The rest of the way

It's a long way from Chicago to London, but it was also comfortable on that big Boeing 777. The plane wasn't full so I had the seat next to me vacant. Unfortunately I couldn't sleep. Heathrow's international hub is very international. There were people catching fllights from all over the world. The Ethiopian Airlines office didn't open until 6:00 PM and I arrived @ 11:30 am. I couldn't enter the nicer ticketed passenger section because I couldn't get a boarding pass until I'd checked in with Ethiopian Air.

Soooo, , I waited, then went to an out of the way bathroom and shampooed my hair, changed to a clean shirt and brushed and flossed and waited. Then I walked around the entire international section , , , , Three times and waited some more. Then I went outside and waited some more. afterwards I had some lunch and then waited some more.

One occurance did happen to speed the time a bit. The London Police were making random searches of cars approaching the terminal. The driver would be directed to take a certain route which lead the car to a where there was a police car in front and one behind. The police would ask all of the occupants of the vehicle to exit and then spread eagle patted them each down. Next, they seperated all of the occupants and questioned them seperately. While the occupants were being grilled a sniffer dog went around the searching for whatever he was trained to sniff (I don't know if they were looking for bombs or drugs or both). They would ask the driver to open the trunk and doors and the pooch would jump into the trunk and sniff the bags and then would be let loose to sniff the interior. The entire time, extra officers where standing and observing with machine guns and additional side-arms ready to respond. After about 90 minutes of this they stopped, collected their materials, put up the dogs and left. I wasn't sure about how this would work in the USA. There was nothing discrete about any part of it. Right there in front of a busy airport terminal with a couple of hundred smokers who were outside gawking at the spectacle unfold and probably another hundred or more who, like I, watched at a safe distance (through the huge glass fronted builiding). After that I waited some more.

Finally it was time for Ethiopian Airlines to open their gate @ Location E, but alas there was no Ethiopian Air in that section. A helpful attendant sent me to Location A (around 300 yards away) where the very nice man told me it would be @ location F (around 300 yards away).

The whole business about them not weighing your carryons doesn't work with Ethiopian Air. After checking in the two trunks they asked to have my handbags checked for weight and size. Carry on #1 was my autoharp which easily weighed under 7 Kilos and fit the weight and size limits. Carryon #2 had taken the heavy stuff from the two trunks and ended up weighing 22+ Kilos with the total maximum for all carryons combined to weigh under 7 Kilos. The friendly lady said it that the carry on must be checked and the the overage charges would be 172 British pounds. Yikes!!!! Luckily I had called the office and had documented the quoted overage charges. Now they simply charged me for three check ins and L50$ (Pounds).

My heavy carry on had fallen apart under the load of 40+ pounds with a wheel breaking off, the plastic edging disintegrating and the zipper threatening to break with every use. So before checking that bag I went to the wrapper. After this treatment the bag could not roll but at least I knew it would get to Kigali without further loss of components or contents.

After boarding it became clear why the airline had issues with size and weight. There was very little room for the approved carry ons and certainly none for the duffels and oversized luggage that folks have started to use during the past decade.

The flight from London to Rome was uneventful but in Rome every seat filled up. At one point I started to have an overwhelming explosion of claustrophobic fear. luckily that panic went away but it was never replaced by sleep and all too soon we were flying over Libya and the sun came up as we entered Sudanese airspace.

Addis Ababa Ethiopia seemed relatively parched and brown. The help in the airport was great but they were unable to retrieve my kidney shaped neck pillow (which I'd left after departing the flight from Rome). Only Ethiopian planes were @ Addis Adaba. They came in an assortment of sizes, from huge jumbo jets to small puddle jumpers. I had read that Ethiopian Air fed you well & from my experience I'll give them an A++ rating.

It was just a two hour flight from Ethiopia to Kigali, Rwanda. Bags all arrived safely and intact. So far nothing has been broken and nothing missing.

There's lots to write about Kigali and my first day here, , but I'm making all sorts of stupid typographical errrors and writing sentences that don't make sense so it's time for bed under a misquito net