Krzysztof Burzyński, Eyjafjallajökull quarantine

Eyjafjallajökull quarantine

Current travel restrictions, in force due to wide-spread pandemia, brought back memories of my "quarantine", when I was locked in London in 2010 as a result of Eyjafjallajökull Islandic volcano eruption.

On that very day I was supposed to attend a job interview in London, but as it was a quick thing I went to London with no luggage, as it if was a short bus trip. In the morning, BA pilots in Warsaw knew that airspace will be closed soon, but no passengers were informed. So we took off to London not expecting what's in front of us. The plane was probably fastest on that route ever as it came to London at least half an hour before scheduled time. Only after a couple of hours later I realised that there is no way back to Poland. Airspace was closed and no tickets available for any trains to continental Europe. I understood that I am locked there for unclear period of time. A quarantine?

Some things had to be arranged: a hotel room, clothes, toothbrush. But the most important was the camera, as I did not take my slr with me for one day business trip. I visited then a couple of second-hand camera shops to look for analog equipment that would give some new street experience. I purchased an old, but looking like new, Yashica Mat 124G, equipped with special air-zinc batteries and together with several rolls of 400 ASA black-and-white film.

The camera accompanied me during all citywalks, during which I observed people and in my way documented life under lock-down, which concerned only myself, not the streets. Things were different when we were listening to news about the volcano, hoping for returning home. Whole picture of uncertainty emotions was completed with strange feeling about situation back in Poland, as everything was happening just a couple of days after Smoleńsk disaster.

At the end, after 5 days and some rolls of film, we came back to Warsaw crossing the Channel on the train and ordering a Polish taxi from Bydgoszcz to pick-us up in Brussels to go home.