Story from Zana711

The 18,000-Mile "Short Stopover"15 April 2010: The plan was simple. Fly home to London from Sydney, where I’ve just spent two weeks with family, with a breezy two-hour leg-stretch in Singapore. Before departure, I’d seen the news about some unpronounceable volcano in Iceland—Eyjafjallajökull—coughing up a bit of ash.Plot twist! This was definitely not on the itinerary.As we touched down in Singapore, the captain’s voice didn’t deliver the usual "local time" update. Instead, he essentially delivered a eulogy for European aviation. All airspace was closed. The "Kangaroo Route" had run out of hop.Then came the two most expensive words in the English language: Force Majeure. Because the eruption was an “Act of God”, I was essentially on my own. No hotel. No vouchers. No help from my travel insurer. I was stranded in the humid Singapore heat, essentially told to wait for the sky to stop falling. I spent three days in Singapore fuelled by equal parts desperation, spicy Chilli Crab, and chicken satays, staring at a world map, waiting for airspace to open to no avail. So instead of hunkering down for a possibly weeks-long wait, I decided that if I couldn’t fly West, I could fly east until I hit London from the other side. The "Scenic" Route home looked like this:- Singapore to Tokyo (Narita): Flying via ANA into the Rising Sun- Tokyo to San Francisco: Chasing the clock across the Pacific- San Francisco to New York (JFK): A transcontinental dash via American Airlines- New York to Dublin: the closest I could get to the UK without hitting the "No-Fly Zone"- The Final Stretch: A bus to Dublin port, a very bouncy ferry across the Irish Sea to Holyhead and a final train into London Euston. By the time I finally collapsed onto my sofa in London, I hadn't just flown home; I had accidentally completed an accidental circumnavigation of the globe. I traveled roughly 18,200 miles—nearly 8,000 miles further than my original ticket intended.I learned two things on that trip: - Never underestimate a traveler who just wants to sleep in her own bed.- If I ever hear a newsreader struggling to pronounce a volcano’s name, I'm staying in Sydney.