Almost there!!

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Dar Es Salaam Airport -May 26th, 2011 @ 530pm
Wowwww what a journey this has been already. I am currently sitting in the Dar Es Salaam domestic "terminal" which is one room with 4 gates- so cute and so african. I'm surrounded by locals with a few white faces in the crowd. I have been in the same outfit for 3 days now --you can imagine how I smell and look! Delicious. Woke up early this morning in Dubai, chatted with the fam before I left for the airport, than it was off to another long (kind of) plane ride. The Dubai Airport is nothing like I've ever seen. It was amazing. SOOOO modern - i literally felt like I was going off to space. Everything is like a massive glass bubble, its gorgeous. Flight was on time (just 20 minutes late.) Didn't have the same luck as the last flight with the space issue because I had a neighbor, really nice guy from Tanga, Tanzania --but boy was he big! My overly long legs like to stretch, but definitely had to curl up against the window for the flight!! Atleast he was a talker, tough to understand some of the things he was saying but a smile goes a long way. He gave me his business card incase I make it to Tanga (i think its like 5 hours from where I will be living.) My meal was great, instead of ordering the vegetarian plate (which my last flight turned out to be one vegan and one hindu), I got a fruit plattter which was SUCH a good choice. Watched 2 movies than slept until we landed; the flight was smooth but no view flying in.. it was cloudy and I only saw a few glispes of the water/beaches - just stunning. This place is soooo lush and green, much more tropical than I had imagined. The people are very nice, I cant even imagine how nice they will be outside of the airport! I think its internationally known that airport workers are not the friendliest kids in the bunch... oh I'm getting SOOOO excited, I'm so close!!!!! I purchased my visa ahead of time so i got to skip a big line and go straight to passport control - no problems there. Than it was time for baggage... i was having dreadful thoughts about this... I flew from LAX to Dubai; had a 24 hour layover; than on to Dar Es Salaam... I was so nervous that my bags would get lost because if they did, I couldnt catch my next flight to Kilimanjaro (which leaves in 30 minutes) and I would have to find a hostel to stay in until my bags came.. I stood there for 30 minutes while everybody else got their bags... just as I was about to report the lost bags, my backpack surpised me with my other bag in tow... woohoo! Than it was through customs, which they didn't even look at me twice. Since my next flight was with a domestic airline, I had to have an escort take me through these back halls to get to the terminal - stood in line, than they told me that I didn't have a reservation so I would have to go back outside to purchase a ticket... did that, and exchanged $50 into shillings while I was out there... than went back through securitry (theres about a million security points in this airport) and they searched my bags and found what they were looking for... a banana. Went back to the ticket counter, showed her that I purchased it, she weighed my bags and charged me 100,000 shillings, about 80 bucks! I told her I dont have it, so she took what I (said I) had -- 60,000 shillings... i pocketed 10,000 shillings without telling her, and now that I'm in the waiting area.. I treated myself to a local beer called "Kilimanjaro Premium Lager" -- though it was appropriate :] This flight will only be an hour and a half, and than Crispin will be waiting for me at the airport (I hope) and than I will see my new home. What an adventure :] Cant hardly wait. More later!!

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