#TheDayThatWouldn’tHaveBeen

Sunday morning 3:30am. I crept out of bed and got dressed. One of the girls in my room was just returning from a night out as I passed her in the doorway.
My taxi arrived and I sleepily got in hoping I had all my essentials for travel. The airport was small but had been decorated with a few Lord Of The Rings statues. Smaug was buried in the wall, one eye opening and closing- keeping an eye on the passerbys. Gandalf hung from the ceiling on a huge eagle, his staff raised high into the air. “This is pretty cool!” I thought to myself.

You know what isn’t cool? Having your flight cancelled at 6:30am! Standing in a queue for the majority of my adult life and then being made homeless by the airline because it’s not their fault it’s foggy!
Rage filled me as I was unable to rationalise and perform adult responsibilities at this hour! I could feel the tears burning behind my eyes as I thought of my precious pennies going on more taxis, hostels and food.

I FaceTimed Becky and we did ugly chin selfies to cheer me up! It worked! I booked a hostel and arranged to meet a girl from a Facebook group for lunch. (Don’t meet strangers online kids unless you are alone in a strange city! Then it’s fine!)
And it was fine! She was just as lovely as she was behind the keyboard. Her husband joined us and we chatted over middle eastern food.

I got back to my hostel feeling much brighter than I had for the last few days. I had unlimited WiFi so I decided to put my jammies on and veg out with a bit of stand up comedy on YouTube! It wasn’t long before I drifted to sleep. An hour or so later the door snapped open.
“Oh sorry!” Came the voice by the door!
I sat up and decided to be sociable. She had come up for a nap but unfortunately for her, she made the mistake of telling me she is a psychology student, so we chatted for HOURS about our relevant fields. She was from Amsterdam but spoke perfect English (tbf, it’s probably better than mine) so conversation was easy and fun. The best part is that she will be in Melbourne when I get there in a week so we’ve already made a plan to visit Phillip island together!
I’ve also instructed her to relay all of her lessons to me so that I can be a trained psychologist without any of the tedious textbooks or essay writing.

I thought it was funny that the day I wasn’t supposed to have ended up being one of the nicest days I’d had in Wellington since the tour ended. I’d made two new friends and had plans to meet again. The only downside was having to hand wash a pair of pants and use a hairdryer to blow them dry!