Travelling under the ash cloud – Edinburgh and Paris

After returning from my trip to China, I stayed on the ground for a bit less than 24 hours. During that time I slept a bit and packed for my next trip. The plan was to attend a conference in Edinburgh, Scotland and then go on to another conference in Chicago, Illinois and then stop for a meeting in Boston on my way home. In other words a real round trip! The stay in Chicago was supposed to last for almost 10 days with time for friends and some tourism.

– But nature wanted it differently …

The trip to Edinburgh went as planned and I had a great time at the conference. There was not much time to take pictures, but I managed to squeeze off a few:

Edinburgh

Spring flowers in Edinburgh

About 5 o’clock in the morning of April the 15th I woke up to the phone ringing in my hotel room. The night porter was surfing the net and had followed the development as a volcano erupted on Iceland. One of the developments was that ashes were spreading through the air space and airports in the south of Norway was closing. Airports in the UK and the northern parts of Europe were expected to follow suit. Bless the man for alerting me. I was booked on the 8 o’clock flight to London and he thought I could try to get out there early to catch a flight before the airport were closed.

The airport was closed. Thanks to the night porter though, I was out there early and was able to secure a seat on an early train to London. There was still a chance to catch that flight to Chicago later in the day from Heathrow! Approaching London I got an SMS saying that my flight was cancelled and that Heathrow was closed. Luckily I had my iPhone and checked the Internet for news about the ash cloud. Paris Charles du Gaulle was still open and to make a long story short; I was able to get on a train to Paris just 1,5 hours after arriving in London. My travel agent booked a flight from Paris to Chicago the following morning. Again cutting the story short; I ended up staying in Paris for about a week, before I was able to catch a ride on a bus back to Norway.

My last shots in this post are from Paris. It was springtime and the weather was absolutely beautiful!

Springtime in Paris

Springtime in Paris

Springtime in Paris

The last picture is kind of cool. From the roof of the tourist bus I spotted a loooong line of people waiting outside a building. I assumed it was an airline office, since people were lining up outside those offices all over town. Imagine my surprise when it turned out that they were waiting to get in to an exhibition based on the work of the famous Norwegian painter Edvard Munch!

Edvard Munch exhibition in Paris

This concludes my backlog of pictures. The posts coming up after this one are a bit more current … 🙂