Travelling first class
Waiting out my long lay-over in DC
Last flight home.
The bus ride.
One declaration form I had to fill out to get into the States. I laugh every time I read it.Alright I’m now back in Canada and it’s time to backtrack to tell you about my last few momentous days overseas.
Livingston. So amazing!
I thought that I wasn’t going to get an opportunity to see the Victoria Falls. Then I got to talking with this girl called Alissa (who I’d originally met when she was on the same safari as us in South Luangwa). She told me that she was planning on going and that she was going to take the bus. Josh was also interested in going, so sort of last minute we decided to JUST DO IT!
Early in the morning, Tanya and Leeland drove Josh and I to the “Inner City Bus Terminal” where we were instantly mobbed by taxi drivers. We got out and headed to a little wooden shack where the tickets were sold. We wanted to get tickets for the 6.30 bus with Alissa and her other friends, but it was full. We got on the 7.30 bus instead. The bus ride down was very hot. I was sweating so much. One nice thing about being in a coach though was that we were higher than the dust clouds that suffocate you if you are in smaller vehicles. For part of the journey we were sitting beside a girl who was singing along with her i-pod and the lady behind us liked to randomly grab our heads. We had one bathroom stop at some semi-sketchy pay toilets (500k- about 15c) during the 7 hour drive. I did manage to doze a bit during the ride, and Josh and I watched a movie on his i-pod. When we arrived in Livingston we were mobbed again by more taxi drivers. One offered to take us to our hostel for about $1.50, so we went with him (our hostel was pretty close to the bus stop). We checked in and then headed to the information place to book some activities.
Jollyboys was a great hostel. Lots of backpackers and young people. It’s a lot like summer camp. The rooms are really small and simple, but it’s got really nice common areas.
We decided we would go on the sunset cruise.
We were picked up and taken to the Zambezi were we cruised along and looked at some crocodiles and hippos. Dinner was cooked on the boat and we watched the sun set which was beautiful! Unlimited drinks were served, and when we docked again there was a fire blazing and some musicians putting on a show. We got to meet some interesting people on the cruise who were also staying at Jollyboys. Sarah and John were British friends who were backpacking through lots of African countries for their gap-year (When I found out they were on a gap-year I said “like Prince William” and they didn’t get it). There was also a Portuguese guy called Migele who was working in Mozambique and a girl from the Netherlands called Rose who was working on her masters thesis. We had a great time back at the hostel playing cards, and then sitting around the fire and talking.
At 8 o’clock the next morning the information center opened and we booked our activities for Saturday. We had some tea and exchanged some contact info with John and Sarah with the plan of meeting up at some point in Lusaka.
First on the agenda for the day was a cruise to Livingston Island. We were picked up from the hostel and taken to a ridiculously fancy hotel called the Royal Livingston ($400 per night). I even took pictures of it because it was so fancy—like out of a movie. We were treated like royalty. We got into little motor boats and took a quick ride to the island. We were greeted with a welcome drink which was Maheu (yucktastic—even though this version had vanilla). Then we walked a bit through the island and the guide pointed out some of the plants. Next we put on some rain coats and were put into little groups with a guide. We took off our shoes and ventured into the mist of the falls. Josh and I were in a group with a guide and we would walk in what the guide called an “African Chain” which was us all holding hands. Livingston Island is right in the middle of the falls and is the place where Livingston first saw the falls from. We ventured out right to the edge and it was amazing. There were rainbows everywhere and we had to carefully walk on the rocks (mostly standing on mossy places for more grip) and sometimes sinking midway up to our calves in mud. Even with our best efforts to keep the cameras dry they defiantly got wet. It was incredible though. Right on the edge of the falls with rainbows and mist all around- it was like another world. I actually slipped a few times- but once really lost my balance and the guide totally caught me. I wouldn’t have fallen down the falls, but I would have gotten pretty wet. Our guide talked a lot about geographical structures but I missed a lot of what he was saying because of his accent and creative syntax. We came back and they washed our feet and then we sat down at a set breakfast table, and ate a delicious breakfast. I know I’ve written a lot about food on this trip but indulge me again. We were served a baking powder biscuit with spinach on top (maybe with a cheese sauce), then an egg, and then this bacon and cheese on top. It was amazing and there were scones and muffins too. Then we got on the boat again and headed back to the hotel. From there we walked to the falls. People who are staying at the Royal Livingstone have free access to the falls. We tried to walk through that door, but Josh and I are honest individuals and when asked if we were staying at the Royal Livingston we admitted we weren’t and paid to get in. That’s 40,000K worth of honesty right there. First we walked down the boiling point. When you start walking down there, you go down stairs. I figured the whole walk would be stairs… but soon it changed. We were balancing on rocks and wading through streams. I was not dressed brilliantly for this hike that I had found myself on. I was carrying my camera and video camera and purse and had a chetanga around my waist. I was also carrying my flip-flops as barefeet gave me more grip on the rocks. Having to use both hands to climb down though made this all a bit difficult. When I got down to the bottom I made one of the most brilliant choices I’ve ever made (except I wished I’d made it earlier). I stuck all my paraphernalia in a garbage bag I’d brought, and used my chetanga to tie it all onto my back baby style. Then my hands were free. It had taken me about an hour to get down to the bottom, and I got back up to the top in about 15 minutes after my industrious choices. J It was an incredible walk—basically through the jungle. At the bottom we could see a bridge that goes to Zimbabwe and watched the bungi jumpers. On the way back there was this big baboon walking right towards us on the path. We just let it go by and avoided eye contact. J I was glad that we’d brought water with us. I was so glad that I did the walk, but I was tired once I got back up to the top and actually felt a bit dizzy.
