Layover in Addis Ababa, Ethiopia

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Geo: 9.02274, 38.7468

Now we have four hours before we head
to Paris. Walk along checking things out. When we were here last year,
it seemed to be much smaller and did not have all the shops and
restaurants we are seeing. Think we landed in the area where planes
flying around in Africa were and not the international terminal. Not
sure but there were several places to eat or sit around. We decided on a
place and sat at the bar. Were waited on and ordered a typical
Ethiopian dish and a large glass of beer and a glass of wine. Started
talking to the guy next to us.....is Italian and told us how to say "I
do not speak Italian!" Had a pleasant visit with him and really enjoyed
the food we were served. A spicy beef and spicy chicken dish with a
pancake like bread to eat with it. We had been told by Patrick about
this pancake bread.

Check the monitor and says we are leaving
from Gate 4. Head that direction. No, they are only taking people for
flight to............fill in the blank. Join the general line waiting
for them to call us. We are going to have to go through another
security check. Had to do one in Llongwe, now Addis Ababa and finally
they call people for our flight as well as stragglers for Shanghai and
Stockholm and Nairobi...Get the picture. Very hectic.

Go over
to Gate 4 and there are people for Stockholm and Paris there and then
suddenly, we are all directed to go downstairs. The lady from the
counter in Llongwe comes up to the check in desk and starts to complain,
no one told us......blahblahblah.

It is now getting very close
to the 12:30a.m. takeoff time and we are still on the ground. We get in
line and make sure we are getting on the correct bus to the correct
plane. Unfortunately, our counter lady cuts in between Robert and I
getting off the bus and onto the plane and she says to Robert he must
watch his luggage. We kindly ignore her.

Get on the plane and
there is a young child in our seat. The stewardess asks us to move into
a seat on either side of woman and child. There is some problem with
the woman that the stewardess tries to mouth to us but could not read
her lips. Fortunately, a woman with infant gets up and give us her seat
and the one next to it so we can be together and the woman and son can
be together.

Dinner is served again and following the rule of
eating when you can, ate some of the meal and enjoyed another glass of
wine. Did sleep off and on during the flight but not a real restful
sleep.

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Photos

bite to eat of authentic Ethiopian food
it was two different types of meat in gravy with these pancake like breaks to eat it with. They were both spicy and quite delicious