Daily Archives: April 19, 2010

Gideon Rachman Anger erupts for a volcanic exile

April 19, 2010 11:43 pm by Gideon Rachman

There are loads of us all over the world. Volcano exiles. As I sat around in Tel Aviv over the weekend – gloomily surveying the dwindling options for getting back to Britain – I took a twisted sort of comfort from the stories of friends in similar or worse predicaments. My colleague Tim Harford sent a message from Helsinki. Other than waiting the ash-cloud out, his best option was “27-hour ferry to near Hamburg, standing-room only to Brussels, swim across the channel”. As Tim’s message arrived, I was checking out the rumour of a ferry from Haifa to Brindisi in Italy. It only takes three days.

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Posted in Britain, Europe, Israel, World affairs |

Volcanic ash disruption: Postcards from the stranded

April 19, 2010 10:34 pm by Financial Times

An update on my journey back to the UK: Yesterday I managed to get a flight to Rome, so I finally got out of Israel. Anything in mainland Europe sounded good. My calculation was that there are two seas between Israel and Britain, and I would have crossed one of them.

The next part of the plan was to take a train to France from Rome. But at the airport they told us all international trains were booked until Wednesday – or possibly Friday. Oh, and there was a rail strike in southern France. Read more

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Posted in Foreign affairs |