Next we did this walk along the falls and took some great pictures. Then we backtracked and walked even closer along the falls. I had been told by Tanya that it would be in my best interest to rent a poncho and I’m glad I did. We walked along this bridge that was so close to the falls that the mist coming off it is like a torrential downpour. It was incredible to be standing near something so powerful.
After that we headed back to our hotel and chilled there for about an hour by the pool. I almost fell asleep. Then we were picked up to go microlighting. It was amazing. It was the big splurge of my trip, but we went up during the sunset. We flew over the falls and saw elephants and hippos in the river. The landscape is really incredible. The land is really jagged (like teeth) with these deep gorges. It was so beautiful!
After that we waited for a bit to get our pictures. There was a camera mounted on the wing of the microlight that took pictures of us while we were up in the air.
After that we were dropped off at a really neat restaurant called Ngoma Zanga (which means “my drums”). There we finally met up with Alissa and her friends and had a really nice dinner together and then watched some tribal dancing. By the time the taxi took as back to the hostel I was pretty tired. Before going to bed I had a conversation with this guy with a guitar who had hair just like me. When he found out I was Canadian we started talking French to eachother. That was sweet.
Next morning we woke up early to get to the bus stop before 6. We walked there, and were told to board right away. The bus ride back was much more pleasant than the bus ride going there. It was cooler for one thing. The lady beside us was asleep and there was no hair-pulling. I sort of dozed for most the trip. We met an interesting Zambian man on the bus who was heading to England for Mendella’s birthday party. Upon arrival was the now-familiar ambushing of taxi men. “no. no. no.” push my way through. Tanya, Leeland and Chris were there to meet us and then we went out to a little fast food place for lunch and caught up on our weekends. Then we went to the youth group at the school. I had really wanted to be there for my last Sunday. Normally when I am teaching the girls the music, I write the words on the black board. This time there was no chalk, so I had to teach them without the words. They did really well. Precious, Sharon’s sister came with us to check out the youth group and she was with us for the singing which was really helpful. One thing that is really neat is that she is very musical and she will now be taking over the choir. It’s so cool the way God supplies people to do his work—we didn’t know who would teach the choir after I left. In the evening Chris, Josh and I went out to Arcades and met up with Sarah and Jon and a new friend of theirs called Will (who is part of the British Navy). We ate at the Food Fayre and then went bowling together. I pretty much bowled the entire game through my legs and I didn’t loose… which says a lot about the importance of good bowling technique. At one point we were laughing because the bowling pins were trying to reset themselves, but they just kept knocking themselves down. We had a great time laughing afterwards about accents and stereotypes and TV shows and Charlie the Unicorn (a U-tube movie which all of us except Will had seen). I thought that was hilarious that even though we live in such far away places we’ve all seen that stupid movie (“let’s go to candy mountain”). That night I pretty much pulled an all-nighter making cards for people.
