Day 27: 22 hour travel day

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Away we go. Goodbye Europe and Hello Africa! The day started with more exploration of the city of Malaga, visiting the Pablo Picasso museum, and navigating our way to the airport. Goal for today: get from Malaga to Italy, Italy to Ethiopia, Ethiopia to Uganda. Airports are an interesting place to hang out and this trip has been great in experiencing the variation in the process. In Malaga, each airline had multiple check in counters, but you were sorted by flight. Meaning you could only check in for a flight when they wanted you to. So despite getting to the airport 2.5 hours early, we had 45 minutes before boarding. Italy’s airport was more like a Mall of America than an airport. Finally, Ethiopia‘s had a triple check-in. One to get into the departure terminal (which had shops and bathrooms), then you had to go through security again to get to the other side of the glass panneling for gate waiting area. The waiting area only had seats and 1 bathroom for the 26 gates (no shops, restaurants or water access). Finally, you had to go to the boarding area at your designated time based on your ticket (not announced). This required going downstairs and waiting to get on a shuttle to get out to the plane. If you were late to this one, you missed your flight.

The other goal of this trip was to read more than 10 books (10 pushup bet). I wanted to only utilize book trades at hostels. The problems have been: our lack of hostel in London, lack of English books (Germany and France), and finishing a book in the airport. Today I left a book on a chair in the airport with a note asking to be passed along (50-50 chance it will get passed along and not tossed). However, the reading is coming along. If you are looking for some good reading, here is what I have read thus far (in order of my recommendation):

- Son‘s and Soldiers: Great read about WWII and a special US deployment of soldiers

-Torn Apart: Nonfiction (James Patterson) about a child with Tourette’s and his struggle. Very good.

- Time of Death: mystery/suspense book. not a fan of the ending and a slow start but overall a no brained easy read

- Due for Discard: mystery/suspense book: forensic library tale, the female character left me wanting more but again easy read

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