July 05, 2008

Love being abroad, hate travelling

I'm the least adventurous Adventurous person I know. I know it's a weird concept but though I love to travel, I get inordinately nervous and worked up about it. Yesterday, I had a friend check out all the contents of my suitcase to make sure that I had packed enough t-shirts and underwear.

Also, I had planned only 1 hour and 10 minutes between the flight to Frankfurt and Addis Ababa, and the plane waited 20 minutes on the ground because the gate was not ready, and finally unloaded us onto a bus to bring us to the terminal from a remote location. I was biting my nails all throughout the ordeal of waiting, being stuck behind a slow moving woman who overpacked and couldn't move her stuff, waiting for the slow-ass extensible stairway to unfold, and graciously letting a woman and her husband slip in front of me out of pure courtesy (a hard habit to summon when one is running late). The tip of the woman's 10 fingers were dyed black and she wore a headscarf held together with a red and a white pin.

After doing a power walk, I arrive during the boarding of the Addis flight, just in time to duck into the bathroom of the plane, get stuck in its smelly interior while an entire family (grandma and all) and their pull-on luggage block my way, and finally settle in my seat. I am hungry and my hair's a mess after the first 7.5 hour flight and I have another 8 hours to go.

I hate travelling.

2 comments:

Carl said...

007 on the way back to Africa. Like I said before, hurray!

This quote sort of fits the situation I think:

" Commanding a starship is your first, best destiny; anything else is a waste of material. "

(of course there aren't any starships involved.)

Anonymous said...

I didn't realize you were leaving to Africa **now**!! Have a great trip and take lots of photos!!
Ammo