Monday was my last day at the school. For my classes, we wrote thank-you letters for the bore-hole. Today was also momentous because it was the first day baking bread for the woman. They were so excited to be making the bread and Tanya bought the whole first batch. The bread was pretty heavy, but so good. This was during lunch time. I was planning on teaching my reading class in the afternoon, but one of the ladies named Fataless tripped and fell onto one of the tin sheet baking trays and sliced her wrist. It was bleeding quite a lot, but with lots of gauze and pressure all the way, by the time we got to the clinic I had mostly stopped the bleeding. At the hospital they unwrapped it, and the side of her wrist was totally mangled. They gave her four injections to numb the area (it looked incredibly painful) and then started to stitch it up. I asked to stay and watch because I thought it was really interesting. They had to put stitches inside the wound and over top (10 in total). As I was watching, all of a sudden I started to feel really light-headed. “Oh come on Dayna!” I said to myself, “this is not the time”. The next moment I was sitting on the floor and laughing. I couldn’t believe it! I’d totally passed out in the emergency room. I think I woke up as soon as I hit the floor, but I left that room after that.
I’d brought a bunch of books to school in the morning that were donated. We went back to collect my suitcase as planned and it was in a locked room and the person with the key was gone.
That evening there was a little good-bye get together for me. The teachers, Sharon and Chiza and their boys and Precious all came over and we had spaghetti. Delicious. Then I stayed up late into the night finishing card stuff and packing. Packing souvenirs is quite the process!
Early in the morning, Tanya woke me up and I said my good byes and we headed to the school where we picked up Peter and Levi (two of my students) and they came to the airport to see me off. The first flight was alright except that the flight attendants were pretty grouchy. I was sitting beside a man named Renato. We got to talking and then I found out that he’d worked for World Vision in Mozambique soon after we were there. Then I asked if he knew the Brennamans (Tanya and Leeland) and he did. Small world, eh?
Watched a good assortment of movies including “The Other Bolyne Girl”, “Hortan hears a Who” and the beginning of “The Da Vinci Code”. Alissa was also on the flight with me and we were able to transfer some pictures from our computers and I showed her the short movie I’d made of our safari. At one point we both headed to the back of the plane and were able to talk with eachother until we got in-trouble for “unsafe congregating” and were separated by a grouchy flight attendant who was trying to sleep. J
When I got to Heathrow I had to go right away to the gate for my next plane. I was told that the plane was overbooked and there was a chance that I wouldn’t get onto it. I just prayed that God would work it out better than I could have planned. A bold prayer- but I think that’s something I’ve gotten used to in Zambia. Why not? If God wants it to happen it will. I got to the gate and they gave me a boarding pass and I was looking for my seat. J11. I stop at a seat with that number… but there must be a mistake because it was in first class…no mistake. AWESOME! “Would you like some Orange juice, water or champagne as we prepare for departure?” This was defiantly a moment for champagne. So I flew to Washington first class. First class with warm washcloths, glass dishes, organic nuts (on my last flight they’d run out of nuts!), fancy toiletry sets and a remote control! The flight attendants were much nicer on this flight. The food was a bit too fancy for my taste. I ate this cheese mousse as a starter that I believe was the cause of some funny tummy feeling throughout the flight. I ate lamb, and cheese cake and there were fancy chocolates and lots of tea and orange juice (my favourites). I slept (my chair would go down to be like a bed), and there was lots of stretching room for my legs. I stretched them a lot- mostly because I could. When I woke up it was tea time. (Now is time for a flashback LOST style: In my youth I remember being really upset if for some reason I slept through a meal. It was like I was really getting ripped off. And brunch… what a horrible idea. An adult trick. A word that actually meant no breakfast or lunch.) During these flights it’s been very exciting to have the illusion of having more meals because of the time-change. I watched “1000BC”- which was one of my only choices because there were some “entertainment difficulties”. Nice special effects, lame movie.
Arrived at the airport and talked with some of the officials there and then got into another line because some of my souvenirs are made out of animal products which I declared even though in retrospect I don’t think I had to. This poor Mexican lady in front of me had packed a lot of food with her. A giant head of lettuce and some bananas in one bag and cheese and potatoes in another. She was stressed, the customs officials were stressed, and it took a long time to be done with her. I told the guy about my cow-horn boat.
“No blood on it?”
“No”- I was allowed right through without him even looking at it. Then I headed to the carousel and got one of my bags and an announcement was made “Dayna Thomas please come to blah, blah, blah”. Then I was informed that one of my bags had been left behind.
That was upsetting.
