About that volcano

Didn't I just write about traveling alone, and how it was a new experience for me? I said something like,

At the same time, I think traveling alone shows you a lot more about how you handle yourself in foreign countries, and how you deal with various travel situations. It also presents a lot of time for self-reflection--and for all those reasons, I think I will do it again at some point, for a longer period of time.

Well, well, well. Life certainly has a way of giving you what you ask for, in unorthodox ways. My prediction about solo travel was brought to fruition by none other than the Icelandic volcano Eyjafjallajokull, otherwise known as The Volcano No One Had Ever Heard Of Until Everyone Hated It.

My flight from Paris to Prague on Thursday afternoon (the 15th) went smoothly; the volcano hadn't done any damage at that point. However, Lydia was due to arrive in Prague (from London) at around 9 p.m. the same day...and she never made it. Only as I type this, nearly a week later, is British airspace finally opening up to flights. It's still a little dodgy as to whether things will begin to return to normal around here, but suffice to say that it has been quite an adventure.

Four solo days in Prague. The first thing to say about that is, well--solo travel isn't exactly solo travel. When you're aware of the fact that you're traveling by yourself, you become aware of those around you who are as well, and if you're me, you find yourself connecting and interacting with complete strangers in ways you might never have, had you been traveling with friends.

Case in point was a lovely encounter I had at a vegetarian restaurant in Prague. Having spent the morning securing a way back to England (more on that later), and then touring the city's Jewish Quarter, I was exhausted and very much in need of a comfortable place to sit down. I picked Lehka Hlava out of my Rick Steves' guidebook, and managed to navigate through tiny, winding streets just to find it.

I was seated at a table for two, and sitting next to me at another two-person table was a woman in her early thirties. After a few minutes of looking at the menu, she commented on my Rick Steves book, showing me the identical copy she had in her bag. We started chatting, and the waitress, upon returning to take our orders, suggested we move to one table. We did. She was a New Zealand lawyer who had just finished a term with the military in Afghanistan, and was taking some time to unwind in Europe before returning home for her next posting. I won't go into the details of our conversation, but it was a thoroughly enjoyable lunch, and not just because of the red lentil soup or goat cheese salad.

I have half a dozen other stories like that one; big and small. The Australian girl who I toured Terezin, a Jewish concentration camp, with; the Johns Hopkins student I met at the hostel who knew my boyfriend's a capella group; the friendly Turkish man in my dormitory who was thrilled to learn that I loved visiting his country. But what I want to take a second to tell you about now is my journey home.

See, it started to become evident, after several days of flight cancellations, that my Tuesday (today) flight from Prague to London Gatwick probably wasn't going to happen. I started to explore my options, just as the hysteria amidst the news cycle rose to a fever pitch. (Seriously, some people interviewed on the news sounded a bit silly--foreigners "stranded" at a luxury hotel in Dubai freaking out about how they were going to get home, complaining that they had to "shop at the market for food" in order to save money? Please.)

On Sunday morning, I went to the Prague train station and waited in line for almost an hour, along with a whole host of expat travelers. One British couple I talked to said that they'd investigated renting a car, but the companies were charging so much money that it was almost worth it to buy a used car and drive it themselves! When I got to the front of the line, the man at the desk informed me tersely, "No flight to London. Nothing." I had anticipated this, and asked about Brussels, thinking I would be able to get there and then figure out my options--Eurostar to London, perhaps. But when I learned that in total, the journey home would cost about 380 Euros, I realized that was out of the picture. So I thanked him politely--it wasn't his fault that the volcano had made his job miserable, dealing with anxious foreigners--and headed to the bus station.

Lucky for me, the first window I walked up to was staffed by a very sweet Czech girl who told me there were tickets available on a Monday night bus to London. "Direct?" I asked. She assured me that there were no transfers, and told me I could have a ticket reduced from 100 E to 90 E because I was a student. After thinking about it for about 30 seconds (I did have a day trip already planned for Monday, and the 5 pm departure meant I'd have to skip the day trip), I decided to go for it. I had no other conceivable way of getting home. And boy, am I glad I bought that ticket.

