OK, so everybody is talking about Eyjafjallajökull at the moment, the volcano in Iceland that causes so much trouble for all of Europe. And honestly: I’m laughing my head off about it. I know that’s not fair, I know I would be SO annoyed if it would affect me in any way – but it does not, and it’s just crazy to see how much we all depend on flight traffic.

But let’s back up. I first read about the eruption on Twitter on Wednesday evening, when some Norwegian posted something about flights not going because of a volcano in Iceland. Huh, what?!? Checked aftenposten.no – oj, yeah, now that looks bad! Will it affect Germany as well? spiegel.de and tagesschau.de didn’t have anything. Or well, yes, spiegel.de did – a month old article about the first eruption, duuh. news.google.de gave me some Austrian and Swiss news sites that were at least saying that “scientists suspect there might have been an eruption”. Well, okay. I guess Norwegian online news are just faster than German. (Which is no surprise though, I have experienced that before – I would never think about checking the internet for what has happened when walking by some crime scene in Oslo. Norwegians do. And it works…)

OK, so I guess I was one of the first Germans to hear about the eruption. And I felt glad that I hadn’t planned on traveling to Norway this weekend – I had considered it because of the Kaizers Orchestra laiv and because I haven’t been there for so long (more than two months now!!!1), but decided not to go. Puuuh…

The next morning, it was actually on the radio. We discussed it during lunch – with people laughing at me because I doubted the weather would really be so nice this weekend, with all the ashes in the air… At that time, I was still convinced the airports down in the south wouldn’t be closed, but I expected we’d get at least some ashes, like we get Sahara sand in summer. Turned out the airports in northern Germany were closed the same day, and the ones in the south on Friday morning…

As I wasn’t traveling, I had time to keep track of those who were trying to travel. In Norway, they started replacing flights by busses – funny idea, uhem. *g* The Norwegian band Katzenjammer posted they wouldn’t be able to make it to Bremen the next day – because the ferries were fully booked. (That means they weren’t trying ALL that hard though – they could have driven via Copenhagen, that would have been feasible. ;))
And on Twitter, it was really crazy following the WWE wrestlers who are currently on a tour through Europe – for once, they are now stuck in Europe, which is probably not the best feeling you can have after two weeks of constant touring… And then, they had to get to their next shows. Which meant Hanover-Zurich for one part (which isn’t much of a problem), and Lille-Belfast for the other part. Uhm. France to Ireland WITHOUT flights? No way. But yes, obviously there was a way (bus-ferry-bus-ferry-bus *g*), they made it to Belfast in time. To quote from Twitter: “sleeps overrated anyway”. Hell yeah, that’s dedication… (OK, dedication from promoter’s side, I assume. *g*)

Anyway, today the news continued. A colleague who’s traveling to China (yesterday: “When are you flying?” – “Saturday.” today: “You are flying tomorrow?” – “I have no clue…” *lol*), the state funeral in Poland where the guests can’t come, the thought that Metallica might be stuck in Norway, Norwegian soccer teams that have to spend hours on the bus (and they might not make it anyway because of… guess what… snow falls! *rofl*), Merkel being rerouted to Portugal (hey, it’s only a thirty-some hours drive to Berlin from there!). I know it’s not funny, but somehow it is. Never thought about how much we depend on flight traffic…

(Oh, and the fact that you can do millions of stupid word plays around ash or aske doesn’t make it less funny. Not at all. *lol*
At least as long as you’re not affected, I know…)

Update: Obviously, WWE is now trying to somehow get their wrestlers out of Europe in time. By carting them from Zurich to Madrid (!!), probably hoping that Madrid airport will still be open when they get there… 😮
Wait, are we being evacuated here and nobody told me?
(Yes, still joking, but I AM getting a bit sarcastic…)