I found a good spot in a waiting area and plugged in the lap-top and the i-pod to wait out my lay-over (and use this time productively). I actually also slept a bit on the floor. At four in the morning I got into line for my next flight and waited with some other people there for almost an hour. The flight people were so unwilling to be helpful and at this point I was feeling pretty exhausted. I went through security again and had not seen a sign to take the computer out of it’s case, so the lady there got mad at me again. Finally I got through all of that and went to a lounge to wait out the rest of my four hours in the airport. When the lady there found out that my final destination was Seattle she got really excited because I think the flight I was supposed to go on was really full. SO she put me on an earlier flight to Minnesota instead of waiting for the one to Detroit. It was a really small plane and the man I was supposed to be sitting beside… well… let’s just say he was partially on my seat. But the plane wasn’t very full, and so he decided to move to a place with two seats. That meant I got two seats, and was able to sleep a bit. Nortwest is a cheap airline. You have to pay for snacks and there’s no movies or music or pillows or blankets. And I was getting hungry. In Minnesota airport I got some food in me and felt so much better. Then I had to pretty much go straight to my gate. There I met a lady who used to live in Vancouver and liked to do African dancing… so interesting the people you can meet in airports. Got on my last plane and also had an empty seat beside me (and I was in the front of a section so I had lots of leg room). I slept and did some work on my computer until the battery died and listened to the i-pod.
Got off that plane took a little under-ground train to the baggage claim (about 11.44am) where I waited for my checked bag that was supposed to arrive at 3.00. Oh, I wish they hadn’t lost my other bag! That’s so grrr-mendous. One thing I was proud of though was that I was able to help another traveler get onto the internet at the airport (and I’m so tech-fully challenged!) At 3.00 I went over when the carousel started moving again and I waited and the last bag came… and mine wasn’t there. “Oh no! My other bag is lost!” I thought. I went over to get some help from an airport employee who just talked on the phone and ignored me, and then I talked to some other travelers who were helpful. When the carousel started up again, and I thought… “of course…there was more than one Northwest flight coming in at 3.00”. I checked my flight number, it popped up, I found my bag and headed to the exit where the bus would come. Once on the bus I mostly slept. Customs was pretty chill, but I felt too tired to get off the bus and pull my bags with me (good thing one of them was lost!). Mom and Andrew met me at the bus-stop. I was so happy to see them. After 47 hours of traveling I am finally home. Happy and with a sore tail bone.
Livingston. So amazing!
I thought that I wasn’t going to get an opportunity to see the Victoria Falls. Then I got to talking with this girl called Alissa (who I’d originally met when she was on the same safari as us in South Luangwa). She told me that she was planning on going and that she was going to take the bus. Josh was also interested in going, so sort of last minute we decided to JUST DO IT!
Early in the morning, Tanya and Leeland drove Josh and I to the “Inner City Bus Terminal” where we were instantly mobbed by taxi drivers. We got out and headed to a little wooden shack where the tickets were sold. We wanted to get tickets for the 6.30 bus with Alissa and her other friends, but it was full. We got on the 7.30 bus instead. The bus ride down was very hot. I was sweating so much. One nice thing about being in a coach though was that we were higher than the dust clouds that suffocate you if you are in smaller vehicles. For part of the journey we were sitting beside a girl who was singing along with her i-pod and the lady behind us liked to randomly grab our heads. We had one bathroom stop at some semi-sketchy pay toilets (500k- about 15c) during the 7 hour drive. I did manage to doze a bit during the ride, and Josh and I watched a movie on his i-pod. When we arrived in Livingston we were mobbed again by more taxi drivers. One offered to take us to our hostel for about $1.50, so we went with him (our hostel was pretty close to the bus stop). We checked in and then headed to the information place to book some activities.
Jollyboys was a great hostel. Lots of backpackers and young people. It’s a lot like summer camp. The rooms are really small and simple, but it’s got really nice common areas.
We decided we would go on the sunset cruise.
We were picked up and taken to the Zambezi were we cruised along and looked at some crocodiles and hippos. Dinner was cooked on the boat and we watched the sun set which was beautiful! Unlimited drinks were served, and when we docked again there was a fire blazing and some musicians putting on a show. We got to meet some interesting people on the cruise who were also staying at Jollyboys. Sarah and John were British friends who were backpacking through lots of African countries for their gap-year (When I found out they were on a gap-year I said “like Prince William” and they didn’t get it). There was also a Portuguese guy called Migele who was working in Mozambique and a girl from the Netherlands called Rose who was working on her masters thesis. We had a great time back at the hostel playing cards, and then sitting around the fire and talking.
