I believe I have just made my most expensive travel mistake, so far…hopefully ever. At 6am this morning I landed bleary eyed but full of beans in London and hopped on a coach to transfer between airports and fly on to Madrid. While I dozed on the bus, inwardly I was congratulating myself for packing light for a change (only one carry on! only two pairs of shoes!) and for feeling so comfortable navigating through my solo travels. Silly me.

I breezed past sleepy travellers at Stansted to present my boarding pass and passport to the Ryanair attendant at the visa check. “Today is April 5th, yeah?”, he asked. “It is!”, I beamed back at him.
“…your ticket is for yesterday, miss.”

I could not believe it. What a stupid mistake. How much time did I spend triple checking all my details before leaving, and I didn’t notice that I booked a flight for the day before?! Unbelievable. (On the bright side, I would just like the record to show that despite being faced with my own ridiculous stupidity and a bit of travel stress, no tears were shed. As a fairly emotional/teary airport person, I’m proud.)

Luckily, I was able to get squeezed on to the same flight for today (the flight I thought I was on), but I I don’t want to tell you how much that cost. Suffice it to say that it was expensive, even the Ryanair lady felt bad for me, and I could have just flown directly from Ottawa to Madrid for what this trip ended up costing me. It’s an expensive travel lesson…but, I’m still on my way to Madrid, so I won’t dwell too much. Madre mia.

…And for all this fun, minus the botched plane ticket purchase, I have Laura to thank. When my wonderful friend Laura suggested we travel together in April, I wasn’t too sure that I could swing it with my school schedule, but I was keen. Then I decided I’d be able to travel in between my exams (always a responsible decision) and unfortunately Laura found out she was no longer able to take the time off from work (she’s a busy nurse with more responsibilities than I).
So our travel plans together were dashed, but Laura had planted the seed in my brain and I was spending too much time looking up cheap flights (or what would have been cheap if I booked it for the right day)…and now here I am– eight months after coming home from Europe I’m baaaaaack!

Thank you, Laura, for encouraging my wanderlust! Next time we’ll be on the plane together.
Here’s hoping there are no more mishaps– I swear I’ve done this before.
Happy weekend! x