A Mexican in India – 2 – The Ash Cloud

August 9th, 2010 by Dariela Escobar

The trip…
On April 11th I left Mexico. After a forgotten credit card, an excess luggage fee, hugs and tears (from my friends, not from me!) I was on a plane on my way to Amsterdam. I sat next to a Mexican woman and her baby, her husband is from Norway and she was traveling with him and her 2 sons, we talked for a long time during the flight… my first friend for this journey!

I met my brother at Schipol Airport, he received me with Stroopwaffles after almost 2 years without seeing each other!

I got to know Utrecht, the city where my brother lived, I was with him for his birthday, we celebrated it with his friend Magdalena and her boyfriend Jeff. I only had 5 days in Europe, so each day we did lots of things! I met most of my brother’s friends (Benoit, Breg, Francine, Tim, Rosalinde, Pascale, Lenny, Jette, Mayka) and his housemates (Melinda, Vitto, and Watse), I tried lots of food (raclette, poffertjes, parmaham, dutch cheese, bitterballen, pannenkoek, …) and different beers (Orval, Hoegarden, Leffe, Pilsje, Westmalle Dubbel, Palm, La Chouffe…) I also visited Maastricht and Valkenburg.

A few days later my trip was almost over. My dad would come to Europe on Friday with my second suitcase (he was coming on a business trip) and I would leave on Saturday morning, but then… A volcano erupted in Iceland!!!! All flights to and from the Netherlands were canceled and so my dad couldn’t leave Mexico and I was stuck in Europe!! So thanks to Eyjafjallajokull, the-unpronounceable-named-volcano, I got to spend almost one more week with my brother.

We had no way of knowing when airports would begin flights again, all we could do was wait.. every day we would check the news millions of times, I sent emails to people in OutSmart360 in Bangalore and told them where I was and what was going on.

After a bike tour to Der Haar Castle, 2 theater presentations from the Springdance Festival, and many cold days, they reopened the airspace and my dad finally left Mexico (with my suitcase!!), and on Friday morning I left Amsterdam! I was in Paris for 2 hours (where I got to practice my french) and then I was on a plane from Paris to Bangalore…. surrounded by Indian people!! I almost felt in India already!

Do you want to watch my pics?? Click here!!