Total travel: 34-35 hours? Final prize: 1 chilly Kilimanjaro beer.

Kili deigned to come out for my first run

I have heard that flying via Turkey instead of through Amsterdam you can arrive from Moshi to the US in one day. After who knows really how many hours travelling, I am thinking this is an option that should be explored. I did manage to sleep about 3 or 4 hours total in all that time--something only slightly better than nothing. Unfortunately for me, I had a skirmish with the flight security leaving JFK getting onto my Amsterdam bound plane during which they refused to allow me my carry one, forcing me to cough up an obscene amount of money to last minute check it. Of course, I had not planned on checking it, so it had many of the non-expendable items--ie documents to prove my existence, camera equipment, hard drives, drugs, and cold hard cash. A veritable goldmine for some thief with very low standards.

I imagine had I not been agonizing over the it's travel and appropriate off loading at JRO I might have slept a bit more on either said planes.

At least as I tried to distract myself from analyzing over and over how I might have negotiated the situation differently, I had pleasant seat mates on both legs of the journey.  Traveling to Amsterdam I sat with a formerly of South Africa woman and her husband who were off to visit her newly immigrated to Europe sister and her 90 year old father who had travelled from Africa as one lust huzzah.

And the next leg was satisfyingly empty that I was able to have a free seat next to me. The man across from that was kind enough to collect things for me on the rare occasions that I dozed off.

I am not doing a terribly good job recovering from the jet lag, but if I can make through without passing out in the mid afternoon I should hopefully readjus.

Hours since departure: 14. Bloody Marys: 4

I could be happy for the rest of my life--well happy for me--if I could travel the world continually while using business/fancy lounges.

Well, maybe I shouldn't travel the world continually, even I would get travel weary I suppose. However, I could do it a lot.

And I do not need true fanciness. But the relative indulgence of these no-longer-truly-exclusive lounges is just the right amount of fanciness for me and my cheapskate desire for "free" things. That being said, the NYC JFK delta lounge is not near as nice as its sister in KLM Amsterdam. This one is new, though, so it is fresh and shiny. The "freeness" only extends to some sad trail mixes and house drinks, which you have to shamefully request from the bartender. You do not have to shamefully request, but if you suffer as I do from residual guilt about everything, undoubtedly you will have shame upon return visits. My opinion of said lounge has decreased a bit as this one is adding a ridiculous charge for anything other than the trail mix. More damning, one bartender mistakenly(?) mixed me a "special" bloody mary instead of the "complimentary" version--she must be new--and it was loads tastier than the sad from-the-can variety that you can suck down in 2 minutes due to its lack of spice and thinness. However, I am not truly picky, and nothing quite delights me as a travel bloody mary. (I love all bloody marys without reservation, but a bloody mary consumed in the vicinity of planes --on one or viewing them-- somehow is more delicious no matter how bad it is.

down the hatch

Come to think of it, my longing for (even) bad bloody marys parallels my adolescent desire for terrible hotel coffee. Why is that I wonder? Something about it must signal (faux) adventure and (naive) opportunity.

A more fancy lady than I has ordered a sushi plate. I am quite jealous. Ooo here comes her clearly not-house wine (the glass is 3x the size of the other). Bah. I refuse to pay $20 for a mediocre sushi plate. I save my over expenditures for the tomato and vodka variety only. 

Hours since departure: 9. Bloody Marys: a pathetic, lonely 1.

Things I am already aware that I lack:

sad, but true.

i do have a cotton hoody though.

ok, perhaps this one is more pertinent. a rain running jacket would have been very smart. 

that isn't too bad... for now...

upon flying

cocooned, sounds absorb into the placenta of oxygen so carefully packed around us.

we are neither here nor there. an in-between space where time is irrelevant, simulated at the discretion of the bored attendant who flicks the light switch.

a modern marvel, that surely someday will appear barbaric, hurling ourselves through space in a ridiculous tube.

i watch the other passengers slip so easily into unconsciousness. their entire existence in the hands of the onboard computer.

my own joy or sorrow held at bay, just outside the sliding window, like the gremlin riding gleefully on the outer wings. it peers at me, content to cackle and hop, mocking my disconnected face just through the glass.

and i do not scream, alert the attendant with his tray of drinks. i have no will of self preservation, only the disassociation of nothingness. The Nothing is coming, or going, it is hard to say which.

and so i do not sleep, but wait placidly on the edge for what will occur to occur. inevitably, i will leave the cushion compressed around me and will be met by all the things i checked at the gate. the fear, the excitement, the pain, the despair, or sweet relief.

A5 bartlett hotel

looking out at our driveway-house A5

come to africa, fall in love. i dare you not to.

come for too long and you are infected, longing to come back and uncontrollably urging everyone else you know to do the same. a powerful virus...

since we are here, we have convinced my aunts and uncles and cousin to visit us instead of our annual outer bank trip. the first group arrived this week. it is my cousins James and Alex's first trip out of america. a far cry from a leisurely trip to england or france, to the museums and restaurants. the Louvre is amazing, the Vatican worthy of unending examination, i wouldn't have missed Pompeii, while Ramses and the Pyramids still linger in my dreams... but if i could only choose one for my future children -if they may be- i would spend any extra cent to get them to the plains of africa, the lions in the misty mornings, the umbrella trees, and the herd of elephants with their babies towering over your jeep.