Nose Plastered to the Plexiglass: Conrad Flies to Kampala

The flight: The flight was surprisingly uneventful for me. I have a long track record involving long distance commuting being disrupted by unfortunate incidents, both out of my control and not (missed connections on the way to the EURO Cup; being stranded at a subway station at 3 AM in Toronto because I got off at the wrong Greyhound stop). With these examples and several more clanking around my head, I was a bit of a wreck getting on the plane. While I could possibly handle minor setbacks, I don’t know how I would handle something like a denied visa (for example). The flight to Amsterdam was uneventful and not really noteworthy. I quickly discovered where my connecting gate was, which I celebrated by grinning like a complete idiot. Having reunited with my vice of casual smoking, I bee-lined for the indoor smoking area, which was essentially an Irish Pub which had a closet in back where mostly Irish-accented people crammed together and breathed smoke down the back of each other’s necks. It was pretty wonderful. I explored the airport, regularly backtracking to my gate, just to prove to myself that I could still do it. I think this is how some animal’s explore new territory – it has become my approach to airports. Again, I can get lost in a basement.

The Amsterdam airport should be noted for being really well organized and everyone who works there is quite friendly. Even the security guard was smiling! SECURITY! This was a welcome change from the Pearson Airport staff who with every syllable make me believe that I am one forgotten tube of lip-chap away from getting a free colonscopy.

The flight to Kigali, Rwanda was amazing. I got the window seat, and rather than immersing myself in Hollywood blockbusters, I stared out the window the whole time, while I listened to the Discovery Planet Earth soundtrack. I could wax poetic about seeing the Alps for the first time, or watching the swirling deserts of Libya and the Northern DRC, but it’s really one of those things that needs to be experienced rather than explained. So dear readers: if you’re ever doing that particular trek, turn off the television at least for the first few hours, and stare out the windows with some good tunes and imagine Richard Attenborough crooning his sweet phrases into your ear.

My amusing anecdote during the Amsterdam-Kigali flight: an hour in, the pilot comes over the announcement and starts speaking in Dutch for several minutes. All I could make out was “Libya”. The first words he spoke in English were: “look out the window! At the strange aircraft…” I literally slammed my nose against the window looking at the strange aircraft, leaving a smeared nose print. In my mind was like “oh no! We’re going to be a BBC headline”. Turns out we were still over Italy, and the pilot, an airplane aficionado, was pointing out a rare plane used to transport airplane engines around the world (it looked like a pudgy cartoon airplane a below-average talented Kindergarten child might draw) … and we were about to enter Libyan airspace.

This picture was taken from Google. 

My arrival in Kampala was decidedly non-eventful, with the issuance of my temporary visa being rather quick and my luggage came around the track just as I cleared customs (remarkably good timing). I found my awesome driver, Hector, really quickly and we sped off to my hotel, while he explained some of the “rules” of the road and pointed out why Boda-Bodas (the motorcycle “Taxi”) can be a risky travel option. With my eyes wide open taking it all in, I waited a reasonable ten minutes before I started talking about sports, which was pretty good achievement for me (soccer being a conversation starter for me). The check in was easy – outside of discovering I was paying much more than I had hoped – and I settled in, once I figured out how to connect to internet and call long distance on the phone (and how to not electrocute myself on the lamp … which gave me a nasty shock when I first touched it).