My Journey to Ghana - the flights and my first day!

So here I am… sitting in the Halifax airport waiting for my long journey to begin. The excitement of leaving and the realization of where I am going has finally hit me – it’s an amazing feeling. After a thundermug (or two) while waiting three hours for my flight the adventure finally begins and oh god, was it ever horrible.

Now I am writing to you from JFK airport in New York… I just got off what was perhaps the worst flight of my life – it is truly a miracle that I wasn’t sick on the plane. I choose to blame the extremely small plane, not the thundermugs for my sick stomach feeling. Upon landing I actually thought the plane was going to roll because it was so all over the place and bumpy! However, my upset stomach and crappy feeling was short lived. As I was finding my way off the plane I went to the nearest Delta service person I could find, started asking her where I should go for my next flight to Amsterdam only to be interrupted by none other than Allen Patriquin, Dave’s father! WHAT AN AWESOME SURPRISE!!!! Allen came up to me completely decked out in his awesome pilot’s outfit and says something along the lines of “Come with me Claire, I’ve got you covered.” And off we went, winding through the crazy terminals that make up JFK. I have to tell you, being escorted around an airport by a pilot makes one feel pretty damned important, I could get used to that feeling. Allen took me to a bar (he knows me well) so I could wait for him until he was debriefed and then he would come get me again and take me right to my gate. After a quick bus ride to the right terminal I’m at my proper gate and Allen’s off to Venice this evening so unfortunately, he’s not flying my flight. Oh well, there’s always next time! So, now I’ve got about 3 and a half hours to kill until my next flight… and no wireless – don’t be surprised if the next part of this entry is a boring ramble about something that has no significance to what’s actually going on in my life, I’m bound to get bored.

Annnd now I am in Amsterdam! Apparently Parks and Rec is enough to keep me distracted for three hours! Ok, so Amsterdam is awesome… I had to go talk to some representatives for the Royal Dutch Airlines about my connection to Accra and they are probably the best people (aside from Allen) that I’ve seen/met on my journey thus far. I got to the counter and this older Dutch man and a younger Dutch man decided they were going to make my flight to Accra the best flight ever… just because I was Canadian. They then proceeded to make fun of Americans and wanted to know if Canadians felt the same way about Americans as Europeans did. I told them I was dating an American and they suddenly got very quiet and started to blush, so I told them that I make fun of the lovely Dave for being an American all of the time and that for the most part, there was definitely some sort of similar feeling in Canada and Europe… and the jokes, teasing and pampering began again. They decided that since I was such a nice person I need an entire ROW to myself on this next airplane… so that’s what I get – can you say pumped?

So…. Today is Friday and I arrived in Ghana last night around 8pm Ghanaian time or 5pm Nova Scotia time or 4pm Ontario time. I was greeted in the airport by two men that work for the volunteer organization named Michael and Godwin and after a very interesting cab ride we got to my new home for the next 3 months… and while stepping out of the car I immediately stepped into an open sewer… great job me! Why do I feel like this is going to be a reoccurring theme? In Canada I trip and cut up my knees… in Ghana I step in shit… I think I like the Canadian version better. Guess I’ll just have to keep my eyes open.

Anyway, I’ve spent a whole day here now and I absolutely love it! Godwin took me and two of the other new volunteers, Nikki and Cassandra, into the area of Osu today so we could start getting to know the city and the buses there (which are called tro-tros and are CRAZY!) After that the other volunteers and myself (there are nine of us in total) played some card games, had some drinks, and ran out into the rain to get an egg and hotdog sandwich (not as weird as it sounds). Anyway, I am absolutely exhausted and I should get going to bed soon. Hope you all enjoyed my very first (and very random) first blog ever!

Hope everybody is doing well!!! Miss you and Love you all!

P.S. A very happy birthday to my dearest brother CALLUM!!!!!!