This Island Europe

Unless you've been living under a rock for the last few days, Europe is abuzz with the news of Iceland's Eyjafjallajokull volcano belching all sorts of ash and microscopic glass particles-- a function of its hot liquid magma mixing with the icecap. As a result, European air travel has been all but cut off, and the stranded passengers have been overrunning every other mode of transportation all weekend long, meaning that our day trip was scrubbed due to the roads and trains being packed, and a lot of people's international travel plans thrown for a complete loop. Hopefully, if the volcano continues its ways for much longer (I've read that the last time Eyjafjallajokull erupted was 200 years ago... for 1 year straight), the airlines will have figured work-arounds and alternate routes to get from A to B. I don't relish having to fly to Portland by way of Senegal and Buenos Aires in a couple months, but you gotta do what you gotta do. In the meantime, our thoughts go out to the stranded passengers-- the backlog will take over a week to sort itself out-- assuming those planes can get off the ground in the first place.