At 8 o’clock the next morning the information center opened and we booked our activities for Saturday. We had some tea and exchanged some contact info with John and Sarah with the plan of meeting up at some point in Lusaka.
First on the agenda for the day was a cruise to Livingston Island. We were picked up from the hostel and taken to a ridiculously fancy hotel called the Royal Livingston ($400 per night). I even took pictures of it because it was so fancy—like out of a movie. We were treated like royalty. We got into little motor boats and took a quick ride to the island. We were greeted with a welcome drink which was Maheu (yucktastic—even though this version had vanilla). Then we walked a bit through the island and the guide pointed out some of the plants. Next we put on some rain coats and were put into little groups with a guide. We took off our shoes and ventured into the mist of the falls. Josh and I were in a group with a guide and we would walk in what the guide called an “African Chain” which was us all holding hands. Livingston Island is right in the middle of the falls and is the place where Livingston first saw the falls from. We ventured out right to the edge and it was amazing. There were rainbows everywhere and we had to carefully walk on the rocks (mostly standing on mossy places for more grip) and sometimes sinking midway up to our calves in mud. Even with our best efforts to keep the cameras dry they defiantly got wet. It was incredible though. Right on the edge of the falls with rainbows and mist all around- it was like another world. I actually slipped a few times- but once really lost my balance and the guide totally caught me. I wouldn’t have fallen down the falls, but I would have gotten pretty wet. Our guide talked a lot about geographical structures but I missed a lot of what he was saying because of his accent and creative syntax. We came back and they washed our feet and then we sat down at a set breakfast table, and ate a delicious breakfast. I know I’ve written a lot about food on this trip but indulge me again. We were served a baking powder biscuit with spinach on top (maybe with a cheese sauce), then an egg, and then this bacon and cheese on top. It was amazing and there were scones and muffins too. Then we got on the boat again and headed back to the hotel. From there we walked to the falls. People who are staying at the Royal Livingstone have free access to the falls. We tried to walk through that door, but Josh and I are honest individuals and when asked if we were staying at the Royal Livingston we admitted we weren’t and paid to get in. That’s 40,000K worth of honesty right there. First we walked down the boiling point. When you start walking down there, you go down stairs. I figured the whole walk would be stairs… but soon it changed. We were balancing on rocks and wading through streams. I was not dressed brilliantly for this hike that I had found myself on. I was carrying my camera and video camera and purse and had a chetanga around my waist. I was also carrying my flip-flops as barefeet gave me more grip on the rocks. Having to use both hands to climb down though made this all a bit difficult. When I got down to the bottom I made one of the most brilliant choices I’ve ever made (except I wished I’d made it earlier). I stuck all my paraphernalia in a garbage bag I’d brought, and used my chetanga to tie it all onto my back baby style. Then my hands were free. It had taken me about an hour to get down to the bottom, and I got back up to the top in about 15 minutes after my industrious choices. J It was an incredible walk—basically through the jungle. At the bottom we could see a bridge that goes to Zimbabwe and watched the bungi jumpers. On the way back there was this big baboon walking right towards us on the path. We just let it go by and avoided eye contact. J I was glad that we’d brought water with us. I was so glad that I did the walk, but I was tired once I got back up to the top and actually felt a bit dizzy.
Next we did this walk along the falls and took some great pictures. Then we backtracked and walked even closer along the falls. I had been told by Tanya that it would be in my best interest to rent a poncho and I’m glad I did. We walked along this bridge that was so close to the falls that the mist coming off it is like a torrential downpour. It was incredible to be standing near something so powerful.
After that we headed back to our hotel and chilled there for about an hour by the pool. I almost fell asleep. Then we were picked up to go microlighting. It was amazing. It was the big splurge of my trip, but we went up during the sunset. We flew over the falls and saw elephants and hippos in the river. The landscape is really incredible. The land is really jagged (like teeth) with these deep gorges. It was so beautiful!
After that we waited for a bit to get our pictures. There was a camera mounted on the wing of the microlight that took pictures of us while we were up in the air.
After that we were dropped off at a really neat restaurant called Ngoma Zanga (which means “my drums”). There we finally met up with Alissa and her friends and had a really nice dinner together and then watched some tribal dancing. By the time the taxi took as back to the hostel I was pretty tired. Before going to bed I had a conversation with this guy with a guitar who had hair just like me. When he found out I was Canadian we started talking French to eachother. That was sweet.
