As many of you may know, thousands of travellers are stranded in various destinations due to a cloud of volcanic ash from the Eyjafjallajokull volcano. Apparently the ash clogs the engines and makes planes stop working, something I would not want to happen while in the air. Therefore, flights have been cancelled since Wednesday (at least from the UK). Some flights are supposed to be resumed today (Tuesday) but there are questions of when all flights will start running as usual, especially with the threat of another cloud of ash coming our way.
We were taking the bus into the city the other day and Brittany mentioned how empty the city seemed. I said, "Well I guess there aren't any tourists, except the ones that are stuck here." Jen had her flight to Scotland cancelled and Stevie was supposed to have friends coming in last weekend but they weren't able to. Dorothy, our favorite Irish grandmother, was unable to come to the Farewell Dinner because she was stuck in Barcelona with her husband, and Kayla, one of my friends from class, was supposed to come back to Dublin from Turkey this weekend but is stuck there until at least Friday. Cambridge has cancelled its final exams. I hear that trains, buses, and ferries are booked at over a week in advance. I've even heard of people travelling 100 hours to get back to Dublin!
One of the better stories I've heard is about a boy who went for a weekend in Portugal and for some reason his credit card wouldn't work or he did have one on him. He was stuck in Portugal without any way to pay for housing and food so he had to pick oranges to earn some money.
I'm supposed to go to Italy on Friday for a week. I think that I will be able to fly there by then but my concerns are a) not being able to fly back because of another ash cloud and b) not being able to get transportation from Rome to Florence or Venice due to the high demand for buses and trains. Our Plan B if we can't get a train or bus is to rent a car and go on an Italian roadtrip. That could be pretty epic.
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