Well, as of last night Emily and I are back in good ol’ San Antonio, having “survived” being “stranded” in Europe courtesy of that now infamous volcano in Iceland’s shenanigans.
A good number of you sent us very encouraging e-mails over the past week or so, encouraging us to “hang in there”, “be safe”, etc.
While I genuinely appreciate everyone’s concern, I have to come clean with something. Here it is: The past week hasn’t really been as big a nightmare as the media would have liked you to believe.
Not for us, at least.
In fact, we made the best of a few extra days in Europe and ended up actually enjoying it.
How’s that, you say? Weren’t there a few days of uncertainty there? Isn’t it true that everyone was utterly stuck wherever they were when the ash cloud hit the proverbial fan?
Well, yes…and sort of.
No doubt, the first three days after the issue first presented itself, we were utterly in limbo. We were in Berlin and scheduled to go, of all places, Amsterdam. All of the sudden literally everyone who needed to go either to Amsterdam or anywhere on that side of the continent (including, and especially, the UK) was in a panic.
Furthermore, our flight back to the US was scheduled for three days time…and there was literally nothing we could do for the time being but wait and see what the conditions were when the time came.
As we went to Berlin’s Tegel airport that first morning amidst conflicting news reports about what exactly was going on, the taxi driver had laughed and told us all the flights were canceled–even though the Internet had clearly shown our flight to be “scheduled”.
When we got there, sure enough all flights were grounded.
Standing in line to learn from Malev Airlines’ agent what our options were grounded, we saw firsthand confirmation of a fascinating reality. Human beings, when faced with negative situations that are beyond their direct control are amazingly laid-back about it.
Even as a guy next to us was being interviewed for an English-speaking news outlet who prodded with questions like, “What is the mood? Aren’t you frustrated and angry?” he wasn’t either…and neither were any of the others around us.
In fact, people were joking and laughing. The situation was what it was. And while people were indeed very worried and fearful about the unknown, they weren’t throwing rocks at stars in anger.
Once we got to the agent, we were told that our flight could be rescheduled for the next morning at 11 am.
The prevailing option appeared to be “wait”. And having overheard numerous other in line ahead of us, that option was being taken by almost everyone…all of whom had been taken by utter surprise and caught off guard completely.
But you know what? We decided not to to stay put and wait along with everyone else.
Why not? Simple. Not every situation that appears to be completely beyond one’s control really is. And this scenario fit that description fantastically.
Sure, the volcano itself was beyond our control. But how to proceed in doing what was best in the situation was not.
So first, rather than passively accepting what the airline recommended and therefore descending into “self preservation” mode with everyone else, we simply refused to let our vacation be ruined by what was going on.
We had completed our wonderful visit to Berlin. Our reserved hotel room for the night was in Amsterdam, and that’s where we needed to be.
That seemed like so obvious a choice in the moment, but as it turned out it was a revolutionary thought. Over the next week we’d meet virtually nobody else from the UK or North America who wasn’t frantically trying to get home as soon as possible.
So we went to the train station and hopped the very next train to Amsterdam…inexpensively. Getting a ticket was impossibly easy. And once Malev had refunded the ticket for our still-canceled flight upon request a day later, we were actually a significant number of Euros ahead. Go figure.
And while in Amsterdam, we took the planned tours and drank some beer. And each night we took a picture of the sunset our of our hotel window–which grew ever smokier in appearance each day.
With reports of the last eruption of this thing having lasted almost two years, I already suspected that we shouldn’t plan on everything clearing up anytime soon. Further reports of the same volcano erupting several hundred years ago and casting a blanket of poisonous gas over northern Europe and wiping out tens of thousands of people got my attention. Finally, with the ash cloud subtly expanding it’s reach, there was only one strategic choice: Head to the city that was simultaneously the most accessible and least likely to be affected by the volcano.
Madrid, Spain.
There was only one problem. We had to wait until our flight to New York was officially canceled.
We had a hotel room until then. Meanwhile, others whose flights had been canceled early on were staying at the airport…on cots provided by the Red Cross.
