F*&K the volcano

We enjoyed our 'last night' in Barcelona with a flamenco dancing performance by the famous Joaquin Cortes. To finish the evening perfectly, we searched for a spanish tapas bar with some live spanish music. After two hours, we gave up and settled for nachos at an Irish pub with karaoke. Not quite the same, but memorable nonetheless. In my head today, I can still hear the 'eh eh eh eh eh eh eh eh eh eh eh eh' of a butchered version of Lady Gaga's Telephone. 

When we arrived home, we learned that the airports in France were still closed, so we would not be making our Monday journey home. We considered our options, weighed them against our varying levels of urgency to return to Fontainebleau, and came up with the following ranking i) a one way car rental, ii) a train, iii) a series of buses, iv) stay in barcelona indefinitely. 

We looked in to renting a car and finally found a place that would consider a one way rental, only to decide that we were not going to pay the $2,500 that they demanded for it. So, we looked at the train alternative and found that it was not possible to book tickets on line - we would have to go to the train station in person the next morning. And we did. 

We arrived at the train station at 8am this morning to discover this:.

so much for getting back to paris by train.

So we went to the bus station and found that a civil war had broken out. Not a battle we were prepared to enter.

next available bus? thursday.

and now we have come back to our flat to wait it out until the airports open again. another few days in barcelona wont be too bad. For us, this is more or less a humorous roadblock. But I can imagine that there are people in europe who actually have important reasons to be different places. To think that travel in western europe has been brought to a halt as a consequence of something as seemingly innocuous as a cloud is astounding. Don't fuck with Iceland!