I'm Going On An Adventure!

Because of COURSE I start with a Hobbit reference!

As I start this post, it is a little before 9am and I have already been awake for 6 hours. Such is the glamorous life of international travel. I'll keep my fingers crossed that I can actually post this. Wi-fi has been up-and-down more times this morning than [I'm too tired to come up with a simile].

I had a last minute panic and it comes down to those famous words of Robbie Burns:

"The best-laid schemes o' mice an' men,

Gang aft agley."

I won't be volunteering for the first portion of my trip. I'll give you a moment to let that sink in.

*sigh*

Once I hit the ground in TZ, I'll check out other opportunities while I'm there but I'm not holding my breath. Am I disappointed? Yes. But at the end of the day, I still get to go back to Tanzania and I'll remember not to double check arrangements the Friday before I leave next time. I have never been so prepared and yet so unprepared for a trip at the same time. 

I've booked a hotel in Arusha for my first few nights, and I'll go from there. I've been incredibly zen about the whole thing and have prematurely adopted the centuries old proverb: T.I.A. This is Africa. Any traveller to the continent has heard this repeated ad nauseum as they ask where the bus is, why the power has gone out again, if there will be water for showers today, and why is the ATM already out of cash at 8:30am. T.I.A. This is Africa, sister. T.I.A. Pole pole. ('Pole pole' means 'slowly'. It is the way of life in East Africa.)

Other than that panic, things have gone smoothly. Except that I got so caught up in that panic, that I forgot to check my flights and my 6:00am flight was changed to 5:40am. As someone who subscribes to the idea that the 2 hour check-in is more of a guideline than a requirement, that was a convivial surprise when I checked the board out of boredom at 4:50am. I had already checked-in but it made the security line-up just that little bit more stressful. 

Pretty sure I've hit my limit for things-that-can-go-wrong for this trip. (Everyone screen shot this so you can post it as a comment next time something goes wrong on this trip. Because T.I.A. Something else will go wrong. Let's just hope it's minor.)

Between writing this, checking social media, and pretending I'm not eavesdropping on the conversations going on around me, I've managed to eat up an hour time. Only three hours left to kill before they start the pre-boarding for my flight to Amsterdam. Time to start doing laps around this tiny side terminal. Now to figure out what to do for the remaining 2 hours and 55 minutes...