I Made It!

I made it safely to Tanzania last night with ZERO flight and baggage issues. Incredible!

I sat next to this incredible woman on the flight from Austin to Detroit. She's from Austin and was going to Tanzania too. I was completely shocked. I mean really, what are the odds? She's been to Tanzania many times so she told me all about Arusha, Zanzibar and everything else I wanted to know about what I could expect in Tanzania. It could not have worked out better. I was really upset when I boarded the plane and was feeling very unsure about this whole thing, but after talking to her I was able to remember all the things I have to look forward to here and exactly why I'm coming all this way.

It turns out that she was coming back to Tanzania this time to climb Kilimanjaro. Now, a lot of people asked me if I planned to climb it when I got here. I can now say with absolute certainty that I will not be climbing Kili on this trip (we'll save that for another East African adventure). First of all, I thought packing for 4 months in Tanzania was hard. She's here for 3 weeks and had to pack for 5 different climates because you go from Rainforest to Arctic and everything in between on Kilimanjaro. No, thank you. Second, it's really expensive. She said she spent about $1000 on equipment in Austin and then is still renting all of the "Arctic weather stuff" like sleeping bags, jackets, etc. Crazy.

Anyway, my new friend was on a later flight from Detroit to Amsterdam so I flew on that one by myself. Literally, I had my own row to spread out on which was so nice. The airport in Amsterdam is absolutely the most insane airport I've ever seen. Apparently, it's 7 miles from one end to the other so I'm very thankful I had a short (15 min) walk from one gate to the other. I met a girl from my program in Amsterdam and we get along really well. She loves music as much as I do and we get to choose our roommates so we're going to live together too.

The flight to Kilimanjaro Airport was long and I really wish we would have gotten window seats. If you every fly to Africa, get a window seat. We flew right through the Ionian Sea and over Greece. Then we went over Egypt and down through Sudan and Kenya.

It was nice and breezy and about 85 degrees when we got off the plane. We got our visas and made it through customs quickly, got our bags and were met by our driver, Tau, and one of the program directors, Ethel. It was about a 45 minute drive from the airport to Arusha, where we stayed the night at this nice hotel where I had my own room with a huge four poster bed (complete with mosquito net).

We met our resident director Martha this morning and she and Ethel brought us to our apartment. They have taken such care to plan every detail for us. The apartment restaurant has prepared a menu just for us. They've seriously covered everything. I am going to be SO spoiled this semester. Our apartment is about the size of the average 2 bedroom apartment back home, but the bedrooms are a little bigger. We're sleeping 2 to a room, so Sarah and I will have more roommates when they arrive tonight. We're in the apartment's internet cafe now. The internet is pretty fast and this apartment complex is really nice.

I am so glad to be here, but I know that I will miss home terribly. I'll try to post pictures soon so you can see this BEAUTIFUL place.