Update 1-- Travel
So, I woke up pretty early this morning so first thing I did was write in my journal about my trip (I didn't want to forget anything), and now I'll add that entry on here so you can all hear about it. It's going to be a little long (in my journal it was 14 pages...lol) but I wanted to get most of the details down because I know that I will be asked about them all anyway. Feel free to message me on facebook if you want to know more or if you have a question that I didn't answer.
Libreville, Gabon--Day 1 March 31st
It's only 7:45Am over here and even though my body has gotten practically no sleep for the past three days, I am wide awake. Maybe even with all the time changes I am still on Californian time. I was planning to sleep in till about noon today so I could catch up on a little sleep, but by 7am I was wide awake. I still got a good nights rest since I went to sleep about 10:30pm last night but I've never had trouble sleeping in before:) so I was expecting to sleep a lot more than 8.5 hours. Still, I will take it as it is the first time I have slept more than a few minutes at a time in the past few days. Also, from what I can tell I'm not that tired right now, probably for over exhaustion, hopefully that lasts for the day.
So, I left my house early Tuesday morning (about 2Am) Californian time, my mom drove me to Sacramento and we got to the airport at about 4:45. After checking my suitcase and talking for a bit we said goodbye and I went through security, which took maybe fifteen minutes. I called my mom to let her know I made it through and she went home. I had about forty minutes before my plane took off so I got a Starbucks (last one before I left) and waited. My plane left about 6:30. My first flight which was by far the shortest (under four hours) was for me my least favorite as I was in the middle seat, cramped, tired, and slightly nausea.
When we arrived in Houston with the first time change it was about 12. I had four hours before my next flight, which at the time still did not have a gate, so I had lunch and then went in search of my terminal. The only problem was the terminal had a TON of gates and I really didn't want to be sitting on the wrong side or something. I decided that since my flight wasn't up on a board, I would go look for someone to ask ( the terminal was practically empty). After about fifteen-twenty minutes I found a really nice and helpful security woman, who after checking to see if my plane had a gate yet (negative), she told me which of the two gates it would have a chance at being in and walked me to them. After that I considered going around the airport to kill time since I still had awhile to wait, but I was tired and didn't really feel like going shopping or walking around. So, instead I sat and texted and read. My second flight didn't start boarding till when we were supposed to be taking off and then after we had our boarding passes checked and were making our way to the plane we all had our bags drug tested. It was a bit intense, one because we were being pulled away in groups of ten, and two because it was unexpected and we were being yelled at. Anyway, we all had to stand on the opposite side of a hallway from our bags while they brought a dog through to check our bags. Everything was fine and we were finally allowed to board our plane.
For my second flight not only did I have the window seat but the middle seat was open, which was really nice. This was my longest flight, about nine hours, though again we had another time change during our flight which made it an overnight flight. We ended up taking off about an hour late, so, at about 5pm. They served us dinner at about 6:30, which was actually pretty good and played the movie Secretariat (which I had just recently watched). After the movie everyone tried to sleep but it was really a restless sleep, where every five to ten minutes you were woken up. Then once you were awake it would take about half an hour to fall back asleep. In all I doubt I got more than an hour of sleep, mostly I just closed my eyes and wished I was sleeping. After about three hours the lights came back on and with the time change it was breakfast time. Again the food was really good. Our plane landed about an hour late in Frankfurt, Germany. We had to take a bus/train off the runway to the airport and finally got inside it after about fifteen minutes. Which left me about half an hour before my next flight was supposed to begin boarding. So, I rushed through trying to find my terminal, most of the signs were in German, but it was easy enough to follow the letter of my terminal. It was a long walk though and about halfway through it got interrupted by a trip through security (which I should add went even faster than my first trip in Sac). I ended up getting to my gate about five minutes before the plane was supposed to be boarding ( not even enough time for a quick bathroom run), but they didn't start that process till about twenty minutes after I got there. We took off from Frankfurt at about 11Am, which meant it also left about an hour late.
