April 29- May 1 5:20 am
Well, today was a very long and eventful day. I spent about 18 hours on airplanes. I unfortunately got sick for the first time in the very beginning of our flight from Chicago to Istanbul. Thankfully I had my faithful seat buddy David to save me in my time of need. When we finally landed in Turkey their airport looked like a mall. I mean you could buy a new Chanel, Coach, Prada bag, or even new underwear at Victoria’s Secret. This place was huge. Then to add to the excitement of Turkey I had to be searched at security. The security guy in charge of looking at the camera x-rays of your bags, shoes and jackets walked up to me as my backpack came through the belt and said “Open.” So I did just that. Then he started sifting through my miscellaneous items and stopped to pull out my zip block bag full of tampons. He says again “Open,” and I am completely confused. I say, “You want me to open my baggie of tampons?” The man makes a grunting noise and proceeds to open the baggie, and if that wasn’t embarrassing enough, he then takes out one of my tampons and unwraps it! Finally the other guy at security saw what was going on and said who knows what to him. That was by far the most awkward experience I have ever had at an airport. Anyways, after it had been established that my tampon was not an explosive of some sort, we finally made it to our terminal and then on to the plane. Towards the end of the flight a man collapsed, we all think his blood sugar was low. When we finally landed in Kenya we had to get our bags and what not. Then when we tried to leave the airport we were stopped because of one of the Pelican bags (big, black protective cases) that held some of the video equiptment. That was a huge 1.5 hour fiasco. We apparently needed to get a license to bring equipment into the country or something? It was very annoying. I am so happy that we made it to the Guest House. I am ready for sleep.
Till next time,
Danielle