Jason was going to fly home to the Bay Area on the 18th and we would ‘officially’ start driving on the 19th.
Who would’ve ever guessed that a volcano almost got in the way of our road trip.
A volcano erupted in Iceland on Wednesday of the week prior and a huge cloud of ash from the volcano had gone into the air and was disrupting air travel. Natalie and Jason didn’t seem too concerned as it only impacted the British flights at this point. As the weekend neared, though, it was clear Natalie was getting a little freaked out and she was on the phone pretty late at night with Jason (he was still in Geneva) talking about ‘options.’ I was kind of perturbed, because all this late night talking was interrupting my sleep and I definitely didn’t want to be tired for frisbee play at Fuji park the following morning.
The ‘options’ Natalie and Jason were discussing had to do with how to get Jason home. By Saturday morning, Jason’s flight had been canceled out of Geneva. This volcanic ash cloud was moving south and had covered all of Switzerland.
Jason, being the resourceful traveler he is and the owner of over a half million frequent flyer miles got to work on finding a way home. I can say for sure that Natalie was not too keen on driving cross-country without Jason and based on what I could make of the conversation, I had to get to NYC by April 29th in order to board this Queen Mary 2 ship. Plus, Natalie (and I) really wanted to see Jason. Therefore, Jason had to get home.
Well, Jason found his flight – he was set to fly out of Madrid on Monday morning, April 19th and get into San Diego that evening. San Diego was the first part of our trip (we would be seeing friends and family down there), so, this worked out well. Natalie and I would plan to drive down and meet Jason.
The only issue with this plan was that Jason could not get from Geneva to Madrid. Since everyone else in Europe was also scrambling to get around, rental cars, trains, buses, etc. were completely booked. To make matters worse, the French were on a train strike and in order to get from Geneva to Madrid, Jason would have to go through France.
Somehow, Jason managed to get one of the last rental cars out of the French part of the Geneva airport. Therefore, we knew that at least Jason would make it to the south of France. Unfortunately though, in Europe, if a rental car is returned in a different country it was rented from the cost is approximately $1,500. This was not an option, so, Jason had to figure out how to get into Spain from France.
When Jason finally arrived in the South of France (it was Sunday evening by this time), he returned his rental car and was waiting for a taxi to get to the train/bus station. Jason happened to meet a very nice, yet frantic, British couple while waiting for the taxi. The British couple mentioned to Jason that they were trying to return their rented Mercedes in Spain and they were going to be charged $1,500 because they rented the car in France......
Oddly enough, Spain was exactly where Jason needed to go and $1,500 is exactly what the British couple did not want to pay, so, the British couple let Jason drive their car back into Spain and they rented a car to get back to where they were going in France.
Therefore, Jason didn’t need to worry about trains, or buses! He now had a really nice Mercedes, which he could drive right into Barcelona!
(Jason entering Barcelona!!)
Once Jason got into Barcelona, he then got the high speed train into Madrid and made it into Madrid late that evening.
Again, Jason and Natalie were on the phone throughout this entire experience and Natalie was again freaking out because the Spanish air authorities had closed some of the Spanish airports at one point during the day. Luckily, the airports were opened back up and remained that way.
Jason made it onto his flight and he was on his way home. It was now time for my and Natalie’s journey south.
Paws,
Sabrina
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