine told me was the first available passport appointment. I was fully prepared to call the San Francisco passport office at 6:03 every morning until I found a cancellation, and to pay whatever was necessary to get me to Europe ASAP. So I was fairly calm at 5:00 tonight when I approached a local USPS supervisor wandering our street on my dad's hunch that he might have something I had been waiting for. He did, just two hours too late. So now I have my passport and a flight reservation for this Sunday June 15, am out over $100 (thanks to STA, it's only that much) and can hardly believe that, had things gone my way, I would have been boarding British Airways flight 286 for London right about now. It could be worse, everyone tells me. I think I can accept that.

STA Travel Rocks

I thought I'd write my first post before I leave. I've been planning (and stressing) about this trip for weeks now, and I think my travel agency, STA Travel, deserves mention here. They are really amazing. They specialize in student travel and have given me some great deals. I'm technically doing a round trip flight to Johannesburg with a three week layover in London, and am getting the good price and flexibility that comes with a student ticket - The first date change is only $35. There are a lot of STA offices around, and everyone I've talked to (at the San Francisco, Berkeley, and Davis offices) has been incredibly nice, cheerful, and helpful. Way to go STA!