I'm here!

It is now high noon in Entebbe, Uganda. I'm in the office here with Grace, checking my email and letting ya'll know that I have arrived safe and sound! We're going to have a bean and chapati lunch at 12:30, and then go home and take a nap! My brain's not really working too well at the moment... lack of sleep over the past few days. And I can't type very fast because of the band-aid on my finger - I sliced the tip of my finger off a few hours before we had to leave for the airport in Calgary! But a quick stop for some first aid supplies on the way to the airport, and I'm all taken care of. It stopped bleeding somewhere over the Artic Circle, and got a nice new dressing in Heathrow Airport. But it still hurt too much to do much with it... it feels much better now, though.

So the travels were uneventful... I even had a lovely surprise meeting in Heathrow! I went into "Pret a manger" to get something delicious to snack on, and who should be standing and staring into the cooler looking for something delicious to snack on but someone I know quite well from Nairobi! What a surprise meeting! So we had a few hours together and it was just SO nice to have someone to chat with and to keep me company while we waited for our flights. Her flight left 5 hours before mine, but at least I had some company for 2 hours of my 9 hour wait in the airport!

I didn't do anything exciting in the airport - just wandered around, looking in the shops. I didn't even take any tours of the other terminals this time, 'cause I was a little paranoid about my ziploc bag full of liquids. I didn't want the security guys to take away my contact lense solution or anything. Plus, the lineups for security when going between terminals were SO long. I just got annoyed standing in line for security!

I ate a lovely jacket potato with cheese with a side salad for lunch/dinner at a cute little pub inside terminal 4. I also went to the "quiet room" and fell asleep for an hour, since I didn't sleep on the plane :(

The movies that I watched were: "A Good Day" (or something like that - a quirky little movie with Russel Crowe in the winelands of France), part of "Shrek", and then "Babel". I wasn't too impressed with Babel. Perhaps it was the fact that it was on the second leg (from London to Entebbe) and I was tired, or just not in the right mood... but it was hard to really dig deep enough to "get" it. And there were some definite parts that I didn't think were appropriate to be playing on an airplane where there were children watching! But perhaps once I have a nap and have the ability to think a bit more, I'll be able to understand the point of the movie a bit better!
So yeah, I arrived in Entebbe at about 8:30am. What a great place! Both of my suitcases arrived with me! Yay! I was quite paranoid about my luggage not arriving, so I prayed over those suitcases before I let them out of my sight :) So I went out into the bright warm sun and waited for Grace. And waited for Grace. And waited some more for Grace. Eventually, some chairs in the waiting area opened up, so I went down to sit in them, and lo and behold, on the other side of the pillar where I had been standing, was Grace! Seems we somehow didn't see each other through the pillar! So we had a good laugh, and the Ugandan guy standing near by said, "oh yes, she [Tanya] has been waiting there forever"! Actually, I had already gotten out my list of phone numbers and was thinking to myself about how I could ask someone to borrow their cell phone to get a hold of Grace :) But all worked out, and the Grace and Tanya comedy hour has already begun... hopefully we won't have too many more escapades before we get out of Entebbe!

Entebbe, so far, is a beautiful place! Lake Victoria looks like an ocean, it's so big! And everything is green! Such a contrast from Calgary, that's for sure. It's lake fly season, so there are tiny little gnat like creatures swarning around everywhere. That's not so nice. But they don't bite, they just get stuck in your teeth when you ride around on the boda.

I've already met Bridger and Cody and had a ride on the boda. (Grace is going to strap me on with bunngee cords so I don't fall asleep and bounce off the back of the boda on the way home from the office.) Really, what more could a girl want?! Oh yeah, the shower felt really nice, too, and the eggs that Grace fed me this morning were very welcome, as well! Tomorrow we're off to the babies' home where Grace hangs out with the babies every week, and to the SPLM office to get my travel passes. I'll try to take some photos, as well, and post them... whenever I get to the Internet again! Oh yeah, it's also sunny and warm (about 30C), and everyone here is complaining that it's too hot. It's a nice stepping stone on the way to Juba...