Hello everyone,
So I went on my merry way to the Stanley Hotel in Nairobi, which my taxi driver told me was where the Queen of England used to entertain diplomats during colonialism. I walked inside and realized I was in the nicest hotel I have ever stayed in. The hotel was so beautiful (it was a five star hotel), and they gave me free dinner which consisted of chicken and french fries. Then I went to my room and watched ESPN, which I found slightly ridiculous because I was hearing about the New Orleans Saints and Drew Brees while I was halfway across the world. How cool!
Finally, the next day, I made it to Addis Ababa Ethiopia, the third highest capital city in the world! (If you know the first two, I would really like to know what they are). I thought the altitude might bother me, but it hasn't so far, although when I try to work out, I think I will be in for a rude awakening. Apparently Olympic athletes train for races in the mountains right outside Addis. Maybe I will meet one! The air pollution is soooo bad though, and that has started bothering me already. It seems worse than anywhere I have ever been (even Bangkok!), but I am sure it won't interfere with enjoying how awesome Ethiopia is.
The first day I was here, I got a cell phone, exchanged money, and explored a little (in an area of town called Mexico...have no idea why..?). I went with my new roommate, who is from South Korea, to a really awesome restaurant called Yeshi Buna. It was the first Ethiopian food I had ever had in my entire life! It was a plateful of Injera, this thin spongy bread that is apparently really good for you, with vegetables and other things on top. Everyone shares one big plate, and you use the thin bread to scoop up the vegetables with your hand. I was so messy, but hopefully I will get better haha. It was absolutely delicious.
Tomorrow I start my first day as a teacher at a primary school called Kechene. I am excited but quite nervous, of course. Apparently though, this school is really great at motivating students to learn through competitions and things like that which the kids get really into. This is one thing I am not very good at in my own classroom in New Orleans, so I am excited to learn from them and hopefully contribute a little too! I will keep you updated as much as I can, of course, and hopefully talk less about myself in the next few posts.:)
-Colleen
I have arrived in Ethiopia safely, finally! The trip went fairly smoothly, although I think I was traveling for over 48 hours, which seems like two weeks when you are by yourself. I got a little nervous when I got to London, where I had a 13 hour overnight layover. I got to the terminal my flight was leaving from, where I figured it would still be bustling with people and maybe even have restaurants open overnight. But I was wrong. Very wrong. The man who was working there was like..."uhh... they close the terminal overnight." and I was like "uh oh." But I went to the terminal anyway and asked them what I should do. They said to take a bus to the main terminal where we could sleep. So I got on the bus, which I found out was the last one of the night, and drove for seriously like 30 minutes to the other terminal. How could that airport be so big??? Anyway, there were probably 40 other people spending the night, and they herded us like sheep to this one gate which we weren't allowed to leave. And we all just had a big sleepover. It was strange, haha
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The next day I finally got to Kenya, where I knew I would have to run to make my connection to Ethiopia. But the airport worker said, "oh, you just need to go to gate 6." I was so excited to make the flight, but little did I know that gate 6 was the Kenya airways transfer desk where there were 50 people waiting in line to get their boarding passes, all of whom were about to miss their flight like me. There were people shouting at the receptionists to hurry up, and people shouting at each other for cutting in line. I was chaotic, and I missed my flight of course. But when I got to the desk, they hardly asked me anything, they just gave me a hotel and booked my flight for the next morning. That is a lot more than I can say for Delta, who basically left me to fend for myself in DC for two nights after their airplane had mechanical problems (then they lost my bag for three weeks, so I was stuck in Uganda with one change of clothes ahh!).So I went on my merry way to the Stanley Hotel in Nairobi, which my taxi driver told me was where the Queen of England used to entertain diplomats during colonialism. I walked inside and realized I was in the nicest hotel I have ever stayed in. The hotel was so beautiful (it was a five star hotel), and they gave me free dinner which consisted of chicken and french fries. Then I went to my room and watched ESPN, which I found slightly ridiculous because I was hearing about the New Orleans Saints and Drew Brees while I was halfway across the world. How cool!
Finally, the next day, I made it to Addis Ababa Ethiopia, the third highest capital city in the world! (If you know the first two, I would really like to know what they are). I thought the altitude might bother me, but it hasn't so far, although when I try to work out, I think I will be in for a rude awakening. Apparently Olympic athletes train for races in the mountains right outside Addis. Maybe I will meet one! The air pollution is soooo bad though, and that has started bothering me already. It seems worse than anywhere I have ever been (even Bangkok!), but I am sure it won't interfere with enjoying how awesome Ethiopia is.
The first day I was here, I got a cell phone, exchanged money, and explored a little (in an area of town called Mexico...have no idea why..?). I went with my new roommate, who is from South Korea, to a really awesome restaurant called Yeshi Buna. It was the first Ethiopian food I had ever had in my entire life! It was a plateful of Injera, this thin spongy bread that is apparently really good for you, with vegetables and other things on top. Everyone shares one big plate, and you use the thin bread to scoop up the vegetables with your hand. I was so messy, but hopefully I will get better haha. It was absolutely delicious.
Tomorrow I start my first day as a teacher at a primary school called Kechene. I am excited but quite nervous, of course. Apparently though, this school is really great at motivating students to learn through competitions and things like that which the kids get really into. This is one thing I am not very good at in my own classroom in New Orleans, so I am excited to learn from them and hopefully contribute a little too! I will keep you updated as much as I can, of course, and hopefully talk less about myself in the next few posts.:)
-Colleen
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