And, he's back

Here I am sitting in my office at work in Switzerland. No problems at all. In fact, there were two empty seats in the business class section, which I didn't expect. (I have no idea how crowded it was in coach. When I'm in business class, I try to pretend that the coach section doesn't exist.) There were long lines at the ticket counters in Amsterdam, though, so I know a lot of people are still trying to work things out.

Outta here, probably

Well, it looks like I couldn't have timed my trip better. I got here just before the volcano kicked up, and I'm leaving just as Europe has started flying again. It looks like I'll be able to go home tomorrow. Darn--I'll miss the annual Minnesota mosquito hatch.

I did something weird tonight: I watched the Minnesota Twins play baseball, in Minnesota, outside. The new stadium is amazing. It was a fun night and a great game. I have mixed feelings because the poor taxpayers had to kick in a lot of money for the stadium, which just doesn't seem right with all the struggles that state governments are facing these days, but I might as well enjoy the stadium since it's there whether or not I'm happy about how it got there.

The upside

Well, since I'm apparently going to be stuck in Minnesota for the rest of my life due to a volcano in Iceland (I just can't believe how completely absurd that sounds), I've started to compile a list of advantages that Minnesota has over Switzerland. I suppose there are worse places to be stuck than Minnesota in April (for example, Minnesota in November, December, January, February, March, July or August.)

Here are some of the good things:

1. Minnesotans speak a dialect of English that most Americans can understand with only a little difficulty.

2. I don't have to worry about walking to work or to the grocery store anymore.

3. I can sit outside and watch Jed mow my lawn all summer.

4. I don't need to worry about having any more of those "babies don't come from storks" talks with Tanner.

5. I don't have to spend my days staring at those hideous Alps.

6. A large hot chocolate at Starbuck's doesn't cost eight dollars.

7. When someone tells me the temperature, I don't have to make a futile attempt to convert the number to Fahrenheit in my head, which usually just ends up in me giving up.

8. It's fun to walk around the Mall of America trying to guess which kids have health insurance and which kids have lost it due to parents' job layoffs, preexisting health conditions, actually becoming sick, and that sort of thing.

9. They have baseball games here.

10. If I get busted for going 120 mph in a 70 zone, I find out about it right away rather than getting a ticket in the mail three weeks later.

Stranded in the U.S.?

It's a little too early to start changing plans, but I'm starting to wonder if I'll get back to Switzerland next week. The volcano has now shut down Zurich's airport, too. All of Delta's flights to Amsterdam and Zurich have been cancelled through tomorrow. I was thinking that maybe I could escape the trouble by going directly from Atlanta to Zurich, but no such luck. Let's just hope that things are back to normal by next week. Who would have thought that harmless little Iceland could cause me such trouble?

Volcanoes in Iceland

What does a volcano in Iceland have to do with me, you might ask? Well, due to the plume of ash that is spewing out of the volcano, airports across northern Europe, including the Amsterdam airport, have shut down. The ash is extremely dangerous to jet engines. The volcano is showing no signs of calming down and is, in fact, becoming even more intense. This could go on for days. I'm supposed to fly through Amsterdam next Wednesday night/Thursday morning (depending on your perspective). This could get interesting.

We have dates!

Okay, after trying to take into account about three hundred variables, we finally have dates for when Stace and the kids (and me) will be in Minnesota. We'll be here (I'm writing this from Minnesota) from Wednesday, July 28 through Wednesday, August 4. (I'll get here a few days earlier, but I'm here all the time, so that's not particularly exciting news.)

Well, here I am

Ugh. That trip across the Atlantic gets a little less fun each time I do it. In that respect, it's okay that this Switzerland thing is a limited-time gig. But I survived.

One interesting thing was waiting for me at the house, though. One of the local colleges sent a recruiting letter addressed "To the parents of Ethan Wood." I guess they've decided to target the thirtysomething crowd by going through their parents.

I should mention that immediately upon picking up my rental car, I drove above the speed limit and did an illegal U-turn just because I could. It felt really good.