Next morning we woke up early to get to the bus stop before 6. We walked there, and were told to board right away. The bus ride back was much more pleasant than the bus ride going there. It was cooler for one thing. The lady beside us was asleep and there was no hair-pulling. I sort of dozed for most the trip. We met an interesting Zambian man on the bus who was heading to England for Mendella’s birthday party. Upon arrival was the now-familiar ambushing of taxi men. “no. no. no.” push my way through. Tanya, Leeland and Chris were there to meet us and then we went out to a little fast food place for lunch and caught up on our weekends. Then we went to the youth group at the school. I had really wanted to be there for my last Sunday. Normally when I am teaching the girls the music, I write the words on the black board. This time there was no chalk, so I had to teach them without the words. They did really well. Precious, Sharon’s sister came with us to check out the youth group and she was with us for the singing which was really helpful. One thing that is really neat is that she is very musical and she will now be taking over the choir. It’s so cool the way God supplies people to do his work—we didn’t know who would teach the choir after I left. In the evening Chris, Josh and I went out to Arcades and met up with Sarah and Jon and a new friend of theirs called Will (who is part of the British Navy). We ate at the Food Fayre and then went bowling together. I pretty much bowled the entire game through my legs and I didn’t loose… which says a lot about the importance of good bowling technique. At one point we were laughing because the bowling pins were trying to reset themselves, but they just kept knocking themselves down. We had a great time laughing afterwards about accents and stereotypes and TV shows and Charlie the Unicorn (a U-tube movie which all of us except Will had seen). I thought that was hilarious that even though we live in such far away places we’ve all seen that stupid movie (“let’s go to candy mountain”). That night I pretty much pulled an all-nighter making cards for people.
Monday was my last day at the school. For my classes, we wrote thank-you letters for the bore-hole. Today was also momentous because it was the first day baking bread for the woman. They were so excited to be making the bread and Tanya bought the whole first batch. The bread was pretty heavy, but so good. This was during lunch time. I was planning on teaching my reading class in the afternoon, but one of the ladies named Fataless tripped and fell onto one of the tin sheet baking trays and sliced her wrist. It was bleeding quite a lot, but with lots of gauze and pressure all the way, by the time we got to the clinic I had mostly stopped the bleeding. At the hospital they unwrapped it, and the side of her wrist was totally mangled. They gave her four injections to numb the area (it looked incredibly painful) and then started to stitch it up. I asked to stay and watch because I thought it was really interesting. They had to put stitches inside the wound and over top (10 in total). As I was watching, all of a sudden I started to feel really light-headed. “Oh come on Dayna!” I said to myself, “this is not the time”. The next moment I was sitting on the floor and laughing. I couldn’t believe it! I’d totally passed out in the emergency room. I think I woke up as soon as I hit the floor, but I left that room after that.
I’d brought a bunch of books to school in the morning that were donated. We went back to collect my suitcase as planned and it was in a locked room and the person with the key was gone.
That evening there was a little good-bye get together for me. The teachers, Sharon and Chiza and their boys and Precious all came over and we had spaghetti. Delicious. Then I stayed up late into the night finishing card stuff and packing. Packing souvenirs is quite the process!
Early in the morning, Tanya woke me up and I said my good byes and we headed to the school where we picked up Peter and Levi (two of my students) and they came to the airport to see me off. The first flight was alright except that the flight attendants were pretty grouchy. I was sitting beside a man named Renato. We got to talking and then I found out that he’d worked for World Vision in Mozambique soon after we were there. Then I asked if he knew the Brennamans (Tanya and Leeland) and he did. Small world, eh?
