Not much to tell so far . Started in Albany yesterday. My plane was delayed until after 4 pm. Consequently, I had to boogie when I got to Toronto and made it to the gate after the official departure time...just in time to join the huge line from the gate to the plane. My seat was on the aisle (not my favorite for overnight flights) way in the back. It was on a weird row 3 across behind seats 4 across. So we didn't have regular tables but ones that flipped out of the armrests. They were all out of chicken by the time they got to us but I wouldn't have chosen it anyway. The mushroom paste wasn't bad but a little short on mushrooms. I did manage to sleep until the man next to me plunked down my table and asked if I weren't going to eat breakfast. I was more tired than hungry. So now I am waiting for 2 hrs until my flight to Addis Ababa. I tried to get on Boingo - there is supposedly 30 minutes free internet but I couldn't connect with road runner or my blog. All for now.

I was in a long line to board the plane for Addis Ababa via Khartoum . A few more meals - still no ginger ale, and now no Sprite either, but it was OK since there wasn't much turbulence. It was 5+ hours to Khartoum, a 15 minute wait to take off again and then less than 2 hrs later, here I am in Addis Ababa....minus my checked bag....with no record of it apparently. So I have documents and numbers to call to try to retrieve it.

My room here at the Damu Hotel is OK but dark. The table lamp bulb doesn't seem to work so I will go see if I can scare one up to read a bit and then try to go to sleep. It seemed to get dark very quickly by the time we got to Khartoum. I need to find out what time it is here and set my watch since I'll be here for awhile!   I don't have any real impressions of Ethiopia yet....people seem nice and helpful. Another woman from the US was waiting for her bag. She had had a short connection in Munich or Frankfurt, so we chatted while we waited for our bags not to arrive. The airline staff was very quick to tell us that there were no more bags and headed us to the lost baggage counter. The woman was from the Carolinas but spent 16 years doing mission work in Ethiopia and now is visiting her daughter and son-in-law who are doing mission work in Southern Ethiopia. I saw as many Western types as Ethiopians on the plane. I asked her if the travelers were as much mission people as tourists and she said yes.