After 22 hours of flying and three continents, I made it to Tanzania safe and sound!!! This has to have been the most interesting trip I've had so far. Everything went really smoothly going from Seattle to Amsterdam. It's a strange feeling following the sun. I kept waiting for the sun to set so that I knew when it would be time to sleep, but it never went down! It just chilled there, threatening to set, and then in the last portion of my flight it started going up again!! So then Amsterdam was really interesting to walk around in. Very different culture and there were things in the airport I've never seen before like huge lounges just for sitting and reading, and a glass box inside the airport for smoking. Getting through security there was a breeze and I sat next to a Tanzanian man so asked a lot of questions and tried getting accustomed to his thick accent.


I arrived in Tanzania around 8pm. We had to go down stairs off the plane onto the pavement and walk straight to the dingiest airport I've been to. It was just like a little building with the classic fluorescent lights that shine like a strobe because the loud ceiling fans are blocking it out. We asked a man where we go to get a CTA stamp and told us it would be $200 because we are American and rich (by this time I had met up with two other girls from this program). He thought that was really funny.  He took us into his office where one by one we sat in front of him while he looked at our documentation, passport, took the $200 and wrote out our CTA stamp into our passport. It wasn't nearly as hard to get as I thought it'd be. Don't worry thought - it's legitimate. He was an officer and knew the rest of the staff. I went through customs and the girl told me how small & cute I was. I didn't know how to respond. I don't know why don't ask. I think I thought she was telling me I'm small & young looking so I didn't know what to say to that. She looks at me and says, "that's when you say thank you." and I embarrassingly said thank you. Great first interaction I guess.


Then we were picked up by our Cross-Cultural Solution's (CCS) bus driver. He is so so friendly. The kind of guy you immediately like. As we were rolling our luggage to the van (it had the big CCS logo so I knew I was okay) three guys came up and took our luggage for us. I just thought they were with CCS but then they asked for money. We had to turn them away because we had no Tanzanian shillings! They weren't happy. Our diver had to shoo them away. I sat in the front seat with the driver and we talked the whole time. In Tanzania they drive on the other side of the road so it was scary at first but I got used to it. During the drive I was able to see a glimpse of what it's like there. Not what I was expecting. A lot of people were walking along the road, some with baskets on their head balancing it perfectly, there were many run down stores, groups of my age kids hanging out - they always stare at you as you drive past - and the vegetation is obviously something new & exciting. We got to the home base after a 45 minute drive, were greeted by our home-base workers, and now I'm in my room with pretty good Wi-fi, and exhausted. I think I have now gone two days worth of 22 hours on an airplane with maybe 3-4 hours of sleep. I will sound more excited tomorrow. I promise you I am ecstatic about all of this. This is definitely an adventure and we never get those in boring America. This is exactly the kind of exposure and cultural immersion I've been looking for. I will update tomorrow! I love you all! Goodnight.