27 August 2010

Travel Summary

A little travel summary of my trip from Boise to Lubumbashi.

They trip went very smoothly. Met a few people on the flights but the most memorable was probably on my first flight from Boise to Denver. I sat next to Mary, who quickly announced she had a great fear of flying. She is a mother of 5 (2 of whom are adopted) and was in Boise because she was adopting a girl from there. She was returning to her home in Springfield, Missouri. She sat in agony with her eyes closed for most of the flight. With every jolt of turbulence she would grip the arm rests and yell, "Oh sweet Jesus"! I felt bad but it was very entertaining. As soon as we landed in Denver she called her husband and told him she would see him the next day because she was not going to take the next flight and would just take the bus the rest of the way.

As Mary arranged for a bus, I took another flight to Washington, DC, where I spent the night at a hotel. I got the the airport 3 hours early the next morning, thinking I would need plenty of time to get through the airport for my international flight. It took me 15 mins to get to my gate. If only LAX could be that easy. So I then had an 8 hour flight to Rome. We arrived at midnight local time and were not allowed off the plane, as we were only there for an hour to refuel. So my first time to Italy was not very exciting. From Rome, we flew to Addis Ababa, Ethiopia. This flight took 5 and a half hours and I was very surprised at how nice the Addis airport was. I spent an hour in the airport before catching my last flight to Lubumbashi. The itinerary that I received said I would be flying through Malawi before arriving at my final destination. Apparently, the airlines route changed and I flew directly to Lubumbashi. This was fine, except that I arrived 2 hours earlier than expected and I wasn't sure if anyone from MAF would be there to pick me up. I made my way through customs and worked my way out of a $10 "fee" charged for entering the country. I used my skills of ignorance and lack of language to get out of paying. I then made my way to the baggage claim, where I was happy to see my new roommate Ian. Thankfully, he had been in the airport to see some other friends off and just happened to see that my flight was coming in earlier so he was there to pick me up. Otherwise, the MAF guys would not have been able to come pick me up at that earlier time. I managed to get one of my bags, but one did not arrive with me so we had to report it. It did come in on the next flight 2 days later however. From the airport we drove to the house and live in Lubumbashi began.

2 comments:

  1. Thanks for the post, Josh. Keep writing about your adventures!

    Poor Mary ... the bus is where the real scariness is!

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  2. Addis Ababa is not a real place. we all know you made that up. nice try. Did you comfort Mary with statistics slash alcohol? You should of helped her!!! Glad you made it safe.

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