Flight and Arrival

I began travelling on Friday morning when we left Cedarburg for the Chicago O'Hare airport. I flew to Spain with Iberia; a seven hour, not-so-comfortable flight with grumpy flight attendants. I was sitting next to what I think was a tortured musician. He was in probably his late 50's and he spent a lot of time with his Bose on and humming, whistling, and tapping his fingers. Then I was dumped rather unceremoniously in the Madrid airport, which was beautiful, but even beauty begins to fade after seven hours of feeling ill and exhausted, not to mention bored and apprehensive. But I watched 'A Bug's Life' and had some very tasty food and boarded my plane to Dusseldorf. That flight was short, cramped, but relaxing. When I landed my friend Ollie picked me up and we hopped on the Autoban to Hilden. We stayed with Ollie's parents, who were very nice and made us very delicious meals. The cheese! Oh the cheese we ate....the stuff of dreams, I tell you. That night we went to his friend Najla's birthday party and we drank a lot. There was also a buffet table full of salad, CHEESE, desserts, bread, and meat dishes. Everybody seemed to know my brother Steve, which was funny, and I ended up having a lot of very interesting conversations with the Germans.

That night I slept from 3 am to 1 pm, and when I woke up I was fed a delicious breakfast and then Ollie and I were on our way to Dusseldorf. We basically spent time recovering there, and then he dropped me off at the train station so that I could ride to the Frankfurt airport. The Frankfurt airport was large but unusually empty and I made it to my gate without incident. It turns out my plane was a huge Luftansa airbus, a massive double-decker miracle of flight equipped with screens in every seat, a good selection of movies and tv, and cameras on the plane so that you could watch it and then chart the progress we were making flying over Europe and Africa. I met two gentleman on that flight who proved to be very helpful when it came to catching my next flight. One, and American doctor from California named Larry, was flying to Namibia, but he helped me race through the airport, skip lines, and make it to my gate on time. Yay Larry!

The flight to Botswana was short, sweet, and full of other CIEE participants. Now I am sitting int he Oasis Motel in a crowded room full of chattering Americans and a few local students who have come to keep us company. I am sharing a room with a girl named Megan, and the room (I will post pictures soon!) is spacious and nice. The whole place is full of beautiful open courtyards, tall palm trees, and wooden and stone furniture. So far the weather is warmer than I expected, but I have been informed that it is unusually cold and cloudy. I am so looking forward to a shower, dinner, and a good long sleep in a real bed.