We Made It! - Autumn& Nathan

Dec 19/20

It was our first time flying. Going through the check point freaked me out the most. Was afraid I wan't going to be able to get on the plane to start. I thought that it was an enjoyable experience. The only thing that I didn't like about the plane was when it came time to landing. My ears couldn't pop for the longest time. I was really hoping to see more out the windows but had to look over people and was a little uncomfortable doing that. I was super glad to come into the heat when we got here.

-Nathan

Time has finally come, we left for Des Moines at 3:30 am on the 19^th take off at 6:00am. My first take off was not as bad as I was thought it would be. The flight to Atlanta did not seem too long granted I had the window seat so I spent the entire time looking at the ground. We had a 3 hour layover in Atlanta. Then the flight to New York, was about the same as the first flight however the plane was larger, and we had the option to watch a movie, I watched Iron Man. I also got a window seat for this flight, the closer we got to New York the more clouds there were, which the most beautiful thing ever. Landing this time was slightly bumpy. With another “hour” layover in the JFK Airport. Our flight to Accra was oversold so they were giving out thousand dollar gift cards to those who would wait till the next day for a flight to Accra. We got on to our original flight two hours after the original time of take off, due to maintenance on the radio. For the 10 hour flight I was in the middle seat, so take off felt like I was on a roller coaster but blindfolded since I could not see out the window. Since I had nothing else to do and I was too uncomfortable to sleep I watch more movies(Jurassic World, October Sky, Trainwreck, Remember the Titans). The highlight of the flight was when we landed an everyone cheered and clapped, which never happened on either of our first flights. So It is 9:30am in Accra so we have to go through the entire day still. Next was all the fun of going through customs! Really it was painless, we pretty much handed our passports, yellow fever certification cards to them as well as we had filled out some paperwork on the plane, It took less then half an hour.

We immediately got on a bus, which is worse than the plane for seating, but yet way better than the public transit. We meet Eric, MTN, and Stephan when we went to see the Fantasy Coffins, which we will go back later for a workshop for 3 days later in the trip. We also tried to find a place to stay when we are back in Accra later during the trip(we didn't find a place that would allow two of the same sex to room together). Finally we left for Ho, as we drove through the markets the venders practically ran to the bus when they saw use but the only person who had money was Chris, our instructor, So we had to tell them no all the time. A few times Chris stopped to buy some of venders foods for use to try. (Yes, mom we are eating street food) We got to try local bananas, ground nuts, plantain chips, ginger cookies, and milk cookies. We all passed out on the bus, only to be awoken every few minutes because driver had to weave between gigantic potholes as well as the multitude of large bumps the bus did hit. We did stop at a rest stop where the toilet was just a cement slap with a dip in it(luckily for me I did not have to go). We finally arrived in Ho around 5:30pm we checked into our rooms, Which are way nicer than I expected not to mention the bed was King sized when we were told that we would have twins. The only down side was the beds were extremely firm, like sleeping on the floor. We ate dinner at 6:30, I cannot believe I was afraid of the taste of the food, everything was delicious. What shocked all of us was they had french fries which were much better than most american fries we have had. Then we had chicken, beef, Fried fish, salad, rice, fried rice, Then we all died(passed out) in our beds.