Volcanoes: they're a pain in the ash

So the last 48 hours have been pretty interesting. It all started on Wednesday, April 14th when me, Liz, and Dan headed for the bus stop to catch our afternoon bus to Dublin. We were all really excited for the next day when we would be heading off to Munich, Germany, where we would be staying with one of Liz and Dans' friends Katja. We kept talking about all the places we wanted to see, do, and eat. Once we arrived in Dublin, Dan navigated us to our hostel called Abraham. Once inside we were greeted with a big smile from the man at the desk as he proceed to check us in. We would be staying in a four person room, so us three and a roommate. The rooms were actually really nice, containing two bunk beds and a decent size bathroom. After settling in, we headed out for a night on the town. Our first stop was the Bad Ass Cafe, mostly because we really liked that name and Liz found us each a coupon for a free Guinness with any meal. The trip was starting off great, a free drink, a night in Dublin and then a weekend in Munich. After a while we made our way to a couple other places, first IFI, the place I really wanted to go back to if i had a chance. We stayed there for a while and got dessert. After some time, we headed for Dan's favorite place, Pravda, a pub with a Russian communist theme. Yea, sounds a little funky, but is was actually a really nice place,where the walls were covered in murals and movie posters. We decided to end our night at a decent time since we had to wake up early the next morning, but before we did we stopped off at Rick's, a burger place with the best garlic and cheese chips ever. They tasted so good but made our breath pretty vial. So after we scarfed those down, we headed back to the hostel and went to bed.

The next morning we were up by 6:30 packing up our bags and heading to the bus station to catch a bus to the airport. We were still pretty tired but ready for a day of travel. Inside the airport was a mad house. There were people everywhere and the lines went on forever. At the time this nothing really occurred to me, I just thought it was a busy travel day. We finally reached our line and started to check in when we kept hearing announcement that all UK flights were being cancelled or restricted. We all looked at each other and said, thank god were not going to the UK. Once inside we sat down at a cafe for a quick bite to eat. The TV in front of us was showing breaking news of a volcanic eruption in Iceland. We started to figure that this was why all UK flight would be cancelled. At this moment we hoped that nothing would happen to our flight. As we made our way down our gate, we heard that the flight to Berlin was being cancelled, not a good sign. As Liz and I checked out the departure screen, Dan went to see what was going on with the flights for the rest of the day. According to the screen the flight was still on, but we noticed as Dan was walking back that he looked a little disappointed. He said that all the flights for that day would be canceled and maybe even the next day as well. After the bad news we kind of just sat around for a while, not really knowing what to do. Our disappointment was obvious, but we thought we should attempt to get a flight for the next day. So we headed back to Dublin city to find an internet cafe. We walked around O'Connel street for a while until we finally found a place to get on a computer. Unfortunitly, all was booked up so we reluctently came back to Dungarvan. A lot of people from are group had travel arangments for that weekend that had to be cancelled. On the plus side we got to go to the Food Fest and rest up for the week.

Update April 19, 2010:
The volcano, Eyjafjallajökull, that erupted in Iceland is still active and all flights in and out of the UK are cancelled. Since April 14th, over 81,000 flight have been cancelled. The ash that the volcano is producing has the ability to stop the plane's engine by melting and congeal to it's turbines. These ash clouds now stretch from Masco to parts of Canada. Everyday that this ban contiutes, the International Air Transport Association losses close to 300 million dollars. Restricted flights are expected to start soon, but nothing yet is final.