I'm HerREE!

I have arrived! Praise God. It was definitely a long long time of travel. I got onto my plane at dulles, after Nik waited in ridiculously long lines with me.. and I had an isle seat on my huuge plane with my own little tv in front of me. There were probably about twenty, yes twenty, babies on that flight. --rediculous-- to say the least. but I had earphones.

Then I arrived in Paris.. or should I say Pari..   because absolutely NOTHING is in english and pretty much the only english speakers were the people on my flight who also knew nothing about what they were doing. So I did a lot of pointing to my boarding pass receipt, and they did a lot of pointing of directions. However everyone was very helpful and did their best to help me. It's interesting because our airports, everyone checks in at one place, and then divides off into their gates.. but is paris everyone first divides off to their gates and then for everyone 20 or so gates there's maybe 4 check-in people. And tHEY are the ones that speak to english. Ah hah. so the game is to first get to them! =) So I had a 6 hour lay-over in Paris. Very Long. Couldn't really sleep. All the chairs had arm rests between them, even though it was about 2 in the morning back at home. 

When I went to get on the plane to Benin... they told me my bag was not yet on the plane, and hopefully it would be by the time we left..(wondering how it might in the next 30 min.. when i'd been there for 6 hours..) and they ended up holding the whole plane! for about 20 extra minutes, waiting for mine and 2 other bags to get on the plane. Which I was very grateful for and also thanking the Lord. Since planes fly into Benin only every 2 days! 

I found  the 3 other ladies that were arriving on the same flight with me, in the Paris airport, 2 nurses, 1 a surgeon, and we stuck together when we arrived at the airport in Cotonou. Which was quite an experience. It is sort of like a warehouse of a room. With one conveyor belt for luggage. People PACKED about 6 people deep pushing, yelling and looking for their luggage. No room to walk around the "luggage crowd" AND the power in the whole building.. or room cutting off about every 2 min. for about 30 seconds. =) It was almost too much, the four of us had to just stand there and laugh. 

ANYWAYS.. we were picked up, driven, checked in.. settled in.. and bed time. I fell right asleep. e.x.h.a.u.s.t.e.d.

Love, Lindy!