To say the past week has been hectic would be an understatement. Not only is it my last weekend here in London which means I am trying to squeeze in every last thing on my list of things I want to do, but by friend from home Marisa came to visit from Barcelona and got stuck here because of the volcano. That volcano with a name that no one can pronounce turned what should have been a nice relaxing with a friend into a stressful one.
Marisa had arrived late Wednesday night, and Thursday morning on my way to my last day of work I saw a sign in the tube station that said, “volcanic eruption in Iceland, call your airlines to find out about possible cancelations before leaving for the airport.” I remember thinking, oh that’s strange, but kept on going. The first advertisement I saw after I got off the elevator was one for Whale watching in Iceland…love irony. At work I sent my mom an email saying how lucky she was that my family was no longer coming to visit me because their flight would have messed up. I preceded to call Marisa and say how lucky she was that she got in just in time…yeah lucky was a wrong word to use. It quickly became clear that this volcano was going to be a much bigger problem than we had all originally thought. By Saturday air restrictions didn’t seem to be going away anytime soon so Marisa and I started the search for alternates routes back to Barcelona.
The process of getting her home was one of the most stressful and frustrating things I have ever done. We tried to buy her an overnight train ticket from Paris to Barcelona for Sunday night, but when we went to put the credit card information in it said, oh whoops can’t book this train less than 7 days in advance online, go to the Eurorail office in the center of London. Sure no problem, that’s not too far out of the way. On the way there we laughed at the people waiting on the long line outside an airline claims office. Oh those poor souls, trying to deal with the airlines, we are smart and are booking a train. Of course once we finally got to the Eurorail office we quickly realize that the line wasn’t short; rounding the corner we realize holy crap its more than 3 blocks long. After we picked our jaws off the floor we made the long walk to the back of the line, laughing the whole way. What else can you do but laugh. I decided to get us some sandwiches since it seemed we were going to be there for a while. On my way, just out of curiosity, I asked a woman in the front of the line how long she had been there; my heart stopped when she said 9:30…that was 5 hours ago. CRAP!!! (I would apologize for the language but this is the clean version). I brought back sandwiches and some croissants so that we could eat our feelings and we geared up for a long, boring afternoon. Oh but don’t worry yet, we didn’t end up waiting that long because not 20min later a very stressed, unhappy looking Eurorail employee came down and said that we shouldn’t bother waiting because where we were standing we would never make it in before the branch closed and that we should come back on monday. MONDAY!?! You have got to be kidding me…nope wasn’t kidding.
Marisa looking sad after getting kicked off the Eurorail line.
Again laughing Marisa and I decided to go use our tickets for the Tower of London, eat some ice cream, and just forget about this for a while. When we got back that afternoon we sat on my computer, along with my roommates computer (two computers is better than one), from 6pm to almost 11pm looking for ways to get her home. After many many many many many many many many failed attempts (dam you shitting websites and delayed eurostar bookings) including a 27hr bus ride from London to Barcelona that was sold out, we finally made some progress. We soon realized that if we broke up her journey it may be possible. So this is what we ended up with:
First Leg: A eurostar train leaving London at 5:25am on Monday morning…btw on a foldout chair because that’s all that’s left.
Second Leg: A train from Paris to Avignon which is in the south of France, which we weren’t even sure she had because we only got a receipt not a confirmation email.
5 hr wait in France
Third Leg: A bus from Avignon to Barcelona, arriving at 3am Tuesday morning.
Dear Volcano,
YOU SUCK!
Love,
Isabel and Marisa
