The Weary Travellers...

We had dinner at my folks last night with Rose and Gareth. Meatloaf with potato wedges and veggies. It was delicious and it was good to spend some time together over a good meal and glass of wine (standard). Whilst chatting over our meal, the subject of the volcanic ash (check out these amazing photos) forcing European Airports to close came up. While many airlines are forking the bill for their passengers to be further accommodated in hotels, Air France has apparently stopped aiding their passengers, leaving many quite literally stranded at the airports.

As a single mom, Jake and I often travel together, quite often to places far away from home. In reality, while I don't like to come home bankrupt (but let's face facts), by the end of a trip, there usually isn't too much money left over. We'd more than likely be the sorry souls sleeping on the metal chairs at the airport. Which is a cold place, by the way. Needless to say, Mom, Rose and I piled into the car and headed off to Cape Town International to see if there was anyone we could help out.

On our arrival, the airport seemed pretty quiet. There were not bunches of people huddled together sleeping in corners as we'd imagined. The staff told us that there were a few people milling about, so we set off in search of them. Believe it or not, we actually bumped into another couple also looking to assist stranded passengers. Fortunately, we found a lovely family who'd settled down for the night on the cold metal benches upstairs. They're from Warsaw, Poland. She's Carolina and he's Caesar, like Julius, he tells us (I did warn him not to say that too loudly in South Africa, we wouldn't want him to be confused with Julius Malema - it's a whole other post entirely, but I'm not sure that I'd waste my time with it. You can also check out his personal blog here). They have a beautiful little girl of 2 1/2, called Veronique, or Veronica - how freaky is that??

They are a really lovely family. She's involved with banking and modelling and he's in sales and loves photography. They've already invited Jake & I to visit them in Poland, saying that they'd really love to return the favour sometime. I'd never thought of Poland as a holiday destination, but now that the seed's been planted, it might just be on the itinerary for the not-too-distant future.

So, last night our weary travellers had a warm bath and a snugly bed to sleep in - had to be better than waking up in an airport. Besides them getting a safe haven, we've made new friends and it was good crawling into my own bed last night knowing that we'd made a few strangers very happy.

Sue X