Last night, after a relaxing shabbat at Ari's parents house, with Ari and Devora, we did Havdallah, took DB to the bus and headed to Ari's where I showered, changed and repacked/switched some stuff around in my bags. Then we went to get shwarma, tissues, gum and were off to the airport.
- Dinner was served on the 4.5 hour flight at 2:30 am local time and was chicken and rice.
- I can get sunburnt on a cloudy day.
Ari parked and we met Yonina in the lobby, went through security, gave Ari a last kiss then to the check-in counter where we got our boarding passes, dropped our luggage off at the elevator, and went through boarding security. I was surprised but they did not make us take our shoes off and Yonina was not frisked.
At duty-free, I bought candy (kosher skittles and starburst) to go and 2 bottles of Jameson for the Dude to pick up upon return. Then is was off to the plane.
To Note:
- The security video mentioned something about storing your high-heeled shoes under the seat in front of you incase of emergency.
- The flight cards with the safety information and emergency protocols were airline/destination appropriate (ie- the individuals in the photo were not white like me).
- The inflight movie had Matt Damon and was a VHS cassette.
- I think that it was beshert that I went to Addis Ababa. The airport designation code is ADD.
- The currency is the Birr and the exchange is 13.18 to the dollar.
When we arrived in Addis Ababa, it took over an hour for us to get our transit visas (sucessfully) but it was made better by the fact that Bob Marley was playing at the visa desk. What made it a little more tollerable was the general confusion by the people behind the visa desk as to why, while looking at our boarding passes for the next flight (16 hours later and that night) why we would not want a hotel room for the night. (Later I put it together that the transit visa desk was the same desk as for the hotel vouchers but still....hello people!)
Once we had our visas, we napped for about 30 minutes near the hotel exit, (thankfully we checked our luggage all the way to Bangkok) and then went to the 8am mass at St. George's Cathedral. While walking to the cathedral, we overheard their prayers/chants from the loudspeakers. It was sort of like zen yoga church meets muazin meets the movie the God's Must be Crazy. There were many "davenners" outside and we did not even try to get through to go inside as we stuck out since we had backpacks and were not draped with white shawls.
Then we took a cab to the Lion Zoo, really to Addis Ababa University where the lions were sad, kept in small cages, and the monkeys all had erections (one really did have blue balls too). The zoo was also referred to as the animal museum.
We then walked to the Ethiopian National Museum and saw the "Lucy" replica. We walked past the Africa house (UN with flags of multiple nations) and the parlement building with the large clock tower and tried to go into the Holy Trinity Cathedral but they wanted us to purchase tickets. Forget that. Then we passed the Anwar Mosque (blue roof) and stopped at Happy Pizza. As we were eating our pie, they came over and wanted to know if there was anything that they could do to the pie to improve the margharita pie- it was delish and super cheesy.
Then we walked back to the cathedral and saw that there was a movie theater across the street. On a whim, I suggested that we go and see what was playing. We ended up seeing Avatar (thankfully I had already seen it with Ari and so knew what I had missed when I kept dozing off).
Other things of note-
- In Ethiopia, we were museum exibits with our white arms and faces and me with my blue eyes. Little kids stare and try to touch you and play, if they are not busy begging for money- "Hello sister, give me money."
- Cabs are either all yellow (from the airport) or blue and white (flagging them on the street). Minibusses are also blue and white.
- Some men flirt, others just want to practice their English.
- Apparently, it is best to avoid eating at the airport restraunts as it cost us as much to get tuna sandwitches as it did to eat pizza, pay for a cab and two museums and see a movie.
- There was a line for the men's room at the airport but not the women's room!
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