The sign of an exciting trip is when the first few hours start out completely different than how you had planned for them to go. And if that’s any sign, then this upcoming trip to the US will be sure to impress.
Original plan:
- Monday 3:20pm – Present thesis in Karlskrona
- Tuesday 6:38am – Catch train from Karlskrona
- Tuesday 12:20pm – Fly out of Copenhagen to Boston
- Tuesday 6:30pm –Arrive in Boston
New plan:
- Some time before Monday – Mr. Volcano decides to wake up
- Monday 2:00pm – Spud finds out that we are no longer flying out of Copenhagen, and instead need to be at the Copenhagen airport in 6 hours (which in those 6 hours I still need to present a thesis and ride 4 hours by train) to catch a bus to Oslo (which for non-Scandinaivians, that’s not exactly next door)
- Monday 2:20pm – Our thesis group manages to convince other groups to shift times and we present an hour early (who needs all that time to practice anyway)
- Monday 3:00pm – Spud rushes by bike and rides from the school to his apartment to quickly get packed and rush to catch the 3:38pm train
- Monday 3:38pm – Spud miraculously catches the train with 15 sec to spare
- Monday 3:38pm (10 sec later) – Spud realizes he forget his passport – Quick! Jump off the train!
- Monday 4:48pm – Spud is back on the train with passport in hand and on his way to Copenhagen to see what adventure comes next, thankfully Rebecca is an hour ahead of him to take care of all the booking details
- Monday 8:00pm – Spud meets Rebecca at Copenhagen airport
- Monday 10:00pm – Spud and Rebecca board a bus headed to Oslo
- Tuesday 6:30pm – Spud and Rebecca arrive at Oslo airport and manage to get first in line in the queue to get our flight tickets
- Tuesday 6:31pm – Airport employees inform us that security doesn’t show up until 9:30 and if we want to keep our spot, we’d have to sit there for 3 hours – that’s not going to happen so we head to the lounge and do a bit more waiting.
- Tuesday 12:30pm – We board the plane – success
- Tuesday 2:30pm – After a minor wait on the runway waiting for all the luggage to get loaded, we finally take off. And, as Spud’s luck may have it – on a packed flight in which tons of people were trying to get back home to the US, Spud and Lora managed to get four seats in a row all to themselves, oh silly people who pay for first class…
- Tuesday 5:00pm – After taking quite the long journey north to get away from the ash cloud, we assumed we would be able to steer clear of the volcano. Little did we know that the pilots had a completely different plan in mind – instead, why don’t we just fly straight over Iceland and the volcano, sure, great idea! Now normally it would be a problem that we were in the center of the plane because we have no access to windows, but SAS decided to one up other airlines by installing a camera directly beneath the plane in which you can watch from your seat (I hope whoever came up with that idea got a raise). So although we didn’t see the volcano itself (I imagine we were a few miles from it), we did get to see the terrain beneath us covered in ash as we approached the island. I’ve got to say that that was one of the cooler things I’ve ever done, who would have guessed we would be flying directly over an active (and erupting) volcano, that’s one to remember :)
- Tuesday 10:00pm – Finally make it to a bed!
So that’s a rough idea of how day 1 is going – another 22 to go J For those of you slightly out of the loop on the latest happenings in Spud world (which I blame on myself) – Rebecca (my thesis teammate) and I will be traveling to the US for 3 weeks to meet with a variety of individuals to discuss our thesis and present on communicating for behavior change towards sustainability. On April 23rd we will be at MIT running a workshop at the Sustainability Summit alongside some really inspiring and exciting individuals, we’re really looking forward to meeting more individuals passionate about creating the necessary change needed over the next few years and who have a wide variety of skills to offer. After Boston, we will be hanging out in NYC for a few days, followed by Lancaster, then DC, and finally up to State College (while Rebecca heads off to St. Louis).
Over the next few weeks I’ll be sure to keep this blog updated so everyone is filled in the loop. Here’s to an exciting journey (and hoping that no more volcanoes go off in the next few weeks).
