Flight and Arrival (Tuesday-Wednesday, Nov 21-22)

What can I say…I have been awake for going on 30 hours and feeling on the very edge of being delirious. This is the first time that I have traveled 2 legs of 6-8 hours, and Im beyond exhaustion. Besides, the flight from DC to Amsterdam was in an old crummy 767 with no leg room and tiny seats. Needless to say that despite my double sleeping aid strategy (herbal pills and Airborne night time), I barely slept half an hour. The Amsterdam airport did not impress me at all, despite everyone’s praises. It was smoky, somewhat Ikea-looking (but not in a cozy way), and everything was in euros (i.e. very expensive). However, I befriended a very nice lady on the flight to Amsterdam, who was also continuing on to Nairobi to see her husband who is in the navy and stationed in East Africa. While still taxing to our gate in Amsterdam, from our plane windows we saw an area at the airport that had lounge chairs where you could spread out. Henceforth, since we had about 3 hours to waste before the flight, all our energy was put into finding that particular section of the airport. Upon successfully locating it, we were rewarded by about 1.5 hours sitting in the awesome lounge chairs.

The flight from Amsterdam to Nairobi was a marvel…nice, large plane, with plenty of leg room, personal TVs in front of every seat with a choice of movies and programs (!!!). Besides, it was only half-full, so I had 3 (!!!) seats all to myself, where I was able to stretch out and sleep for a bit.

Upon arriving to Nairobi I couldn’t stop saying, “Oh my gosh, Im in Africa!” However, I realized how much I have to cast myself on God’s mercy when I travel (e.g. taking taxis to hotels). The Lord kept me safe, and Im preparing to finally sleep for real and actively attack jetlag by taking a triple-edged approach: melatonin, airborne nighttime, and some herbal pills.