Arrival

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Well we finally made it to our house in Abokobi. What a trip it was too. The flights from JFK to Amsterdam and then Amsterdam to Accra were about 8 hours and 6 hours respectively. In Amsterdam we had a 7 hour layover but we had been flying all night, finally landing in Schipol airport at 0630. We got some food at McDonalds in Amsterdam and paid $27.00 for two value meals!! Remind me to beat down Ronald McDonald when I see him. We finally were able to find some "comfort chairs" in order to get some sleep but I wasn't able to sleep at ALL. We had some very noisy and inconsiderate.

The flight from Amsterdam to Accra, even though time wise it was shorter, was the longest feeling flight of my life. I was very uncomfortable and sick feeling. To top it off they (KLM) served chicken in oyster sauce for the dinner. I love chicken and I love oysters, but not together and not on a plane. Also there were crying babies on this flight, we were lucky on the first leg of the trip the babies were quiet.

When we finally landed in Accra our bags were the LAST bags off loaded and I was really nervous because I thought for a while that they were lost. Our next big issue was exchanging money from US dollar to Cedi. The woman was the only person that we had interacted with up to that point that was a complete ass. She was really just a difficult person to deal with.

Once we got outside we were nearly trampled by people trying to carry our bags. I was just fine but Julie being much smaller than me had a pretty rough time. I got my first class on how to get screwed also, I got conned into giving a 20 cedi tip to the wrong taxi driver. I thought he was our driver but no, and 20 Cedi and literally 5 times the amount that you tip people there. And that is the high side too, generally it is just 1 Cedi.

When we finally got to the house Carolyn, the mother in our host family, fed me some chicken and I passed out. It is sure nice to be here though, finally!!

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