Watched a good assortment of movies including “The Other Bolyne Girl”, “Hortan hears a Who” and the beginning of “The Da Vinci Code”. Alissa was also on the flight with me and we were able to transfer some pictures from our computers and I showed her the short movie I’d made of our safari. At one point we both headed to the back of the plane and were able to talk with eachother until we got in-trouble for “unsafe congregating” and were separated by a grouchy flight attendant who was trying to sleep. J
When I got to Heathrow I had to go right away to the gate for my next plane. I was told that the plane was overbooked and there was a chance that I wouldn’t get onto it. I just prayed that God would work it out better than I could have planned. A bold prayer- but I think that’s something I’ve gotten used to in Zambia. Why not? If God wants it to happen it will. I got to the gate and they gave me a boarding pass and I was looking for my seat. J11. I stop at a seat with that number… but there must be a mistake because it was in first class…no mistake. AWESOME! “Would you like some Orange juice, water or champagne as we prepare for departure?” This was defiantly a moment for champagne. So I flew to Washington first class. First class with warm washcloths, glass dishes, organic nuts (on my last flight they’d run out of nuts!), fancy toiletry sets and a remote control! The flight attendants were much nicer on this flight. The food was a bit too fancy for my taste. I ate this cheese mousse as a starter that I believe was the cause of some funny tummy feeling throughout the flight. I ate lamb, and cheese cake and there were fancy chocolates and lots of tea and orange juice (my favourites). I slept (my chair would go down to be like a bed), and there was lots of stretching room for my legs. I stretched them a lot- mostly because I could. When I woke up it was tea time. (Now is time for a flashback LOST style: In my youth I remember being really upset if for some reason I slept through a meal. It was like I was really getting ripped off. And brunch… what a horrible idea. An adult trick. A word that actually meant no breakfast or lunch.) During these flights it’s been very exciting to have the illusion of having more meals because of the time-change. I watched “1000BC”- which was one of my only choices because there were some “entertainment difficulties”. Nice special effects, lame movie.
Arrived at the airport and talked with some of the officials there and then got into another line because some of my souvenirs are made out of animal products which I declared even though in retrospect I don’t think I had to. This poor Mexican lady in front of me had packed a lot of food with her. A giant head of lettuce and some bananas in one bag and cheese and potatoes in another. She was stressed, the customs officials were stressed, and it took a long time to be done with her. I told the guy about my cow-horn boat.
“No blood on it?”
“No”- I was allowed right through without him even looking at it. Then I headed to the carousel and got one of my bags and an announcement was made “Dayna Thomas please come to blah, blah, blah”. Then I was informed that one of my bags had been left behind.
That was upsetting.
I found a good spot in a waiting area and plugged in the lap-top and the i-pod to wait out my lay-over (and use this time productively). I actually also slept a bit on the floor. At four in the morning I got into line for my next flight and waited with some other people there for almost an hour. The flight people were so unwilling to be helpful and at this point I was feeling pretty exhausted. I went through security again and had not seen a sign to take the computer out of it’s case, so the lady there got mad at me again. Finally I got through all of that and went to a lounge to wait out the rest of my four hours in the airport. When the lady there found out that my final destination was Seattle she got really excited because I think the flight I was supposed to go on was really full. SO she put me on an earlier flight to Minnesota instead of waiting for the one to Detroit. It was a really small plane and the man I was supposed to be sitting beside… well… let’s just say he was partially on my seat. But the plane wasn’t very full, and so he decided to move to a place with two seats. That meant I got two seats, and was able to sleep a bit. Nortwest is a cheap airline. You have to pay for snacks and there’s no movies or music or pillows or blankets. And I was getting hungry. In Minnesota airport I got some food in me and felt so much better. Then I had to pretty much go straight to my gate. There I met a lady who used to live in Vancouver and liked to do African dancing… so interesting the people you can meet in airports. Got on my last plane and also had an empty seat beside me (and I was in the front of a section so I had lots of leg room). I slept and did some work on my computer until the battery died and listened to the i-pod.
Got off that plane took a little under-ground train to the baggage claim (about 11.44am) where I waited for my checked bag that was supposed to arrive at 3.00. Oh, I wish they hadn’t lost my other bag! That’s so grrr-mendous. One thing I was proud of though was that I was able to help another traveler get onto the internet at the airport (and I’m so tech-fully challenged!) At 3.00 I went over when the carousel started moving again and I waited and the last bag came… and mine wasn’t there. “Oh no! My other bag is lost!” I thought. I went over to get some help from an airport employee who just talked on the phone and ignored me, and then I talked to some other travelers who were helpful. When the carousel started up again, and I thought… “of course…there was more than one Northwest flight coming in at 3.00”. I checked my flight number, it popped up, I found my bag and headed to the exit where the bus would come. Once on the bus I mostly slept. Customs was pretty chill, but I felt too tired to get off the bus and pull my bags with me (good thing one of them was lost!). Mom and Andrew met me at the bus-stop. I was so happy to see them. After 47 hours of traveling I am finally home. Happy and with a sore tail bone.
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