Up, Up, and Away

Travel day arrived! Last day with my kiddos and then I was off.  After waiting in line behind the couple who was convinced their dog was considered a child, or thought their dog was a child...(they weren’t from America), either way they wanted their dog on their lap on the flight.  Yikes.  After waiting patiently, and entertainingly behind them, I got my tickets.  Met up with Nicole before security and were quickly chatting and catching up.   Security was a breeze and no one/nothing got searched.  One airline security down.  We waited about an hour and a half and were on our way to Chicago.  Short flight.  Again we chatted, read a little, talked with the couple behind us who surprisingly enough was from Ethiopia (where our connecting flight is in Africa), and we were on the ground.  Searched through the HUGE Chicago airport and got to our shuttle to our hotel.  We met up with the rest of our team and were making all the typical WELS connections.  Cheryl and Melissa headed to bed while Nicole and I finally decided to eat some dinner at 10! Surprise to us, nothing was open at 10 to deliver.  Except...Giordano’s!  They took my order and said they would be here in an hour! Oh my.  Food came.  We ate.  It was great.  I had never had it before but Nicole had and it was delicious! Then we headed to bed for our 3 hours of “sleep” before we left on the shuttle back to the airport to head to D.C.

Morning came early at 2:42.  We got ready and got onto our shuttle to the airport.  Security took long in Chicago even at 3:30 in the morning.  Our group opted against coffee before that flight in hope that we were able to sleep some.  Luckily most of us were able to even on just the 2 hour flight to D.C.  We landed safely and awaited our next flight out to Ethiopia.  Our flight was full.  All except the seat next to me :)  Talk about luck.  If you want open seats...you want it on the 13 hour flight! That seat quickly became the sleeping chair and we were able to enjoy the luxury of two seats.  We were also seated next to a couple student/athletes from University of Kentucky. One of the guys happened to be on the team that just won the national basketball tournament.  Some were in gymnastics, and swimming and diving  Although, none of them were quite Michael Phelps :)  They were also going on a mission trip for a week in Ethiopia.  The flight was equipped with lots of movies, music albums, games, etc. on the flight over.  That was much different than my flight to China (school trip a couple years ago) and made the trip go much faster!  I was also able to sleep a lot while of course reading Nicholas Sparks and watching a couple (or more) episodes of Friends in my down time.

The arrival in Ethiopia was smooth and everyone clapped after the plane landed from the long flight.  From there we ventured to Blantyre where we went through customs.  However, they made three of us wait to pass through since we didn’t have the Yellow Fever vaccine.  Which by the way is not required no matter what they say.  We did a little talking and convincing and they let us in with saying that they would call us in three days to ask if we had symptoms of Yellow Fever.  We met with our family that is hosting us and they said that was common and that they never called.  Glad we made it through! Driving through the villages and towns to get to our house was incredible.  I definitely feel that I am in Africa now!  

No I do not know this lady.  But this greeted us off the plane from D.C.

Now time to unpack and eat some dinner! Oh my. It’s 9am at home!

Not in Kansas anymore!  Landed in Malawi to a gorgeous view :)