Champaign city council member, Tom Bruno, has had a longer than expected vacation in Amsterdam with his wife due to the volcano in Iceland that has shut down most European airports for days.

Bruno has planned to arrive back in Champaign Sunday night, but his flight was one of the thousands cancelled, he said via Skype.

“It’s a little draining, but not the worst thing I’ve gone through in my life,” Bruno said.

Unlike the thousands of passengers waiting in airports across Europe, Bruno is staying in an apartment in downtown Amsterdam while waiting for conditions to improve.

“We’re very lucky, the people in the airport are really in dire straights,” Bruno said.

With a kitchen and access to the Internet, Bruno said he and his wife are comfortable, but anxious for some certain news about when they’ll be able to catch a flight out.

“If I could find out today I had a flight three days from now, we could just go ahead and make the best of those three days,” Bruno said. “But there’s no certainty.”

While Bruno has been out of town, Champaign Mayor Gerald Schweighart has been in the news because of comments caught on a YouTube video last week. Schweighart said he doesn’t believe Obama is an American citizen while at a local Tea Party rally on Thursday.

“It was unfortunate,” Bruno said of the mayor’s comments.

According to Bruno’s Twitter account early Tuesday morning, he was in a departure lounge and planned to arrive in Champaign by evening.

“These are the things that make travel an adventure. We’ll be just fine,” Bruno said. “I’ll be happy to be home.”