Ryan's European Adventures

I’ll never forget the day that my working holiday visa finally arrived in the mail….22 hours before my flight to Reykjavík, Iceland. For the entire year previous, I have been planning a working holiday in Ireland through Canada’s Students Working Abroad Program. I graduated from university and finished my last military contract in December of 2013, and then started to prepare for my move abroad. During the planning phase, I recalled a conversation I had during a previous weekend trip to Montreal with a fellow traveler. We got talking about his trip to Europe and he told me about when he flew out, he flew with Icelandair for the reason that you can purchase one ticket and fly from Canada to most major airports in Europe, but you can also elect to make a stopover in Iceland for up to five days on that same ticket. Considering this, I as well wanted to book my flights from Canada to Europe and to also see Iceland. Why not!
Picking the dates for my flights was tricky. I caught wind that my favorite band was starting a week-long tour in the UK and saw that they had a show scheduled for London right at the beginning of February. Not wanting to miss this, I booked my flights departing Canada that included a 4 night stopover in Iceland, and continuing on to London in time to attend the concert. This plan seemed to like it was going to work out perfectly, right? Well, not so much. There was a slight mishap.
The catch was that I had to have all my travel logistics straightened out even before applying for my visa. Flights had to be booked, passport up to date, bank statement approved and the rest of the boring stuff out of the way. I submitted all my papers on the 17th of December in which adhered to the minimum 6-week turn around time from paperwork submission to date of departure with the visa. After the Christmas holidays were over, I was in contact with my travel counselor who told me the Irish embassy in Ottawa "needed extra processing time" for my visa. I started feeling uneasy and almost started to freak out. I started asking myself if I needed to change my flights, "do I miss the concert? Do I miss out visiting Iceland? Can I see Iceland on the way back?" My travel advisor told me not to change my flights just in case if it did arrive on time after all. After a few sleepless nights drafting new travel plans in my head, I woke up to my phone ringing with the good news that my visa had arrived, and all plans were 100% a go for the next day! Close call!