I flew back from Europe 10 days ago. My flight from Berlin to Zurich had been delayed a few hours as the volcanic ash had forced a shutdown of German air space. The next day I flew from Zurich to New York. I was minding my own business watching Shutter Island (which I very much enjoyed btw) when all of a sudden I noticed that almost all the other passengers were standing on the left side of the plane watching out the window.

I asked what was going on, hoping they were not staring at an engine on fire, and they excitedly reported we could see the Eyjafjallajökull volcano from the window! I checked the on screen map which said we were flying right over the middle of Iceland and went to look out the window. Low and behold the volcano was right there in all its glory!