I raised my eyebrow and said something to the effect of, "Weird. I hope not either," and the conversation moved on. This is 2010, I thought to myself. Volcanoes in Iceland do not cause flight cancellations in Italy.
In retrospect, I should not have been so skeptical, as I had learned just that day that the ash cloud from Mount Vesuvius had cast a shadow over the Mediterranean and settled over the skies of Egypt. In my defense, I had not yet learned that volcanic ash is a highly abrasive substance that can damage engines and interfere with radio communication. I'm sure our tour guide would have mentioned that had they had airplanes in Pompeii in 79 AD.
When we returned to the hostel, Ashley checked the news on the public computers just to be on the safe side. The report she gave wasn't promising, but it turned out to be accurate. I called home and dredged through my Gmail inbox in search of a very important phone number. At that point, that was all I could do, so I called it a night and slept uneasily, wondering what news we would learn at the airport the next day.
Looking back over my few years of travel experience, I am beginning to realize that getting to an airport by means of public transportation is often an adventure in itself. Suffice it to say that Italian trains are crowded, difficult to navigate, seldom on time, and well, if there had been a clearly designated way to pay for the ride, I gladly would have done so.
Once at the airport, the first thing we naturally did was check the departures screen. Kelsey and Ashley were not London-bound. They were off to Cairo for even more adventure, so their southbound flight turned out to be unaffected. My flight was later in the afternoon, and had not been posted, but it was easy to extrapolate from the trend among northbound flights: cancelled. I exchanged nervous glances with my friends, who now had a plane to Cairo to catch. I thought I read a hint of guilt in their eyes as they wished me luck and then scurried of to their terminal. They wanted to help, but even if they had stayed, there is not much they could have done.
The next step for me was to go to my terminal to get help. Except for EasyJet employees and a handful of unhappy tourists, the place was abandoned. In what some may consider an act of questionable judgment, I took a little detour from my task: I stopped for breakfast. If my flight was cancelled now, I thought, it's just as cancelled twenty minutes from now, and I haven't eaten yet today. Besides, who could turn down Lavazza in the middle of a rough morning?
