Day One Hundred & Eighty Seven - Flying

Feelings of sadness, anxiety and excitement are skipping around in my body. I am going home. Can hardly believe it. After a slight delay in Juba, my flight took off. I thought I was going to die. The plane sounded like it was going to fall apart and the takeoff and landing were horrendous. But alas, I survived. It was not until I reached Cairo that the adrenaline coursing through my body at high speeds stopped. I was so worked up in Juba. Once I landed in Cairo I found my luggage and headed out on the town and wooeee was it overwhelming and slightly chilly considering it was 18 degrees. Once I bargained a deal with a taxi driver I was off. It all felt very normal to be in Cairo but the sights and sounds were overwhelming. I think that people in Juba drive like maniacs until I go back to Cairo. Drivers there are insane. My driver was speeding down the very smooth tarmac, racing past buildings and people and architecture that Juba certainly does not have, with his radio blasting and a smoke in his hand. Me in the backseat. Eyes closed trying to calm myself and hope that I do not die in a car crash. I made it to my desired destination. I tried to walk and find myself some koshari but my search was futile. Each person I asked told me to walk in a different direction to a different koshari shop. So I stopped and had some fresh juice instead. My bags were getting too heavy to continue carrying around. Once I was done I caught a taxi, I asked him if he spoke English. His response was yes so I hopped in only to discover 12 seconds later that, no he certainly does not speak English, not one bit. So that taxi didn’t get my money. The next taxi did the same thing, however he knew a bit more English so I kept him. I got him to take me to a koshari place where I got my ‘small’ dish of koshari then headed to the airport. A good thing I did this when I did because traffic was insane. I only ended up having 2 hours to kill at the airport. Cairo to Frankfurt was my sleeping flight. I did wake up at one point, looked out of the window and there was Orion starring back at me. This was the first time I have seen stars from an airplane. It was amazing.

I had 4 hours to pass by in the Frankfurt airport. These hours seemed to pass by relatively quickly. It felt really good that this was the last plane I would be getting on before Calgary. This flight turned out to be the best. 10 hours on a plane, a seat to myself meaning 2 pillows and 2 blankets, which were certainly needed on the cold airplane. The last hour of the flight dragged by so slow. The moment I saw the Rockies I started getting very impatient and super excited I could not sit still.