Kilimanjaro - My Journey to the Roof of Africa

Los Angeles to Amsterdam

Friday, January 4, 2013

The big day is finally here. The last three months flew by so quickly with working a lot so I can save up the money for my trip that I didn't even have the time to mentally get ready for it. All of a sudden I was spending the last night at home (for a while anyway) and I was going through a roller coaster of emotions. I got home late (as usual) after a very stressful day at the office (very unusual for me) to find that my darling Randy surprised me with dinner. He prepared chili with corn muffins which was just what I needed after a rough day at work. After the lovely dinner all the encouraging and well-wishing comments regarding my trip on Facebook really made my day. On top of all this, a friend from Hungary sent me a YouTube link to Toto's Africa song which I listened to at least twenty times. First, the song made me happy and put me in the mood for leaving for Africa in the morning. Then, when I listened to the lyrics more closely all of a sudden I broke down crying. It just downed on me that I'm going very, very far away from the love of my life for three weeks. Luckily, this sudden blue mood didn't last very long and I was back to be excited about my trip.

After a lovely breakfast the next morning my honey took me to the airport. We were pleasantly surprised by the flowing traffic on the 405. I was worried that I would have to pay extra for carrying my sleeping bag on the plane (unfortunately, it was impossible to fit it in my big backpack) but they didn't seem to care about it at all. There was nothing left to do after checking my luggage but to say good-bye (after snapping a picture with my honey) and proceed to the security checkpoint. I spent the next three hours reading my Kilimanjaro book until I could finally board the plane.

The Boeing 747-400 was full and there wasn't a whole lot of legroom on this flight. I was sitting next to an American girl traveling back to Germany where she lives. She flew over to the US for the holidays on a flight that transported horses in the back of the aircraft and since she was taking care of the horses on that flight, she got to fly for free even on this return trip. (I've never even heard of flying horses before.) An Asian lady was sitting on the third seat in my row. Since I had the usual window seat, they had to get up to let me out quite a few times during the ten hour flight.

I was very pleased with the service on the KLM flight. They served two hot meals during the long flight and in between we could help ourselves to drinks and snacks that were available for us to take in the back of the cabin any time during the flight. I've never seen such great service before. We all had our own little monitor so we could watch any movie or TV show that was on offer. I alternated between reading, watching TV shows, a movie (Hope Springs), napping, snacking, and walking around the cabin. By the way, I requested vegetarian meals when I purchased my ticket and this way I always got my meal before the general public did. They were pretty delicious meals (especially the second meal which was the breakfast).

There was a second floor on the airplane for business class passengers. I used the staircase that led to it a few times for exercising (walking up and down the stairs). Ten hours sitting in a cramped seat is a looong time. I was sure glad when it was over. We arrived to Amsterdam at midnight (LA time, 9am local time) where I had a four hour layover.