What could possibly go wrong ?

When I was nineteen I got the chance to go to Norway to compete in judo at the Scandinavian Championship and prove that I was something more than a large fish in the small pond that Iceland was.
For the trip it is hard to choose what was the most unforgettable and surreal moment. It started pain-staking enough with me having to lose 3 kilos of water the night before to fit into my weight category by jogging around the highway in every piece of clothing I had taken with me. The competing day was not one to forget. The hosting country arranged for a flag march, placing everyone in the hallway in their warm up clothes before making us line up, representing our country with ever-so clueless expressions before they declared “Can everyone please take their caps off ? This is a formal ceremony !”
I ended up battling for the bronze, winning by the slimmest of chances after a fifteen minute grueling match. After giving my bows to my opponent I made a run for the hallway, tumbling down, half-blind after having lost both my contact lenses in the battle, and with the sensation that my heart couldn't decide if it wanted to pummel up my throat or eject itself through my small intestines. Then came the award ceremony where I didn't get told that the the national anthem of the winner would be played and my heart skipped a few beats when the music started blasting behind me.
When we were supposed to pack our bags and be on our merry way the news hit: there had been a volcanic eruption in Iceland and there were no flights back for an undetermined amount of time. Fortunately the disaster insurance did indeed cover volcanic eruptions as I found out that day and I got holed up in a two person room with seven other people where I spent the night washing my underclothing in the sink to cover up the fact that I had sweat 5% of my body weight into them. I mistakenly took the guys that I was staying with as Faeroe Islanders when in fact they were my countrymen and just with a thick Northern accent. We ended up having a grand time for the rest of our days there , snatching stuff from the breakfast buffet to enrich our dwindling money resource and finally taking to the shut-down airport which had the good fortune of being captured by an overly agitated judo team for the next twelve hours.
I came home that May as a bronze medalist, insane water-cutter and someone that got blocked from entering their own country because of natural disaster. One learns as long as one lives, I guess.