Back At It

I finished my first day back at work yesterday and as with most first days post vacation, it felt strange, a little surreal, as if I didn't really believe I was back.

Not much jet lag this time around. I think I'm getting used to it. The Ash Cloud Gods we kind to us and we managed to make it on all of our flights there and back on time.

The only delay was upon coming home where the air traffic was so congested, our plane wasn't allowed to take off for 2 hours. Luckily our connection afterwards was booked with lots of leeway.

It wasn't until we got home we found out friends of ours who were heading to France last weekend were delayed 10 hrs.

They are planning to head to the south of France to take part in the Monaco Grand Prix / Cannes Film Festival and then journey to Portugal... hope for them, the cloud has drifted away from the area by then.

We did take evasive action should we become stranded in Berlin or Amsterdam by figuring out which hotels / apartments had availability and jotting down numbers, addresses etc.

We figured should entire flights get cancelled, we didn't want to be part of the mass all trying to find hotels etc at the same time. It would be easier to know where we'd like to be ahead of time and just hop in a taxi and GO.

I have to admit, airport personnel were really on the ball. Most of the people connecting our flight coming home missed their connection and it was announced upon arrival that everyone had been rebooked and new boarding passed will be printed.

Everyone we encountered were genuinely concerned about getting people home as quickly as possible.

We know we got lucky. We could have easily been stranded. It has made us consider travelling to different parts of the world for the time being until the volcano calms down -- places like New Zealand, French Polynesia, Asia etc.

Berlin was awesome. Not at all what we expected. Liked it enough to consider owning real estate there. Will post a travelogue soon.