First day in Rwanda

After a good night’s sleep in under a mosquito net in my private room at the hostel, I woke up, cleaned up and headed to the back porch for breakfast. I met 2 Canadian law school students and a few US law students from Pepperdine who are here not only for internships but a 2 week in depth study of the genocide. I also made friends with an Australian who is working on traveling elsewhere in central Africa. Breakfast was tea, milk, cereal, bread, and omelet. Because the electricity was still out, the coffee maker and toaster were not functioning. After chatting with the other people at the hostel for a bit I head out on the back of a motorcycle taxi along with two of them to visit a place in town called the UTC. In the UTC is a large grocery store that is pretty much the Target of Kigali as well as a bank, foreign exchange office, clothing shops and a coffee shop. After stocking up on the essentials we head over to the coffee shop where I discovered the best new coffee drink I’ve ever had. On the menu it was called African coffee and it consisted of espresso, fresh ginger, chocolate, and steamed milk. Delicious! We checked email since they did have electricity and then head back to the hostel.

In the afternoon I met a few more people staying at the hostel including another intern who is with one of PSI’s partner programs that focuses on behavioral change social media. It seems like a really great project and I am looking forward to learning more about it. Six of us walked to a club called Mambo and spent the afternoon playing volleyball, throwing darts, and being lazy. It was definitely strange being in a place that was 99% foreigners after spending the majority of my time in Africa with locals. We ended up grabbing dinner at Mambo and I had grilled goat skewers and an avocado salad. So good! When we returned to the hostel the electricity was back on. We all hung out for a bit, played bananagrams, and chatted until a storm came through and the electricity went out. We were about to start playing a game that we just invented when the lights came back on again.

I made it safely to Rwanda but the journey here was less than perfect. My patience skills were put to the test but I’m alive, had some sleep, and clean. Here’s a play by play of the past few days just so you get a good feel for my travels…

Thursday June 9

11:00 am leave Winston-Salem to go to Moose Café and airport

11:30 arrive at Moose Café, realize I didn’t have my passport

12:00 arrive in Winston, grab passport, grab lunch

12:30 reach to get gum out of cabinet, knock over soy teriyaki bottle and make huge mess

12:50 leave Winston to go back to airport, freak out about going to miss my flight

1:30 arrive at airport, am told that my flight is delayed

1:40 rebooked for same flight on June 10 since there is no way I would make connections

Friday June 10

11:00 leave Winston this time with passport in tow

11:30 arrive at Moose Café, eat huge southern meal

12:30 head to airport, find out flight is delayed

1:20 say goodbye to Mike one last time

2:00 Mike calls and says he’s still at the airport and my flight still hasn’t left its original destination (thanks for the bad weather Chicago!)

2:30 Mike goes home, I wait for my flight which is 45 minutes late

5:00 arrive in Washington, DC

5:30 make it to my gate which is boarding after a tram and running through the airport

Saturday June 11

8:00 am arrive in Brussels, make it to my gate with plenty of time to spare

10:30 take off, make friends with German guy sitting next to me; school group of high schoolers on plane switching seats every 5 minutes

11:00- 3:00 sleep

4:00 snack passed around, its an ice cream bar with nuts so no snack for me

5:00 look through guidebook with German friend, make plans to get a drink after we land

6:40 descent into Kigali, wait, no, there’s a thunderstorm so we’ll circle for 15 minutes

7:00 pilot decides its not safe to land yet, continue on to Entebbe where the plane was to go next

8:00 arrive in Entebbe, sit on plane while they refuel, change the crew and clean the plane

9:00 head back to Kigali

10:00 land, go through customs easily, wait for bags

11:00 name is on a list of people whose bags didn’t make it, go to counter to file claim

11:10 meet driver and go to hotel

11:30 arrive at hotel, power is out, stumble around room by candle light and pass out

Mom and Dad come to France

Seven years after our first trip to Paris, my parents returned to France for a 2 week trip to see more of this amazing country. This time they got to know a little more of the country side and mastered trains, trams, metros, and buses.

I met them in Lyon where our trains luckily arrived at the same time time. We found our hotel 3 steps away from the gare and settled in before heading out to find lunch.

Now if you have ever lived or traveled to France, you know that it is very difficult to find a restaurant that serves lunch after 2 pm. The touristy ones will be open all day but the traditional buchons of Lyon were definitely not. So we found our way to a restaurant where mom and dad g

ot their first taste of good bread and duck.

MIKEY in France!

Mike just left from his 2 week visit to France and we had a blast! In the short time he was here we went to a 4 course dinner with traditional Auvergne food, visited Normandy and the D-Day beaches, visited Mont St. Michel, saw almost all of Paris, climbed Puy de Dome, and cooked chicken wing dip, enchilada casserole and stuffed peppers.

He arrived in Lyon after a long plane ride and we got on the train back to Clermont. When we got here, we immediately went to the school for the Global Village-- a huge event where all the international students cook foods from their home countries for everyone to sample. I had made chicken wing bites and chocolate chip cookies and another classmate had made macaroni and cheese and sliders. By the time we got to the Global Village all of the American food was gone. Mike brought a real football and we threw it around before it was time to go to dinner at Le Paradis with a group of students from the University of Kansas and another group of international students at our school. The meal was fantastic.

We started with the traditional aperitifs: a cocktail (kir-- white wine with cassis) and little snacks (olives and crackers)




We started with an avocado and shrimp salad with grapefruit.

The next course was roasted duck with a potato gratin and stuffed tomato.
Then was the cheese course with bleu d'Auvergne, Cantal, and St. Nectaire.
For dessert was a delicious apple tart with vanilla bean ice cream.


The next day I went to class and then Mike and I left immediately for the train to Paris for our 3 day weekend in Normandy. We started out by the Moulin Rouge where we saw a ton of sex shops and this chair with tongues on it in front of the Erotica Museum.


We made our way to the Sacre Coeur and saw a peek of the Eiffel Tower at night. I promised Mike we would see it up close later on in the trip.



The next morning we woke up early and headed to Bayeux. We were greeted at our Bed and Breakfast by three cute little puppies, a few cats, and a rabbit. We were the only people staying there for the weekend so we took advantage of having the building to ourselves. Once we were settled we set out to find a tour of the D-Day beaches and Mont St. Michel. The town of Bayeux is really small but very charming and we enjoyed walking around. We ate dinner at a nice restaurant in town and were the only ones there. Again, we enjoyed a 4 course meal which was delicious.


The next day we got up early for our half day tour of the D-Day beaches. We started at Gold Beach and Arromanches and went from there to the German batteries of Longues-sur-Merto. Then it was off to Omaha Beach to the American cemetery (which is actually US property) and ended at Pointe du Hoc.

Arromanches

German battery

Last Wednesday we spent the day in Paris and really got our exercise. Since we saw Montmarte before we left for Normandy, we decided to stay close to the Seine. We left Clermont at 6 am and got to Paris around 9. Our first stop was the Notre Dame.

The Hunchback of Notre Dame

Gargoyles

Outside of the cathedral was a cute park with pretty flowers so of course we had to walk there.

Next we walked along the Seine and passed all the famous bridges.