Off I go to Africa!

I worked the day before I left on my trip.  But I was mostly ready except for some last minute things.  I had been packing for a week and had a list of what I still needed to throw in a bag.  Unfortunately, my ride to the airport arrived early, but a few hours, and I had to rush.  

Got to the airport, put a few things in my bag that hadn’t made it in there yet, and got checked in.  Due to my flights being international, I hadn’t been able to check in online the night before.  Got that handled and went through security.  There was no sense sitting outside security as I wanted a cup of tea and knew I couldn’t take that through.

 

As I had several hours to kill, I sat down on a bench with TCM (Who is TCM?) and read for a while.  Finally it was time to board and take the first of three flights to Calgary.   This is one problem with being in Saskatoon; we have to fly to a larger center to get anywhere.  

I had time to kill in Calgary so I had some lunch and chatted with friends via my tablet.  I decided to leave my smartphone, kindle and iPod at home and just take one device instead.  I already had enough other things to take with me.  I ultimately regretted this but that is another post.

Waiting for our Flight

My next flight was 9 hours to Amsterdam.  In the past, I have been able to sleep but I couldn’t this flight.  We were fed twice, there was TV to watch, but I just couldn’t get comfortable.  I was surprised how long it took to cross Canada; I think at least half of the flight.  Made me think next time I flew to Europe to go via Toronto instead.  

Eventually we made it to Amsterdam.  I did the security thing and all that and went to my gate to play on the Wi-Fi.  But the time zone differences struck and no one was around back home to entertain me.   There were no chargers in this area of the airport so reading was a bit of a challenge as my tablet just did not have the battery stamina that my kindle does.  (One of the main drawbacks of my tablet when Wi-Fi was running).   The gate was in an area that felt a bit older and was under renovations.  Even using the washroom was a bit tricky as it was small and there were a lot of people going in and out.

Plane from Amsterdam to Nairobi

After hanging out in there for many hours, it was onto another plane to fly another 9 hours to Nairobi, Kenya.  We got off the plane, loaded onto a bus and taken to the arrivals area.  Here we had to go through customs and show our visa’s and then we could go claim our luggage.   After waiting on my luggage for a good half an hour to an hour, I realized it did not arrive and that I had to go to the service desk to figure it out.  A post about this will be coming.

By the time I got out of the airport, my ride had left, or at least, I couldn’t find it.  I ended up getting a ride with a local cab, overpaid (my fault for not double checking my currency) and arrived at my hotel.  As I arrived, someone at the hotel asked my name and I told them.  I guess my pre-booked cab was waiting for me.  I had taken so long that they thought I hadn’t been on the flight.