The Loooong Trip

Flying sure is cool when you book your ticket and think about flying around the world. Then you get in line at Washington DC to get on your Ethiopian Airlines flight to Rome, Italy and you start to feel a little different. Long lines and different ways of doing things are a way of life when traveling internationally. Ethiopian Air was great however, despite long lines and such. The planes were great (Boeing of course for the family) and the meals were excellent. (Unlike United that had a meal that you could pay for between Seattle and DC!). I started the trip with a cold, so gaining and losing elevation was horrible on my ears. My left ear was semi-deaf until today, and it’s finally clearing up now. When we got to Addis (Ethiopia), we had to give our plane ticket to Ethiopian staff, and then our actual passport to Immigration. Then we were taken to the “Mariott” which was a pretty old hotel (also note the single r instead of Marriott). Despite the culture shock, we had a nice meal and a good bed to sleep in. We even had a hot shower…well after I figured out how to turn on the wall outlet so our hot water heater could charge and heat water overnight that is. Then it was off to Entebbe which is beautiful and has Lake Victoria as a backdrop. Our first trip in a taxi (minivan) was next. A taxi is a Toyota van (like the one my parents used to own) that has no middle seat in the passenger area. They are made for cargo but the taxi companies put a seat in the middle. Some seats are bolted down, some are not even seats. By law they have seat belts but usually those aren’t real. Then, depending on if it is an extended version or not, you can get between 12 – 25 people in one of these things. Africa is definitely a different world.