Eyjafjallajökull

Ohhh Iceland. What a place. What a volcano! I've officially had the best excuse to miss school though--"Sorry, I'm trapped in Germany because of the volcanic eruption so I won't be in class this week!" When I have kids, it won't be, "Well when I was your age, I had to walk uphill both ways to school through snow and rain!" It'll turn into, "When I was your age, I had to fight through volcanic ash to get to school!" BEAT THAT!

What started off as a quick trip to visit Betsy again in Neuss, Germany turned into a week-long vacation! I'm not complaining; I love Germany!! I decided to go visit her again because I had so much fun there over spring break earlier this semester and it was her birthday last Thursday so she wanted me to come for her Hawaiian party on Saturday. I flew into Dusseldorf Weeze Airport Thursday morning at 9 AM (which meant that the night before, I didn't sleep seeing as I had to leave my dorm room at 3 AM in order to get to the airport and check in on time) and hopped on a bus that left at 9:30. I got into the Dusseldorf main station an hour and a half later and then hopped on a train to Neuss, where Betsy lives 10 minutes away. Betsy's neighbor let me into her apartment and after quickly unpacking and showering, I slept until she got home from work! I was exhausted!! That night we went out for a birthday dinner with her friends Meghan and Dave and afterwards, Dave left but we had drinks with Sven and D. It was really fun just sitting around talking because I really like all of them.

The next morning, Friday, I slept in while Besty (unfortunately) had to work. I ended up going to visit her at school, which was pretty cool. We watched Sven's gym class for a while and then it was time to get ready for Betsy's class: 7th grade English. She gave them free time so we go to just sort of hang out. They are crazy!! They were running around and yelling... one little boy started telling me about the loudest noises in history, the first of which was the Big Bang. Really?? He was a little weirdo... Anyway, Friday night we went to the Skihalle, where we went last time I visited, with Meghan, D, Sven, Dave and two random guys I hadn’t met before. It was crazy as usual—packed with people and German techno music blaring!

Saturday, Betsy and I went to D’s barbeque on the Rhine, which was really fun. The weather was absolutely beautiful and I learned how to throw a rugby ball! Always a good skill to have, right? We left after about two hours because we had to start getting ready for the big night: Betsy’s birthday party, Hawaiian-themed! By the time we both finally showered and figured out what we were going to wear, it was time to leave. We headed into Dusseldorf and met everyone at the bar she chose, and let me tell you, we were NOT easy to miss! We looked like a rainbow exploded. We all had bright, tropical colors on and we were all wearing leis! D was rocking a shell bra and a grass skirt and another friend, Fabrice, got to wear the flower bra. It was so much fun!! Especially the karaoke at the end of the night/beginning of the morning… Haha J

Sunday, we slept in and met Meghan for lunch. The three of us wandered through a really nice park in Neuss and ended up discovering a little restaurant where we met some flight attendants who were also stranded because of the volcano. We found out on Saturday that my flight was cancelled until at least Tuesday, but when we were talking to them, they said they were stuck until Friday which naturally sent us into a little bit of a panic. We decided to go to Betsy’s friend Andre’s house that night for a barbeque (apparently that’s the thing to do in Germany). It was a lot of fun! We scrounged up some steaks to bring and when we got there, we learned how to make some lime drinks! It ended up being the three of us, Andre, Iwan (the Dutchman who was planning to go to South Africa with Andre for work but they couldn’t fly out thanks to Iceland…), D, Clare and Harmon (two of Betsy’s friends), a girl named B, and Andre’s brother at the BBQ. His brother was nice… but talked about very random things. Out of nowhere he turned to Meghan and asked when her birthday way and what her zodiac sign was… a slightly bizarre conversation but a conversation nonetheless. We stayed for a long time but eventually had to leave because Betsy had some grading to do for her classes on Monday. Andre pawned off the rest of his box of limes on Betsy so we acquired about 20 limes!

Monday began my extended vacation in Neuss. I slept in while Betsy headed to work, and I tried to get my life in order—I spent a lot of the next few days emailing and checking planes, trains, and automobiles (haha) to get myself home! I didn’t really want to leave, to be perfectly honest, but I did miss my friends and finals were coming up… plus, I was missing my last week of classes (bummer! …not). After work, Betsy and I met Meghan and Dave and Sven’s apartment and we headed to a restaurant for dinner—it ended up being closed, though, so we decided on a Chinese buffet down the road. It was HUGE and completely decked out in Chinese everything. We decided it must have been owned by the Chinese mafia because there were barely any people in the restaurant (how were they making money??), the workers had to wear photo ID badges, and the stairs going downstairs to the bathrooms had a barred door. It was a little bizarre!! Definitely an adventure night…

Tuesday was similar to Monday, except that I had to go to the key place and get a copy of Betsy’s keys, and I had to go grocery shopping. The only German I know is “danke.” Great. The key place involved a lot of miming and smiling, but eventually I got the keys copied successfully! Grocery shopping was a little crazier because I know nothing about food to begin with and I know nothing about German food either. I looked up a recipe with chicken and limes (we needed to start getting rid of them somehow!) so I wrote down the English AND German words for the ingredients and headed to Penny Mart. I actually came back pretty successfully, although I wasn’t able to find tortillas for our chicken tacos… it ended up being chicken taco filling on rice. It was good, though! Betsy whipped it up and it was tasty! Probably better with tortillas but at least we had leftovers for lunch the next day.

Wednesday was the panic day. The volcano erupted again and we started to really get in gear to find a way home. I went to the train station to find out how much trains to French coastal cities would cost so I could take a ferry across the channel. It was not a pleasant price so we were reallllly hoping that I’d be able to fly. Although, by Wednesday night, we hadn’t heard anything about my flight being cancelled, and since last time it was cancelled they gave me at least a full day of warning, we started to feel better. We went to dinner with Meghan and their teacher friends who were from Texas and were really nice. That was a lot of fun, and after dinner we went to a bar for one last time! We hung out for a while and then headed back to the apartment for what we hoped would be my last night!

Thursday, I woke up and immediately checked RyanAir to see if anything was cancelled and it looked clear so I packed up, cleaned the apartment, and headed to Betsy’s school to visit! In one of her classes, the kids took a test on the Aztecs and I did a worksheet on long division—apparently I need to brush up on my skills… oops! After school we walked home and I made sure I had everything packed before we left for the station. We took the train into Dusseldorf and walked to the bus stop and waited. And waited. And waited. It was 10 minutes late, which was no big deal except that it was the last bus of the day going to the airport and we were worried that it wasn’t coming! It was a huge relief getting on the bus and getting to the airport. Now I’m home in London for a couple more weeks until Grandpa and Grandma come and we’re off to Scotland. Should be fun!!

:)

Jackie