Tuesday, January 11, 2011

Second Leg: Frankfurt to Windhoek

After a long 26 hours of traveling, we were very glad to be boarding our last flight.  We quickly discovered that the accommodations on Air Namibia were not as nice as those on Lufthansa.  There was not as much leg room, there were not tv screens on the back of ever chair, and the food was not quite as good.  This was okay however because by this point in our journey, we all were super tired and fell asleep almost instantly when we sat down.  Our seating assignments were a bit more spread out this time too.  I had checked in online for the flight back in Tacoma and everyone else checked in when we got to the airport, so my assigned seat was a good 10 rows in front of everyone else.  I was a window seat and sitting next to a strange man.  I was not really thrilled about this, so I was very happy when after everyone had boarded I saw there was a whole row of seats open just behind my classmates.  I asked the flight attendant if I could move and he said it was fine.  The move was awesome and I had two seats to myself to stretch out in.  With this lovely space and a few extra pillows and blankets, I was able to stretch out and sleep for a good solid 6 hours.  By the time we landed in Windhoek, I was feeling pretty well.  We all were overjoyed when we offloaded the plane and were greeted by the beautiful Namibian sun.  Little did we know that our adventure wasn't going to stop there.  We made our way to customs and got stuck.  One girl told the people that we were there to volunteer in the schools and they said we needed a work permit for that.  When she said that we didn't have a permit the lady took all of our passports and asked us to step aside.  Paula was not happy about this and we all waited anxiously for them to decide to let us into their country.  After some time of waiting and collecting our luggage they decided to let us through.  We made our way with our crazy amounts of luggage to our taxis.  We met our trusty drivers Grant and Shane who will be driving us around the whole time we are here.  The drive back to our hotel was so entertaining as we saw beautiful countryside and animals roaming along with driving on the left side of the road and seeing speed limit signs that said 100 (that would be km/hr).  The highlight of the drive was when we saw a baboon run across the road.  Pulling into Casa Blanca was a happy, we're here, we're home type moment.  We spent the rest of the day settling into our rooms, relaxing and being oriented to Casa and exploring the neighborhood including the little grocery market down the block.   I will post pictures of my home here at Casa soon.  For now here are some pictures of our last leg of travel.


Our Air Namibia Plane


 Walking into the sunshine just after getting off the plane


 The tarmac at the Windhoek airport

Happy to have landed in Namibia
\

It was a long walk from the plane to the airport, but we didn't mind cause we loved the sun

Palm trees yay!

 Another Air Namibia plane, that's the national flag on the tail

 The boys had quite the time fitting all of our luggage into the cars

 Taking a breather 

My I've just traveled for two days model shots



First picture with everyone together in Namibia

 We all fit together in Shane's van it's really fun

No comments:

Post a Comment