I MADE THE VOLCANO ERUPT!

My spooky magical powers have revealed themselves once again. My last post opened with a wee rant about how much I hate air travel; seven days later, Iceland's unpronouncable volcano - Eyjafjallajökull - erupts, shooting ash 11km into the air and forming a hazy cloud that has grounded air travel in Europe for the last five days (and counting). Whoops. Sorry about that, northern Europe.

With my next flight three weeks away at the time the volcano erupted, I was able to sit back and observe the chaos with a dispassionate eye. Predictably, Twitter went nuts. Some witty twitterer created an #ashtag hashtag which quickly caught on as users shared their Ash/cloud puns as well as info on the air restrictions coming into force. The recent dispute between Iceland and the UK over the need for the former to repay billions of pounds lost after Icesave (an Icelandic online savings provider) went bust inspired my favourite tweet of the first few days: @littlesapling wrote "Dear Iceland, we said 'send Cash', can't you read?" (Get it? They sent the UK ash not cash. Ok, shutup, I think it's funny.)

Apart from reading anecdotes from people all over Europe, Twitter was a forum for people to share some truly spectacular photos of the erupting volcano and oozing lava. My favourite Flickr set is this one.

Volcanoes are definitely my natural disaster of choice. What's not to love? (Leaving aside destruction and possible death.) I remember learning at a young age that when Krakatoa erupted in Indonesia in 1883, it was so violent that the sound of the explosions could be heard in Perth (3,500km away). That's a mighty, terrifying and awesome power. The fate of Pompeii when Vesuvius erupted likewise fascinated me. So I've been soaking up information on the Eyjafjallajökull eruption. The BBC has been at pains to explain why volcanic ash clouds are so dangerous to aircraft, but I still think the most enlightening way to learn more is to read the story of what happened to British Airways Flight 009 in 1982 (see Wikipedia).

It's now five days since the eruption, and the skies are still quiet and empty. It really is humbling to realise that despite all our technological advances, Nature still has the power to f*ck up our comfortable lives when she wants to assert her authority. As I walked past the Visit Britain tourist office on my way to work this morning, there must have been close to 200 people queued up around the block hoping to find a hotel or a bus ticket out of London.

I don't think anyone expected that aircraft would need to be grounded this long, and frankly it's started to get a bit boring. I have three friends due to fly back into the UK later this week, so I really hope the damn ash cloud disperses before then. It might be fine for John Cleese to pay £3,000 for a taxi from Oslo to Brussels (he really did!), but I can't see my mates catching cabs from Kathmandu and Hong Kong. So the airline industry is apparently hemorrhaging $200 million per day, but more importantly, one of my favourite Aussie bands is stuck in Brisbane and has had to postpone their UK tour. And they're splitting up so it's their last ever tour! And I can't make the new dates! Now that's a real tragedy. Damn ash cloud. Be off with you!!!


*Quick update* I just read that the volcano has started erupting again. Nooooo! My friends aren't back yet! And I'm meant to fly to Budapest in two weeks! Damn you, Eyjafjallajökull!



(For those wondering about the last instance when my spooky magical powers manifested, it was on 24 June 2009. I decided to unsubscribe from a mailing list called Michael Jackson Live. One day later MJ himself 'unsubscribed' from being alive.)

A VERY CHOCOLATEY HOLIDAY

I loooooove long weekends, and the Easter weekend is one of my favourites. My sister and I jumped at the chance to escape on a travel adventure, and the decision of where to go went something like this:

If Easter=chocolate and Belgium=chocolate, then Easter=Belgium.

Simples! (No, that isn't a typo, read this)

We caught the Eurostar over, my first time travelling under the Channel, and my joy at forsaking the horror of air travel was boundless. I love travel but hate airports, particularly the London airports, so the Eurostar is my new best friend.

We arrived at Brussels late in the evening, and managed to get completely lost almost instantly. It was impressive even by my own geographically-challenged standards. The 4-minute walk to the hotel took us about 45 minutes as we walked in the wrong direction, retraced our steps, took off again in a different (but equally wrong) direction, retraced our steps, then did the same again and again until we finally located the hotel. By the time we'd checked in, the only place open for dinner was a chicken shop. So my first experience of Belgian cuisine was a fish kebab and chips with mayonnaise. It was surprisingly delicious, but then again it was almost midnight and my taste buds are prone to be less than picky at that time of night. Still, no complaints.

The next morning we set off for Bruges, which was just as pretty and quaint and gorgeous as everyone else who's been there has already told you it is. It was also quite crowded with tourists, despite summer still being a few months away. I know I should be telling you all about the architecture and the history and other blah blahs, but for me this trip was really all about food and beer. And I'm pleased to report that both lived up to my very high expectations. I ate chocolate and waffles and chips with mayo (not all at once, although I was tempted). I even tried the moules frites (mussels with chips). I didn't know that I liked mussels, but apparently I do. Very very much.

When I wasn't stuffing my face with food, I was drinking beer. Oooh, the beer was yummy. We went to a bar/pub in Bruges that had 450 beers and a waitress who was magically able to recommend those that suited our tastes perfectly. My first request went something like this: "I'd like a beer that's not pale, but not too dark. I don't like it to taste wheatey but it has to have a nice flavour." If I were the waitress I would have served me with a slap to the face, however she delivered a lovely amber ale - the name of which I've inconveniently forgotten - which fulfilled all my requirements. Subsequent requests ("nice like the last one, but different") were also granted without complaint and every beer I sampled was delicious.

By the time we stumbled out of the bar/pub, the beer had induced in us just the right amount of happy buzz to fully embrace and appreciate the surreal quirkiness of walking into the Markt and finding ourselves in the midst of a Beatles concert. Did I say the Beatles? Yes I did. Dressed in their Sergeant Pepper finery, The Bootleg Beatles sang their way through the Fab Four's greatest hits to a huge crowd of adoring fans. McCartney was the only one who sounded anything at all like his inspiration, but it was fun nonetheless and cheesy good times were had by all.

As if that weren't weird enough, back in Brussels the next day we were confronted with the city's frankly inexplicable fascination with urination. I suppose an interest in bladder relief shouldn't be too surprising given the city's beer-brewing status, but they have gone a bit crazy with the 'pissing boy on a corkscrew/bottle opener/magnet/postcard/chocolate box' caper. Still, we couldn't resist visiting the oddly popular Mannekin Pis, a bronze statue of a boy weeing water. Wikipedia has some interesting legends about the origin of the statue but I think the greater mystery is how on earth it became such a famous landmark in the first place. Craziness. My theory is that it's one of those things that people go to see, just to work out why other people go to see it. Which is exactly what we did.

Not content with a fountain of little-boy pee, there's also a statue of a little girl pissing nearby. She, however, had less than a tenth of the number of visitors that the boy did. Discrimination, I say! They're both equally as creepy and disturbing in my view. And the advantage of the little girl statue is that it's opposite the entry to a basement pub that serves 2,004 different types of beer. Exploring that place was a great way to spend a few hours of my life.

So it was that with a shedload of beer and one last meal of Belgian goodness, this trip came to an end. We boarded the Eurostar and headed back to merry England. Now I'm counting down the days until my next overseas adventure, which is a trip to Budapest. Hopefully I'll have a better time than the last time I was there, when I was still suffering the effects of a stomach bug picked up in Bratislava. I'm already super-excited about hitting the healing waters of the hot springs. Hurrah!