Je suis arrivée

Bonjour a tout le monde (hello everyone), You will be happy to know that I have arrived safely in Sénégal and have yet to be bitten by anything nor get travelers diarrhea (and even if I do I most likely willnot share that here). I am now writing to you from a cybercafé, one of which you can find on nearly every other corner thankfully and trying to get used to this dang keyboard!

I guess I can start at the very beginning (a very good place to start). My travels were surprisingly and happily uneventful. After a sleepless night and pretty sad (yet beautiful) sendoff by my lovely Mommy, Emm, Karla, and Elizabeth, I was bummed. I felt badly because shouldnt I have been comletely ecstatic to leave, I felt really ungrateful to be feeling that way but oh well, I couldnt help it. Flight from Mpls to NYC was uneventful, slept the whole way and woke up still feeling rather crappy. But happily I was saved: by a Dove Dark Chocolate. It is rare that enjoy a chocolate for zhat it should be, a highly satisfying and gratifying treat. Literally, I instantly felt better. Thanks to my fab roomies for that!


While in the JFK airport I had only 7 hours to kill before my next flight. I paced the halls and spent a good amount of time in the duty free store smelling men's cologne and daydreaming. I also perused my new reading material courtesy of K Grande and Eli. Just as I was about to write the Nickelodeon magawine off as a complete waste of time (sorry ladies) I came across the June/July calender updated with some very important events: not only did I cauge out loud q couple of times, I am now completely informed. A couple of exerpts for your reading pleasure: June 17th Run for the Butter (sounds like something Karla would do); June 18th Karlas nursery duty at church; June 8th Eli sees Al Franken (how jealous am i); and July 4th nauseating patriotism (i will miss the fireworks).

OK moving on, flight from JFK directly to Dakar was actually faboulsou despite some nauseating turbulence. I am so easily amused, first the flight crew passed out this little kit which included an eyemask, toothbrush and toothpaste, and these horribly ugly socks which turned out to be highly useful when my feet were frozen.

Anyway, all of that must have been rather boring: onto the good stuff.

Africa is AMAZING! I guess I really had no expectations as to what this would be like but it is almost indescribable. But I will try my hardest! I don't have much time remaining here but I will continue more later. I will leave you with atop 4 lists.

Top 4 best things you hear out the window:
1) Kids singing: you know you hear it inthose sappy commercials but it happens all the time
2) Horse-drawn carts: I guess this was something that I never expected but horsedrawn carts travel along the roads right along side cars
3) Goats: apparently goats are domestic here and live with people in their homes (not mine thankfully)
4) Incomprehensible languages but Im learning. French gets easier every day
Top 4 things im thankful for:
1) toilet paper
2) sidewalks
3) lane markers for cars: the trqffic... unspeakably horrible
4) hand sanitizer