The Travel from Hell

April 22, 2010 at 8:59 pm (Uncategorized)

Oh, sweet Freiburg. How I have missed thee. I finally got back today after being gone for 2 1/2 weeks. It was not supposed to be this long of a vacay, though. In fact, it was supposed to be 4 days shorter. See, this is how the story went:

Day 1 of travel issues, Thursday, April 15: IES kids receive word that a volcano in Iceland has erupted and will probably have some sort of impact on our travel plans back home. While in Athens, a beautiful city, we are not too worried about being stuck there for a few more days. Oh, how we were so naive…

As the weekend goes by, there is an underlying level of stress as airports continue to shut down due to the ash cloud spreading across Europe. We go to the beach and visit the tourist sites around the city, trying to keep our minds off of school and travel as long as possible.

Sunday, April 18: We go to the airport to find that our plane has (not surprisingly) been cancelled. We were prepared for this, as the ash cloud had continually caused much disruption throughout Europe. Stressed, but still in relatively good moods, we go to rebook our flight for Tuesday, hoping that we can try to relax and enjoy the rest of our now extended trip.

Monday: Stress while attempting to relax. We had fun in each other’s company, but still longed for home…Monday night rolls around and we are informed of our new (forced) travel plans. We will take a 3 hour train to get on a 20 hour ferry to get to a 12 hour bus. Oh, the joys. Let the breakdowns ensue.

Tuesday: We embark on our hellish journey that yields no sleep due to a lack of beds. From 10 AM Tuesday to 3 AM Thursday we are traveling. No breaks. No beds. One shower that smelled of urine. I was officially home sick. And not for Freiburg. For real home. Alabama. Sweet home…

But now I’m back in Freiburg and am already feeling better. I haven’t really slept much because we were forced to go to class at 10 AM after getting in at 3 AM. Then we had extra classes to make up for time lost. And I have class at 9 AM tomorrow morning. IES, I am definitely not a fan right now. I appreciate you getting me home, don’t get me wrong. But I would appreciate that you would not treat us like we are at fault for this whole volcanic incident.

Enough ranting. I’m just exhausted and upset. I have so much work to do, as well. I hope I will at least get to enjoy my last few weeks here.

At least it will make for a good story to tell my (sister’s) children…