Date: November 17, 2015
Time: 01.40 am.
Duncan and I have just arrived in Perth after spending a meagre 31 hours on airplanes and in airports. "Welcome to Australia and enjoy your holiday!" Holiday? I think. Holiday? But...I'm here for work!
Did I get the wrong visa after all? Or do the people at the Inbound Australian Customs and Border Protection think that working for the RAC is more something of a holiday then work? It's all a bit confusing really.

I had been warned of Australian Customs by so many people. "I always watch 'Border Security: Australia's Front Line'. If you bring in a faulty tea bag, you risk jail." "I know someone who knows someone who was sent back home because of a minor mistake in the visa procedure. In fact, if I recall correctly, they may very well have strip-searched him as well."
And yet, here I am, and all this officer is saying to me is "Enjoy your holiday!"
Being Dutch my normal inclination would be to share my thoughts with the Border Patrol man (we Dutchies are infamous for our Dutch Directness. Other people use less refined words for this 'quality').
But, much to my own surprise, some of the brain cells controlling social behaviour are still active. So I smile to the man, say "Thank you very much" and shuffle off , only to be greeted by the next agent.
Ah..I get it! They are doing the "Good Cop-Bad Cop" thing!
I am expecting for her to start questioning me about my new career as a holiday maker at RAC. So I can't believe my luck when we are simply being directed towards the exit.
The entire process of entering Australia has taken us 5 minutes tops! Maybe my luck has changed!

Rewind a few weeks. On my way to Amsterdam airport for a meeting in Vienna. I receive a long awaited email from the visa agency that is working very hard to get me, a non-convict, to a former convict colony that has gotten so popular nowadays that you really have to try your best to get in. The agency had been working on this since September.

"We have a little setback but also some encouraging news."
Excellent. Encouraging news. Bring it on. (Being me, my alert state immediately rises to DEFCON 2.)
The minor setback: two weeks prior to departure, my visa application has been declined. The encouraging part: they are applying under another scheme and are fairly confident that I will receive my visa before November 20th.

Great.
Apart from the fact that we have tickets for the 15th.
And since that's on a Sunday, and Immigration Offices usually don't do business in weekends, this means I would need to have my visa by Friday the 13th.
"Thank you for informing us about your intended day of travel. We'll do what we can".

Good night and sleep well.
Well, I didn't.

I could have slept well November 10th already,
IF the RAC colleague in charge of arranging my visa had not been in a nasty accident just before receiving that long awaited e-mail.(Thankfully he is doing okay now)
OR IF the visa agency's internet service provider had not just blocked all their outgoing e-mail to Hotmail accounts. An e-mail service I just happen to use.

So it happened that I was not released from my insomnia until the morning of November 12th when I received an e-mail from my manager at RAC stating: "I have been told that you have a copy of this - but just in case you haven't.....

..YEAAAAAAHHHHHH!!!"

I slept like a baby that night.

The Holiday Season has started.It is, after all, the most wonderful time of the year.