This time last week...

...I had no idea that an Icelandic volcano called Eyjafjallajokull  even existed, let alone had such an exquisite name, let alone could change the course of so many people's week!

Whilst I sit here in unseasonably sunny, warm and fine weather in Sydney, it all seems like something out of a dreadful movie plot, like - Dante's Peak 2, The Grounding of the Skies, or something like that. Incidentally, having worked with geologists a few years back and getting to know a bit of technical stuff, that movie became one of my all time favourite dreadful films - it's so flawed it's awesome!

But anyways, here I am still missing my man K who, as it turns out, looks to be on an adventure in Austria for the week, courtesy of the volcano and Emirates etc etc. The Milan furniture fair is so last week!

For some reason this whole thing keeps reminding me of our trip to Japan a few years ago when we climbed a volcano in Kama-kochi. Our friend Matt called his mum from the summit and I can just remember him yelling down the phone: "I'm on a volcano[pause]... a volcano [pause]....a VOLCANO!"  (Clearly even volcanoes aren't free from bad reception).

The other amusing volcano incident occurred when we drove into the national park in a taxi. As we drove up through a really long tunnel, our driver merrily conversed in Japanese to Matt, who sat in the front seat.

All we could hear was japanese, japanese, japanese and then Matt saying, "Oh my GOD!"

"What, what?" K and I asked from the back seat.

"You don't want to know!" Matt said, almost hysterically laughing. "I'll tell you when we get out of this tunnel."

So when we emerged from the tunnel, Matt told us how the driver had been telling him that the tunnel had been built in part of the volcano and that several years earlier there had been an incident when lava had flooded the tunnel killing many people. Naturally this was horrifying to hear, minutes after having been in said tunnel.  I just kept saying, "So, we were just in the volcano?"

"Yes," Matt replied.

"In the volcano?"

"Yes."

"IN the volcano?"

And so on...

Top picture via Reuters