Home Again, home again...

Sometimes life is just too surreal to process properly. Volcanoes erupting in Iceland, for instance. It is not even that big of a volcano, and it has the entire continent of Europe, and by association, the rest of the world in upheaval. I just got off the phone with the Elementary School secretary. There are 17 teachers out today. Matthew's teacher is in Uganda. The middle school principal is stuck in Ireland, and the secretary is in Canada. I don't know who is going to run that place. Sarah's biology teacher is trapped in Nairobi. Benjamin's chemistry teacher is still in Togo with the 20+ kids that have spent the last two weeks working at a small school in the remote countryside. You've got to know those kids want to be home. Togo is not known for it's fabulous cuisine or potable water. Sarah's calculus class will have a grand total of 3 kids in attendance today. Everyone else is stuck in the far flung regions of the world--except for her boyfriend. He is getting ready to have gallbladder surgery. See, I told you things were pretty surreal.
We had a fabulous spring break in the eastern Mediterranean and after two great weeks were pretty ready to get home. Fortunately we had rented cars in advance of our trip, so that when our flight from Milan back to Brussels was cancelled we had no problem extending our rental period and driving home from Italy. There are currently no rental cars available in Europe. That was a blessing for which we are greatful.
This is the surreal part: the Italian rental car company has no partners in Belgium, so we now have to drive the cars (yup, 2 cars--there wasn't a car big enough to fit all seven of us--not a problem for a two hour drive--bigger problem for 2 twelve hour drives) back to Italy and hope our rebooked flight leaves as scheduled.
This may not be the most ideal arrangement, but like I told Sarah last year when gallbladder boy was in the hospital with Malaria over prom weekend, "Yeah, I know it stinks, but it makes a great story."