Traveling

So the trip over was fairly uneventful, I just figured I'd put up a few pictures from there and catch up from there.  All of my planes were delayed, which works out fine.  The cooler of medicines sent to me from Mercy Ships made it as well, though turning over a few times (which they'd said to try to keep upright due to cultures in petri dishes).

It was nice to have one last glimpse of some "snowy" mountains...

My 2 layovers were in DC and Brussels.  I was super thrilled to get to see Kara in DC for a few hours and catch up (as well as break up the monotony of traveling!).  Got back in through security in plenty of time, and then my plane actually got delayed due to something being wrong with the engine - so we got a new plane.  I actually did one of those 15 minute manicures in the airport (it really wasn't that  expensive I thought...of course, I've only had 1 manicure before) because my hands seemed really torn up.  So then I made it across the ocean, sitting next to a couple who were traveling to the Democratic Republic of the Congo to adopt a son who was about 1 year old.  So cool! 

Then I arrived in Brussels about dawn, which I thought was kinda pretty.



I had my obligatory "Belgian" waffle - it seemed like there were granules of sugar inside of it, no wonder they're so tasty!  ;) 

So then I went to the Africa terminal (I spent most of my time in the main terminal after a good tip from a prior Mercy Shipper) and waited on my 2nd late flight.  I ended up standing in line behind another Mercy Shipper, Steven, and our seats were actually next to each other, so we were able to talk during the flight.  I had a window seat, so it was very neat to be able to see the random buildings in France and Spain (well, actually most of the time clouds covered it up, who am I fooling), but it cleared up some over Africa, so we could see very mountainous areas (probably over Morocco) and we pretty much hugged the coast most of the way to Guinea.  Once we got to the airport, we got to customs fairly quickly (it was not like Kenya's massive line), Steven went first and appeared to have no problem, so then I went and apparently was not giving them the correct 'visa waiver' sheet - and they were calling it a visa, so I was a little perturbed that something was wrong, and then I looked through my stuff and still couldn't find the right paper...  The insides got a little shaky about 5-10 minutes into this, because I didn't want to be deported when I had just arrived!!!  ;)  Thankfully the correct form was just stapled onto an English version and I just didn't see it at first.  Shew.
Proceeded onto the luggage...took a while for my stuff, but there was no going through customs with your luggage, looking at stuff, so that was nice (all my lovely snacks made it ;) )  We arrived with 7 total MS people on that flight, so 2 MS Land Rovers picked us up.  (Saturday 40 some people arrive, so they're going to have to take a ridiculous amount of vehicles to get all that luggage and people!!)   We had a small little inservice that night with some cookies, and I was able to unpack most of my stuff.  I am in a 6 woman berth with the bottom middle bunk, which I'm glad for.  It's a little hard adjusting to try to keep everything as quiet and as dark as I can in the night/morning...I feel like it makes me take 2x as long to get ready!  :)  But I'm sure it will improve as I get a little more organized!!!

Thanks for all your support!