Incredible Dedication

It takes more than a cloud of volcanic ash and the closure of European air space to stop our students. In a determined bid to get back to school for their classes, St Bede's students from Bulgaria, the Czech republic and the Ukraine were prepared to spend up to three days on buses back to the UK.

The Bulgarians seemed to endure the worst of it on a bus with no working toilet which took three days from Sofia to London Victoria. Eli Golgonova, Teddy Ivandjikova, Tony Popova and Vasil Stoilov described travelling through Serbia, Croatia, Austria, Germany and France as "absolutely exhausting" with a toilet stop every four hours and several "emergency" toilet stops!

Buses were crowded and to get onto them required hours of queuing with hundreds of grumpy Brits desperate to get home. Sabrina Ondraskova left Prague on Monday afternoon and arrived in London the following day saying that her bus and ferry trip cost a lot more than her original, cancelled flight. Shockingly, the toilet on her bus was also out of order and so several stops were necessary making the trip even longer.

Oleksandr Dankanych from the Ukraine never imagined his 32 hour trip could be so eventful. Having travelled with his parents by car for 4 hours from Uzhgorod to Budapest, Oleksandr slept on the airport floor for four hours waiting for his 20 hour bus journey to Paris. At midnight the bus was stopped by police who jumped on to arrest a "mad Frenchman" who, according to Oleksandr, had been shouting for the entire trip much to the annoyance of the other passengers and the driver (who had repeatedly asked him to be quiet.) Oleksandr's last leg of the trip took him through the tunnel with the whole trip costing double the flight that had been cancelled.

And all this to get back to academic work, teachers, homework and exams!