July 11 Leaving for Kenya!

It feels so good to say "I'm flying to Kenya today!" I've been talking to myself all morning. I re-weighed my bags this morning (just to make sure nothing changed overnight) to make sure I meet the 50lb weight requirement. I'm paying extra airline fees to take a 3rd piece of luggage, because in addition to some medical supplies, our team is taking towels, linens, and mattress covers for the new guest housing at the village, and that is filling up a lot of luggage!

This is how my day went:

6am Spokane to Denver, flight time: 2hrs 10

1130am Denver to Washington DC, flight time: 2hrs 40min

I met up with the team in DC and met Julianne and Courtney from Texas for the first time. Sue, Tara, Scott, Linda, Allie, and Alicia I met in Portland a few weeks ago. We all checked in to Ethiopian Airlines, and about half of us soon learned that Ethiopian airlines restricts "hand luggage" to 15 pounds. Not good news for those of us who took the line "checked bags are lost bags" seriously and crammed a lot into our carry-ons. Luckily, they checked it plane side and promised it would be waiting for us in Addis Ababa, not checked through to Nairobi with the rest of the luggage. This is also when I found out that our plane stops in Rome only to refuel, and we do not deplane. Being seated on one plane for 16 hours seemed pretty daunting, but that didn't stop us from boarding! I was also very happy to learn that 21L was a window seat! Our flight left at 830pm, and we were all provided with a blanket, an eye mask, socks, toothbrush, and toothpaste. I slept off and on, ate some really weird plane food (lasagna made from rice?) and finally landed 16 hours later in Addis Ababa. We went through "in-transit" customs and security, collected our carry-on luggage, and took an airport shuttle to "DreamLiner" hotel for the night. The hotel is totally awesome. And it felt so good to walk around and climb some stairs after sitting down so much on the plane! My room mate is Julianne, and we slept like rocks, even after napping half the day on the plane, and even though the beds were the hardest I have ever slept on. They felt really good! We also got hot showers and a hot breakfast (and coffee!) before going back to the airport for our Nairobi flight. Kenya, here we come!