Some truly were out of money and had no other choice. But a ton of others were–you guessed it–passively waiting for a flight out. Still others had automatically assumed all the hotels in Amsterdam would be full, and dared not move.
We met one couple, in fact, who although financially liquid had spent three nights in the airport…not wanting to miss their connecting flight from Dubai to Vancouver should it actually take off. The airlines had been moving the “window” out in six to 12 hour increments at a time.
Finally, our new friends had ventured out of the airport to see Amsterdam.
For our part, I wondered what Continental’s policy would be when our flight was canceled. We were scheduled to be on a codeshare flight operated by Lufthansa, and until Monday morning came there was no advice other than to plan for the flight.
Forget that. I was already online looking for flights out of Madrid. Mexicana from Madrid to San Antonio via Mexico City had open seats.
Knowing what the sky looked like out there, I had already resigned myself to missing the 140 Conference in New York.
Then Sunday night came, and our Monday morning flight was officially canceled. I got on Skype and called Continental, having prepared for the worst but expecting the best and ready to negotiate either to the best possible end result. That’s the only way to go in life.
Continental could not have been better to work with. “We’re unconditionally rescheduling anyone trapped in Europe on the first available flight from any open airport of their choice. No additional costs will apply.” They even canceled and refunded our separate ticket from New York to San Antonio that would have taken us home from NYC after the 140 conference.
Therefore, Madrid to Newark to San Antonio it was. The soonest available was the following Monday.
A big piece of the puzzle had been solved.
Knowing it was our last night in our Amsterdam hotel, I moved to getting us out of Amsterdam and on to Madrid. No seats on any train from Amsterdam to Paris were available, let alone through to Madrid. I needed another option. Toulouse, France jumped off the map at me. And again, the vast majority of even those who decided to move rather than wait around for a flight still hadn’t thought out of the box…at least not many of them.
Two “standby” seats on a train from Amsterdam to Toulouse were available, but needed to wait an extra day to catch the train than we planned.
Suddenly, we were officially “volcano refugees”. Rather than go to the airport and fall in with the others, I got on Priceline. com. If there was an open hotel room in Amsterdam, Priceline would find it…and it did. The price was still lower than the hotel would have cost on the likes of Expedia.com any day.
We caught the train to Toulouse as planned and enjoyed the Dutch, Belgian and French countryside. Toulouse itself wasn’t the most exciting place ever, but our $50 per night hotel (again, thanks to Priceline.com) was directly across the street from where Airbus planes are manufactured. That was interesting.
But we still had to get from Toulouse to Madrid. Toulouse’s airport was far enough south that it remained open. I had found a flight from Toulouse to Madrid online for about half the price of the train, and completely counter-intuitively I booked it.
That flight took off as scheduled on Thursday after having spent a nice, relaxing day and a half in Toulouse…albeit two hours late.
As we were leaving Toulouse, word came that Europe’s skies were opening back up. Continental e-mailed us shortly thereafter offering us seats on a flight the next morning rather than on Monday.
Having made it all the way to Madrid, we decided to stay until Sunday anyway and got seats for that flight. Again, we got all the way to Spain so why not see the place?
And we enjoyed our vacation. The whole thing.
What happened as a result of the volcano wasn’t an “ordeal”. Far from it. As long as there are men in uniform in Iraq and Afghanistan getting shot at on a daily basis, I’m not naive enough to pretend it was anything of the sort.
I’m not even so sure I’d call it an “adventure”. What it was was a logistical challenge that had to be dealt with, and it was. Funny, I found myself from minute one actually looking forward to getting that challenge handled.
Emily is a strong, mature woman. I’m not sure she exactly needed it, but just the same I held her, told her everything was going to be okay, and I believed it. From there, I came up with a plan and executed upon it–all with her intelligent input, of course.
All I know is that Emily was never scared nor worried. In an odd sort of way the volcano actually made our vacation even more enjoyable. And we’re both glad to be home.
Be Good,
Scot
