In Limbo

Addis Ababa, Ethiopia – Saturday afternoon 6/16/2013

The good news: My friend Christine is also going on this trip! She and I have been anticipating this since December, and we’re SO excited.  It’s what motivated us through many long nights in Teer basement, wrestling with our breadboards in an introductory circuits class.  I can’t believe how lucky I am to be going on this trip with her, to share these experiences, and to conveniently share the same flight plan!  International travel is so much more fun with a friend by your side.

The bad news: We have an eighteen hour layover…in Ethiopia.  We arrived here at 6:30am local time, and our next flight isn’t until tomorrow around 1am.  It’s pretty ridiculous, and I don’t know what I’d do if I were here alone.  It’s such a life-saver that Christine and I are here together.  (Our moms are pretty happy about this, too.)  And by another stroke of luck, Ethiopian Airlines offered us a complimentary hotel to make up for the long layover, so we’re here at the hotel now having a nice rest.

The past 24 hours has been such an eclectic succession of circumstances.  I’m trying to find a way to tie it all together.  It’s so…random.

Well first, the airport.  To be honest, waiting there for 18 hours would have been awful.  The waiting room was dim, dingy, warm and sticky.  It had rows of padded lounge chairs for people to sleep on as they waited, but it was so crowded that people were often piled two to a chair.  That room stank of weary travelers.

Though the airport itself was not very welcoming, the airlines staff was unbelievably gracious.  They were so helpful, sympathetic of our circumstances, and very transparent about their procedures—almost opposite of the treatment we would’ve received in an American airport.

But things got a little too friendly when Christine received several good-natured but still unnerving compliments about her hair.  (I’m realizing the pros of being brunette.)  Things went smoothly though, because we make a good traveling pair: Christine’s good at approaching people, and I’m good at being calm :).  Together we surveyed our circumstances and took the calculated risk of passing through the city to reach the hotel.

That was the most interesting part, because we got a real taste of the city.  There were no lines on the roads, so cars were just flying past each other and merging as they pleased.  And on the sides of the roads, constant streams of people…walking, just walking and walking.  They crossed the streets and  calmly walked amongst the cars, even through a roundabout.  And there were goats!  Piles of them sitting on the side of the road.  Along one highway, we saw a man sprinting after some goats, which was pretty funny.  The whole atmosphere exuded a sort of calm chaos.  All the while, Christine and I were holding hands in the shuttle bus and staring at this incredibly foreign city flashing past us.

We’re here now, holed up in our little hotel room in the middle of Addis Ababa, feeling like we’re suspended in limbo.  We’re in this alternate universe, literally, in between two worlds, our home and our destination.  No idea what time it is.  Although we’ve reached the right time zone, we still have another red-eye ahead of us.  Our internal clocks are all messed up, but we can’t reset them until we arrive Tanzania.

Anyway, we’ve actually been enjoying ourselves!  We took a four hour nap, showered, and watched some Ethiopian TV.  A little while ago, we threw a two-person dance party. We're about to head to dinner, our first African meal.  See you in Tanzania!