OUTBOUND!
After a rushed day and half of final prep, Cathy dropped me off at Toronto Pearson exactly at the prescribed 3 hour pre-departure time of 6:15 pm. Boy, I wish the airlines had such punctuality in mind…we weren’t in the air until at least 7 but the Lufthansa Captain assured us that the tail wind would eliminate the late start. He was correct in that we landed in Frankfurt exactly on schedule at 8:05 am (1:05 EST). With a 14 hour layover in Frankfurt, I sought out a day hotel where I had a sound 8 hour sleep (with the help of a couple of ‘sleep-aid’ pills) for $85 Cdn. It was worth it because I’ve felt great ever since.
At 10:55 we headed for Addis Ababa, Ethiopia with Ethiopian Airlines. I was aware that EA had experienced a crash a few weeks previous so when the pre-departure video came on I was extra attentive. What happened next didn’t provide any additional comfort. The power went off; the video quit and all the lights went out. After a few minutes the power was restored only to go off again halfway through the video. This happened a third time after which the flight attendants took over for the video doing the ‘old fashioned’ verbal and animated demonstration. Is there anything else going to ‘misfire’ on this flight? Fortunately the trip turned out to be uneventful excepting the considerable turbulence over Italy approaching the Mediterranean Sea and again approaching the coast of Egypt.
Above the welcome sign to Rwanda at the airport...sorry it's kind of small
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