Day -3 and Day -2

Quick recap of "Day -3" and "Day -2" (from Jeff)

DAY -3
Thursday morning (Albany, GA)
Michael informs Jeff at work that "there's some weird stuff going down in Europe...volcanos? Hope your trip is ok". Jeff reads CNN and is scared but optimistic.

Thursday 3:30PM (Albany, GA)
Jeff super excited to leave the paper plant and head back to Cincinnati to being his journey. Hops on the plane at Albany airport happy as can be.

Thursday 6:00PM (Atlanta, GA)
Jeff heads to international terminal for a dinner and already sees the ensuing chaos. Lots of international travelers stuck in Atlanta because they cannot get home. Reading more on CNN and checking canceled flights. Reports say things might be OK after Friday morning. With out flight being Friday afternoon, Jeff is still hopeful.

Thursday 8:00 PM (Atlanta, GA)
Still cautious, I call Delta customer service to see if the flight is canceled or if there are alternate routes I can take. No - it's all booked up.

DAY -2
Friday 12:00 AM (Cincinnati, OH)
Arrive back at the house and wake Jackie up. Super excited about vacation, make last second preparations and go to sleep.

Friday 5:00 AM (Cinci- home)
Super excited, I wake up and can't sleep. Check of flights indicate still on time and I continue to be foolishly optimistic. I write a series of bold e-mails and facebook updates proclaiming that everything is on track and I am still thinking I am going to leave. Very ironic in retrospect.

Friday 7:00 AM (Cinci - work)
Head into work for my half day and tie up all the loose ends at work.

Friday 12:00 noon (Cinci - work)
In a meeting, I decide to check the flight status AGAIN. CANCELLED. I leave the meeting and start going phone crazy and texting/IM Jackie to discuss what to do. The best option they have (and can book) is to leave Monday, arriving in Europe on Tuesday. A mix of confused, sad, mad feelings. It is crazy to think that I will look back on this day and think "Oh yeah, a volcano ash cloud limited my service trip to Romania in 2010". Ridiculous.

Friday 4:00 PM (Cinci - home)
Left work early because too disheartened to work whole day. My boss Laurent (from France) also reinforced that he was hearing it was impossible to go anywhere in France.

Friday 5:30 PM (Cinci- IKEA)
Jackie and I go to IKEA. We are in a state of "WTF" because we had completely cleared our plans for the weekend. Jackie was like "what do we do now?" and I had no answers so her suggestion of IKEA to look at a desk for her + swedish meatballs sounded pretty good.

Friday 9:00 PM (cinci-home)
Assembled desk with Javier and watched a movie - The Imaginarium of Doctor Parnassus (2009). It was ok. Really starting to hit home that instead of being lazy around the house we would be hanging out with the Romania team in Budapest and preparing to travel to Beius Romania the next day.

Saturday 1:27 AM (cinci-home)
Blogging now. I'm still excited about going and doing service work for a partial week and visiting friends the next week, but disheartened that my experience was cut short by a crazy Iceland ash cloud - really crazy. I was really looking forward to working hard all day with the Give Back Cincinnati team building houses for the Beius community in Romania. I'll take the partial week - hope it's going well for the rest of the team (LUCKILY - most of the team traveled early to play in Venice)

Will keep you guys posted...

-Jeff