::groan::

Aye yay yay.

So now it's 12:18 am on SATURDAY. I've officially been in the Addis Ababa airport since 7:15 pm. There is NOTHING to do here.

So, although it costs $5/hour (which is a severe wzungu price) to use the internet, I return to the internet cafe, seeking solace and perhaps a little entertainment.

I've made a friend named Naima (yay ANTM!) who traveled from Florida where she goes to FSU. It's nice to have someone to talk to, and someone to watch my bags while I go to the choo. She's incredibly nice and I'll give her my email address once we get to Entebbe for sure. 

This entry won't be very exciting, because, well, I'm bored.

Having nearly 4 more hours to wait, I put Mean Girls on the laptop, although I discovered that the outlets prevalent all over the airport were not actually functional. My laptop had about 1.50h left on the charge, which was enough to watch most of the movie but I had to shut down right as Cady was giving her little Spring Fling speech. I mean, hey, the movie was mostly over anyway.

Naima and I are both experiencing some culture shock, which I find amusing mostly because she's from Africa, and I've lived here before. I'm actually processing some of the weirdness better than she ... There were these strange asian men yelling in the airport, very very .. uh, strongly, to the point where I thought they might fight. It's times like these where you're glad you're in an airport and that everyone has gone through metal detectors.

Which makes me think of "no sex in the champagne room". hehehe.

Anyway, some observations. Running Africans is always a bad thing. Naima was startled as some men ran past us. Usually, it means that there's something bad happening, because Africans on the whole move at a very slow pace, chronicled by the kiswahili phrase, "pole pole"... Which, essentially means, "Slowly".

There also seem to be some dogs barking in the terminal. We aren't sure where they are, but they keep barking. They scare Naima, because dogs aren't really pets here. People use them as guard dogs - protectors, and they're not friendly. 

People are also overtly friendly, and there aren't as rigid social conventions regarding personal space and privacy. While we watched Mean Girls, some lady just came and sat on our bench and watched it with us.

No words, no asking. Funny, huh? Also, this guy walked by and was like "mmmm.. g4" and stroked the top of Allure. Does he think she's some sort of hussy?! Sheesh!

They passed out hot washcloths on the plane, and while I wiped my face and hands I witnessed the woman in front of me scrub her armpits and general non-hands&face body with the cloth. I stopped wiping my face with it.

We figured out that this internet cafe is charging 6+ Ksh (Kenyan shillings) a minute, which is about double or even triple what you'd pay anywhere in Kenya.

But after all, there is nothing in this airport. I'm amazed that all these shops have stayed open, and appear to continue to stay open.

Can you tell that I'm sleep deprived and just a little bit delirious? I still have 2 hours to wait. I feel totally disjointed right now, because I'm sort of in travel purgatory. I'm not where I want to be, I can't really settle down, but I can't really process yet where I've been. If I went to sleep, I'd be confused as to my location when I woke up. In fact, watching Mean Girls in the Ethiopian Airport, I honestly could have been anywhere. I could have been in an airport in Georgia. It was a strange transplantation feeling.

I've paid for 34 more minutes on this computer. Apparently, to buy 30 minutes is $4, but to buy an hour is $5. 

I'll see if I can make AIM express work. Also, certain people who received personal email from me didn't write me back. They suck.