Arrival

This trip started of as a NIGHTMARE. We arrived to the airport in Amsterdam to be told by a lady at KLM (bless her little heart..) that our ticket for Kigali had in fact never been purchased, that something went wrong and we never actually bought the ticket. Had you had to tell my mom or stepdad what she had to tell them, I would have been terrified- they can be a bit "Assertive/protective. Something about the name of the credit card not matching mine? Who knows… but luckily thanks to a lovely man named Taha, I was still getting on that plane and making it to Kigali.

The flight was miserable, screaming babies, a elbow hog sitting next to me and a seat kicker behind me. Not only that but since my original ticket no longer existed, my request for gluten free food had been null and void. Thus began an 8 hour battle with my stomach, and a ridiculous about of consumption of gluten free bars..Being "hangry" became real. At one point one flight attendant took pity on me and gave me some cheese- much appreciated let me tell you. A little cube of cheese had never tasted so good in my life.

Well, I have official arrived. My two feet are on the beautiful homeland of all human evolution- Africa. In truth I had no ideas what this would entail. If people would be friendly to an outsider, if Kigali was beautiful or not, if the food would be good (really a big one for me). And when first arriving to Kigali, I was convinced I had wondered into a foreign land, either one of magical fairies or one of alien space invasion. Outside the window, scatted high and low, close and far were little LED looking lights. What I learned in the daytime is Kigali is built on hills. Which accounted for what seemed like un organized  array of tiny fairies or space ships scattered in the sky (but really hills high and low). I got picked up by two Rwandan boys and a classmate, the boys were wonderfully nice and curious and insisted on carrying my bag up two flights of stairs- which let me tell you I did not complain about. He had the most beautiful and heart felt smile and as corny as this sounds his whole being was just so happy. The streets of Rwanda lined with militia every 40 feet or so.

The hotel is beautiful, it was nothing like I anticipated. At first I believed the mosquito netting was just a beautiful touch, but then I realized that there was nothing about it but function. Believe me..