I got to Vancouver airport a little bit early, so I sat in the International area and people watched until Nicole arrived, and she was a bit early too, so we went for lunch and tried to organize a few of our thoughts and expectations. The plane arrived on time, the boarding went fine, but I think they might have jammed in a few extra seats...the legroom was non-existant, and I have short legs, anyone of any height would have been miserable.

The flight to Amsterdam seemed endless, the movies were not what we wanted to see, and there was a completely overcast sky so we couldn't see a thing. We were VERY impatient to at least get as far as Amsterdam and stretch our legs. I must admit though, the food was excellent and we seemed to be fed non-stop. We set our watches to Amsterdam time as soon as we were in the air, so we instantly gained 9 hours.

In Amsterdam, after the endless flight actually ended, we were pleasantly surprised by the airport. It is massive, it's clean and it is so easy to navigate. We had no trouble finding our gate and we wandered through the many stores, and went through the museum as well, I have never seen a museum in an airport before.

We were just starting to board the plane, a few people were actually on it when we were told that there wouold be a slight delay due to a "technical problem with an engine." That was a good enough reason for me....what's a little delay? Oh, I mean, what's a THREE HOUR delay?? The bad part was, we had gone through security so we were in a hall that we could not leave. There were seats and a washroom, and they did bring us orange juice and cookies, but still....

Eventually we got on the plane, it was much larger than the other one, lots of leg room, good movies and even more good food. Were we just really hungry or have the airlines improved their food?? We managed to sleep a few hours as well, so it was a pretty successful flight, oh, and it was lacking the screaming baby that the first flight had, how can one baby scream for so many hours? As the plane started to taxi away, a huge plume of smoke puffed out of the "broken" engine, I was worried for a few minutes, but it all worked out ok as it never did explode.

But enough of planes. We landed in Dar es Salaam about 12:30, only 2 hours late and when we got off the plane we walked down the stairs onto the tarmac. No jetway connecting the planes to the terminal like a giant umbilical cord. We just went from the plane to the heat. To the wall of hot and humid air. A sultry and damp air, steamy like a bathroom after a long hot shower. Almost hard to breath. Am I making it clear as to how hot and humid it is here?

Luckily our luggage arrived almost instantly...oh, I forgot to tell you that the woman in the Vancouver airport made us check our carry-on suitcases....mine was 3 pounds over the weight limit and Nicoles as 7. What a pain that was, after all my creative packing. Anyhow, they didn't lose our luggage and we were first in linbe at customs, so that only took a few minutes, then we walked outside and grabbed a taxi.

Already we have picked up upon the laisse-faire attitude that the people here have, but more about that next time, my time on the internet is about to end.