[April 17th, 2010] Eyjafjalla...what?

So I figured I'd open this up to anyone affected(read: pretty much everyone) since any country with flights to Europe was involved.
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Great. Just great.

Iceland never wanted his volcanoes to erupt. A few of them--the Three Sisters; Katla, Hekla, and Grimsvotn, and Laki as well-- had caused so much hardship; he remembered quite clearly how the ash would get into everything, block out the sun, cause crops to fail. And the floods from all the melted ice ruined villages as well. All of the livestock suffered too, especially the young animals. It was a horrible fact of life, and one that he at times wished he could have lived without, for all that he had pride in these volcanoes. He still believed some of them to be the gateway to hell.

But not this one. Eyjafjallajökull was a relatively calm volcano, like an old man; he wasn't a trouble-maker. As expected, the eruption in the middle of the night on March 20th was relatively low-keyPeople nearby had to be evacuated for two weeks before it stopped (and Iceland himself had a small fever), but that seemed like it was it.

Then his troubles just got worse when it started erupting explosively, the ash being shot into the atmosphere and carried over to Europe. First it affected flights in England, then in the Nordic countries, and as of that day--April 17th--pretty much all the airports in Europe were affected in some way, if not shut down completely.

As a result, Iceland was stressed and tense, let alone the other effects. His throat was dry and his voice scratchy, not to mention he had a fierce chill; more than the one he'd had before, as lingering reminders of his bank crash two years ago.

In short, he felt like crap. He didn't like the attention he was getting, nor did he like causing all these problems. He was also embarrassed by the fact that no one he'd heard yet could pronounce 'Eyjafjallajökull' even close to correctly, not even the BBC news; they were all making fun of his national language on top of everything else.

There was a World Meeting scheduled soon. In two days, in fact; If not for the closed airports all over Europe, he'd be on his way to Germany by now.

He had already been called multiple times by his own government and other organizations involved in the first part of the eruptions. Now, he was under lots of blankets with a warm cup of tea, dreading the next person--or nation-- to contact him about the thing next.

Though, if they were just going to comment on the lightning storms in the ash plume, that was okay. They were pretty awesome looking, if Iceland did say so himself.

Canada had been out in the wild when a phone call disturbed his peace - the caller being America and heard about the accident over at Iceland. Despite not having talked with the nation that much, the Canadian had immediately felt sorry for it and swore to himself that he'd help out in what way he could. He had written several e-mails to the nation, but never received an answer, so he assumed that Iceland must've had other things to worry about rather than answering e-mails from a nation whom he rarely spoke to. Thinking about it, the Canadian couldn't think of any meeting where Iceland had talked much - a word here and there, but nothing more. Not that it was more than himself ...

Due to the accident many airports had been closed off, but not the airports in Canada. Sure, all flights to Europe was either delayed or canceled due to the ash cloud covering the continent so the blonde nation's idea of visiting Iceland by flight was more or less out of the question.

So, how would he get there? He didn't want to call - a surprise visit could perhaps cheer Iceland up a bit? Even though they weren't friends or so, a visit when you're in pain is always a visit, eh. Sitting in his couch with his polar bear - what was his name again? Kumayoshi? Kumataro? - by his side, patting his knee, the all so familiar question "who?" emitting from the animal's mouth.

A sigh, followed by the timid voice of Canada, "I'm Canada ..."

His gaze tracing his living room, his eyes soon caught a picture of a boat ... A boat ... Ah! That was it!

"Why didn't I think of that sooner?" he questioned himself, tone as if he's stated something obvious and jumped up from his couch to check when the next boat passing Iceland would depart. He just hoped that Iceland would appreciate it ... Maybe he could bring Kumayoshi. Didn't Iceland have a puffin?