Getting there

Hello from Senegal!

My trip out here was a very long one. Before leaving I had calculated that, from door to door, I would be traveling about 28 hours, and that’s if everything was exactly on time. This was my original itinerary:

9:30 departure from Alimar to catch my 11:15am bus from Bakersfield to Los Angeles.

2pm shuttle from  Greyhound Station to LAX

6:35pm flight from LAX to Paris (arrive in Paris around 2pm local time)

4pm flight from Paris to Dakar (arrive in Dakar at 8pm local time)

Embassy van transport from Dakar Airport to our hotel (there were 7 of us flying together).

Most of this actually went as planned, which was nice. The bus ride was made more pleasant by having made friends with a nice older woman, Marsha, who sat across the aisle from me. She had asked when she got on the bus if anyone else was going to LAX and would like to share a taxi with her. I told her I had booked a shuttle and I could call to see if they had room for one more. They did, which she appreciated because it was a lot cheaper than a taxi. That also meant I had someone to wait with at the Greyhound station in LA. We had about 40 minutes, so we took turns watching each other’s things so we could use the bathroom and order something for lunch. The ride to the airport was also nice because there was a couple on there heading to Europe for the first time. They were going to Paris and Rome to celebrate their 25^th wedding anniversary, so I was able to give them some pointers for both of those places. 

Oops... ;)

LAX went fairly well, although I had made the mistake of accidentally leaving a wine bottle opener in my carry on. I need to remember to completely empty a bag before I pack it for a flight! But at least I had a nice conversation with the guy searching the bag. I felt bad because it took him forever to find it and I couldn’t help him because I didn’t even remember it being in there! He was a French guy from Pau, where one of the other students with me at UD was from, so we chatted in French until he found it… Other than that, it went smoothly. The woman at the check-in counter didn’t quite believe that I didn’t need a VISA, but the letter the US Embassy sent me for that purpose seemed to work and they let me on. I had some time before my flight, so I went in search of what I thought would probably be my last hard cider for a while. I stopped at pretty much every place that served alcohol, with no luck. What kind of American West Coast bar and/or restaurant doesn’t carry at least one cider!?!? I finally gave up, ordered a glass of wine and some sushi, which I ate while making some final phone calls before calling and canceling my Verizon number. Our flight boarded and took off on time, so no worries there. I was on AirFrance, which has pretty much the best little video for the security information.

The meals weren’t bad as airplane food goes, and AirFrance offers champagne, wine or liquors with their food service, which I noticed many people taking advantage of at dinner. I have never been able to sleep on flights, so I spent the 11 hour flight watching movies, playing Sudoku and pretending to try to sleep.

The layover in Paris was pretty short, only about 2 hours, and some of the other ETAs I had met were there as well, waiting for our flight to Dakar. Our flight boarded on time, but then we sat on the runway for an extra hour due to a medical emergency on board. They called for a doctor on board, and then the passenger, with his family, had to be taken off the plane. They also took the time to unload their luggage, so we left about an hour late. We were able to make up about half of that time and arrived in Dakar only 25 minutes after our scheduled time.

Customs were a breeze, but getting the bags, not so much. Unfortunately, one of my suitcases didn’t make it to Dakar with me, which meant that we all waited until the very last bag was unloaded and the carousel was turned off. I was grateful that the other ETAs waited for me as I reported it to the AirFrance office.

Turns out that my bag didn’t get back on the flight after they emptied the luggage for the medical emergency, so they had it going on the next day’s flight. They said they’d deliver it to the hotel when it came in, so off we went to find our ride. We had to go through security to get OUT of the airport (still don’t understand that…) and our driver was waiting right there for us. We arrived at the hotel around 10:30pm local time (which is 3:30pm California time/6:30pm Delaware time), making my actual travel time almost exactly 30 hours. All in all, everything went fairly well, but I was definitely looking forward to a shower and bed!

Next blog: Orientation at the US Embassy!