Fast forward through the rest of my time in Prague (which was wonderful). Monday afternoon, 3:45 p.m. I arrived at Florenc bus station in the city center early, because we did not have seats assigned on our tickets.

Chaos.

Probably 700-800 people, spilling around the bus bays and into the parking lot and bus lanes and under the awnings of the terminal. All stressed. All pushing. All shouting. All trying so very hard to make it onto a bus. Not a very nice display of humanity; more Lord of the Flies than anything else.

I wish I had been able to take a photo, but I was too busy trying to figure out how I, a small individual with a bag, would manage to a) deposit my bag in the bus hold and b) fight my way through the mob to the front in order to actually board the bus. Even if I could do one, I didn't think I could accomplish the other. It was just a riot. Enter John and Cecile, a lovely British-French couple who I struck up a conversation with. For no other apparent reason than simple kindness, they adopted me. Cecile took our three tickets and struggled to make her way into the mob near the bus door, and John and I took the bags and finally managed to stow them in the bottom of the bus. Cecile was near the front of the group by that point, though people were shoving her in every direction in an attempt to push their tickets under the poor bus driver's nose. ("I was here first! I've been waiting for hours!" "And you think I haven't! Bloody hell!" ...yeah, people were really angry). John used his body as a shield for our path up to Cecile, and we finally made it on the bus, but it was HARD. People were not moving. In fact, they were throwing elbows and suitcases in attempts to not only get on the bus themselves, but to prevent you from getting on before they did.

The trip was supposed to take 18 hours, with several stops. The first was still in the Czech Republic--here's our bus, and the sunset.

The company was called Gumdrop. I love it.

The second was in Germany, at about 1 a.m. Here's what was pretty unappetizing in that rest stop at 1 in the morning:

And here's me, expressing my joy about the fact that I can now say that I've "been" to Germany.

Belgium at 4 a.m. and by 8:30, we'd gone through customs at the ferry port in Calais, France. The best part of the ferry ride (besides the hot chocolate that John and Cecile bought me) was the amazing light on the water and the views of the (White) Cliffs of Dover!

Three more hours on the bus from Dover to London (including a torturous drive AROUND Victoria Station that seemed to take forever--after 20+ hours on the bus, since we'd hit traffic in Germany, we wanted off! now!) and then 90 minutes back to Oxford on the Oxford Tube, and I was home. 

My favorite part about my 22 hour ordeal was the community that developed on the top floor of my bus. Besides John and Cecile, there were three young-ish Brits sitting near me, several older British couples, and a woman from Vancouver who currently lives in the UK, and they were all so friendly and made the trip so much easier. Especially considering the conversations we overheard from several seats back, between a very, very posh British man who was making comments on his cell and to his seatmate (poor girl) about those "working class Brits" around him and "Americans who didn't understand language or how to use it." Direct quotes. All of the British people around me were mortified, telling me that the man was the one who was clueless, and that he was more or less ridiculous. Judge for yourself, from a photo I took of him doing stretches at a rest stop:

Though it may have been the rude behavior of a fellow Brit, it proved to be a common eye-rolling/giggling point throughout the ride, as he kept up a social commentary on everything from Americans to medicine to English history, all heavily flavored with his own personal bias.

All things considered, my trip home was relatively painless. I have to admit that I'm pretty proud that I found a route home and managed it fairly well, especially considering that my longest bus ride to date was 10 hours. But between Betty Friedan, my iPod, and the lovely people sitting around me, I made it home.

I have a lot to do in the next few days--figuring out tutes for this term, housing stuff for next year, etc. etc. But I'll do my best to start catch-up on Turkey, Paris, and Prague.

It's been quite a holiday.