The Travel

The Travel:  Some of you have already done this trip and so this post might be boring.  I know that last year I didn't really think too much of the plane ride and how long it was going to take, in anticipation of what was ahead for me/us.

I did end up spending extra time thinking about the travel this time around. I thought I knew what to expect when we got to Africa, since I had already been, so that was off my mind. I remember thinking that I was even more nervous about going this time. because I wasn't last year. We only had 27 people this time around and so we only had 27 boxes to keep track of and 27 backpacks. This is in comparison to the 59 we had last year.

Our first lay over was in JFK, this is the only time I have ever been in New York, and was excited cause this is where my mom was born. Although I don't really consider this 'being in' New York as I did not step outside of the airport. Our second stop was London. This is amazing, because our lay over is long enough that we get to actually leave the airport and travel a little.  Our pastor has done this trip so many times he has a route he takes us through London. This year we skipped going through Hyde Park and took an extra tunnel from Paddington station to Buckingham Palace. From there we saw St. James Park, Westminster Abby, and Big Ben. From Big Ben you can see The Eye, which is my favorite thing to see, mainly because they blow it up in every movie. 


Buckingham Palace
 

THE EYE
 

We had two more planes til we got to our destination. I love plane rides, even when I hear about a crash it doesn't seem to bother me.  I love to look out the window and see that we are hovering over land or ocean. I even like the feel of turbulence.  The loooooooong flights don't bother me either. They are relaxing and I have time to think. The only thing that bothers me is that I have a hard time sleeping, and so with the 36 hours on the way there I had 1 hour of sleep, exhausting.  Once we get to Malawi, depending on the time, Pastor Paul wants us to stay awake until 10-11pm, so that we can be ready for the next day and potentially not have too much jet lag, but we landed at 930am, so we had a long day ahead of us.

Our traveling throughout Malawi and Zambia is in a bus/truck, and 12 seat van, although the van broke down the second week, so we had to, in the words of Blessings, 'figure it out' and we did. We went from the ABC campus to the village everyday, and on the way back we went to a place called ShopRite. This was their new mall that was built between the time we left last year and was recently finished when we got their this year and is right next door to the campus. Last year we went to 7/11