For this flight ( almost eight hours) I also had a window seat again but we all had a small touchscreen Tv on the seat-back in front of us (which was nice). I watch an old episode of Glee:) We were soon served lunch, (which I picked though) it tasted really pretty bad and my salad was covered in Shrimp. For those of you who know my well, you know of my strong dislike/hate for the nasty things! After that I tried to doze but gave up after an hour of trying. I started to watch a movie but after only getting through half I stopped it because I was really there anymore. I think my brain was completely exhausted and I was out of it. So, I just went back to either looking out the window or trying to sleep. The first, was sometimes very interesting and beautiful (like when we went over the Sahara Desert) but mostly since we were up so high all that you could see were clouds. The second, which I spent most of my time doing though it ended up being pretty pointless since I never really got more than a few minutes of sleep. So, again I got probably less than an hour of sleep (all of which was very disturbed and spliced). Again we had a time change (around this time I was getting really confused to what time it was...lol) and arrived in Libreville, Gabon (Africa) about an hour early. I'm not exactly sure how since we left an hour late? Anyway, we weren't allowed to land for about fifteen minutes and went in circles over the ocean while we waited ( this made me really dizzy and sick to my stomach).
We ended up landing at about 4:20pm and after a quick walk across the landing we were in the airport. The first thing you notice getting off the plane was the heat, it was not only really hot but very humid, even the airport was hot and stuffy. The Libreville airport is really small and seemed very lax with security compared to the other airports I had been too. Everyone entered one room where we waited to have our passports checked. I should probably mention that everything was in French (or course) and if there was a English translation on the signs it would be a single word ( which was never very clear), also, though the security spoke English it was very limited and hard to understand.....which made it fun (...not really). After, our passports had been checked we waited in another line (same room, as far as I could tell it was really the only room for arriving passengers besides the baggage room which through a sliding door) for them to get rechecked and stamped. Then we had our yellow fever papers checked and went through the sliding door to get our baggage. There wasn't security to go through or anything which I thought was odd. Anyway, I saw my suitcase at once and grabbed it. There were no seats or waiting rooms or anything inside so I followed the other passengers outside.
Then came the fun part of my traveling, because you can't end anything without something going wrong. Since our plane landed early and getting through the airport only took about fifteen minutes I was still more than half an hour early (mean it was half an hour before my flight was even supposed to land). Anyway, I went outside through one of the many doors without a sign and quickly realized that my friends from Envision weren't there yet. My first thought was OMG! I'm in a country where I don't understand the language and I'm all by myself! But even though it was a little scary I knew that they would be there soon and I just had to wait. So, I found a seat on this strange circular bench, said a quick prayer, and waited. I had a couple airport workers offer to get me a taxi and I had to explain to them that I was waiting for someone. It took a few minutes since I don't know any french and their english wasn't that great, but once they understood that I had someone coming to get me they left. I only waited about forty minutes, though during that time I had two random guys who were just hanging around the airport come up to me and try to talk to me. I figured that they probably just wanted money so I just ignored them and they left. Leanne and two others from Envision (Olivia and Dan) arrived about the time my flight was supposed to land and welcomed me to Gabon. They were surprised to see me since I guess most flights always arrive late and they are used to waiting for awhile.
We then went to have dinner at a friends house (Wednesday night is bible study night) and I got to meet more people and hear about Gabon and the work that is being done here. After dinner (which was amazing after all that plane food), a game, talking, and yummy cherry cobbler, we headed to the Envision Center. This is were I'll be stay while I'm here with Leanne, Olivia (my roommate) and a couple of others. About the time we left it started raining. Now when it rains in Africa it's still hot. So, it wasn't cold just raining. The Envision Center is just outside of Libreville (the capitol of Gabon) in Owendo, so we traveled about fifteen minutes or so to get there. Lets just say there aren't really any rules to traffic here, so anything goes. All of which you see. Not to mention that there are probably more people in the roads then cars. And I saw my first accident on the way within the first five minutes of the drive. Anyway, so we got to the Envision Center which will be my home home at about 8ish. I unpacked and then jumped on my computer, don't worry you didn't miss anything I only emailed my mom (and it was really short) and via facebook let everyone know I was here safe and sound. After that I took a shower (which felt amazing after not being able to be clean for days), I looked and felt a mess, not to mention I'm sure I smelt bad too:) Then Olivia and I talked for a little while and then crashed at about 10pm. Which brings me full circle back to today.
After journaling, and then typing it all up it is now it is 12. It looks like today will be pretty chill since I'm still getting over traveling. All in all everything went really well and I'm excited to be here in Africa! I can't wait to share more about my time here with all of you and hopefully soon add some pictures.
Love,
Shannon
