Volcanic Ash Clouds Mess Up Everything

The adventure began before I even left. An email from my advisor Sunday afternoon warned me that London Heathrow Airport would be closing for several hours (thanks to a volcanic ash cloud hovering over southern England), a situation that could potentially cancel or delay my entire route to Poland.

I spent quite a while on hold waiting to speak with a United Airlines represent. All she could tell me to do was wait. And I did. I set my alarm for 2 a.m. and 3 a.m. (flight scheduled to depart Indy at 6 a.m.) to check to see if my flights were still on. They were. And now I sit writing this blog in a coffee shop in London Heathrow Airport. It's 2 a.m. here, Tuesday.

I met some interesting people today. On my first flight I sat next to a guy from Germany. His name was Remlot (sp?) and he has a daughter studying nursing in Nicaragua. On the next flight I sat next to a guy from New York who recently took a job with Xerox. They are relocating him to London, and for the past couple of months he's been making frequent trips abroad. By July his wife and two sons (ages 5 & 8) will move to London with him. He was pleasant company. I did my best to stay awake the entire 8-hour flight because I thought it would help me with jet-lag. I figured once I got to London it would be nearly 11 p.m. I'd crash in a hotel and sleep the whole night through. That was the plan.

The only problem with that was the fact that there are no available hotels in the area. According to the hotel desk at Heathrow, they could offer me a room for $600 at the hotel right next to the Airport. No thanks. (Although now that it's 2 a.m. I would consider paying good money for a shower and bed.) Apparently this whole volcanic ash cloud has caused delays and cancellations that are keeping the nearby hotels filled to capacity.

In the process of looking for a hotel and arguing with the guy at the desk, I met eight Irish guys who were in a similar situation. (They are flying back to Ireland from a bachelor party weekend in Prague). They felt sorry for me and decided to include me in their hotel search. At one point they thought they had four rooms at a hotel 9km away. They offered to get a fifth room for me and I said, heck yea. 75 quid per person, they said. (That's roughly $115 US). I hung around with them and suddenly the offer fell through. I'm not sure what happened. At that point it was almost midnight and we all congregated to the one 24-hour coffee shop in the Airport. Everyone is here. People are sleeping in the strangest places. I have a chair in a corner right now, but I'm considering the floor. If I don't get any sleep here, it will be almost 40 hours I've been awake by the time I get to bed in Poland tomorrow. I feel gross.

The guys are entertaining, but I need some rest. If they promise to keep an eye on my stuff, I might try to squeeze in a 2-hour nap. Next flight: London to Munich at 7:25 a.m. From there, I'm off to Poland. I should be in my Polish dorm by Tuesday night. You probably shouldn't expect a blog entry at that point. I'll be out. zzz