Blessing in Disguise (continued)

Today is my deadline for the article revision, and I haven't done anything about it yet. Well, they only wanted me to revise the non essential things in my writing, but I'd like my writing to be perfect since this is a second chance, right? And since it will be published worldwide, I cannot embarrass my university by writing a mediocre article (though I don't know very well about a perfect article hehehe). So here I am, trying to make my writing more powerful.

Errrrrrr....I don't know what to write, though I have been thinking about it very much since I was given the chance to revise it for more than two weeks! I know I have to write something about the need for leadership in a poor community in Indonesia, it's all in my head but never comes to my fingers :-P

Instead, I feel the urge to recall my "blessing in disguise" experience while hoping my numb brain to be a little smart so that I could finish the revision today.

Starting with the day when my friend and I planned to go to Turkey embassy to apply for the visa. That very morning I realized I haven't prepared documents for visa application. So I rushed to the office at 8.30 am and asked my secretary to write a letter for the embassy. Well, I already had one actually, but I didn't know where I kept it so I asked her to write another letter. My friend kept calling me and it's already 9 am. The office was open only until 11 am for visa application, and my friend had already been there.

I rushed to Kuningan from Pasar Minggu, damn....total traffic jam! In short, I arrived in the embassy at 11 am. Hehehe...My friend (well...without her I won't have my blessings I guess...thanks Mbak) told her husband to issue the ticket in a travel agent office (the deadline for issuing the ticket is 12 pm that day). So we kind of dividing jobs so that all the businesses are done in time. I haven't changed my IDR into USD yet, so she lent me the money. It was soooo kind of her.

At the embassy, we got to queue up, and we got number 34 and 35. The queuing was only number 10...it was really like a nightmare...Finishing the application form, it's still number 11, the queuing was going very slowly. I killed my time by reading some tour guides available, when suddenly a guy dropped us a number 14 queue and murmured "you need this". Stoned a while, then we happily hopped into the queuing, well it's still no.12 but I don't mind waiting behind 2 other people. We collected our documents into one doc only. The business was ended smoothly by 12 pm. Well, there was some trade-in business there, I helped the lady from the embassy for her community charity and she helped me with my visa (obviously I need one more help from her the day after).

On the way home to office, my friend told me that her husband already bought the ticket and on his way home he was called by the lady from the travel agency and told him that there was a mistake about the price. I didn't really understand why they could issue that ticket in the first place. She told him that she didn't saw the tax incurred and blah blah blah...so we had to add the tax (USD25 each). It's really really really annoying...I called the lady and said I'd like to cancel it immediately. My friend agreed with me, and we called the other travel agency. The deadline for issuing the ticket was tomorrow at 12pm, so I told my friend that we were going to issue the ticket tomorrow.

In the afternoon, suddenly a professor from Nijmegen e-mailed me about his going to invite me to visit his university on my way to Turkey. This had me think of the serendipity phenomenon happened in my life. Did the cancelled ticket has something to do with the invitation, or was it about my dream to come to Europe so the nature really helped me this time? Or the professor really listened to my dream that I really really wanted to come to Europe months ago when he visited us in Jakarta? Or like a friend of mine who is so lucky this year, I also am so lucky? Whatever the reason was, it's surely a very sweet serendipity happened in my life. So that night I called my friend that I changed my plan, and will tell her my plan tomorrow morning.

She again helped me finding budget airlines to extend my trip to Netherlands. The lady from the Turkey embassy helped me extend my visa in Turkey for another week so that I could transit in Istanbul on my way from Amsterdam to Jakarta (thank you...). And that very day...I had a ticket of Jakarta - Istanbul - Amsterdam - Istanbul - Jakarta, but had to pay another USD400ish. Well....it's very worth it I guess. And what's left? Of cooozzz.....the visa for entering Europe!! Helloooo...Turkey is not a member of EU!!! (...to be continued)