And It Continues....

We’ve made it. We are in Africa. Becky and I had arrived on Tuesday, July 21st in Kigali, Rwanda. It has been a long journey leading up to our arrival..…..

After leaving the hidden treasure of Cinque Terre the four of us (Becky, Lindsey, Jaymi, and I) started our journey to the magical city of Venice.
Venice…hmmmm……how do I describe Venice. The uniqueness of the city made it a must see. Well maybe I shouldn’t say a must see. How about a “you can see if you want” see. Let’s just say I was disappointed. I felt like the city has lost it’s authenticity in catering to the thousands and thousands of tourist that visit each day (2 million tourists a year). The city wasn’t clean, it was hot and humid, very crowded, expensive, and not authentic at all. But I will admit it was a cool experience to leave the train station and have to take a “water bus” down the canal to our hostel.

Next stop was London. London was a nice change from 5 weeks in Italy. It felt good being back in an English speaking country. And thank the Lord no more pizza or pasta. Our first meal was fish and chips and a cold beer…… my kind of a meal. We stayed in London for only two nights, which only gave us one full day to see the city. So Becky and I tried to fit all the attractions in, in one day – Buckingham Palace, Big Ben, Westminster Abby, Hyde Park, Piccadilly Circus. We were drained from traveling and being constantly on the go, making it hard to appreciate the attractions (oops). But we did really enjoy London and the people.

Now we are in Rwanda. Ironically Rwanda has been really relaxing and a good change of pace. We are staying with one of my old roommates from Tempe and his wife, Paul and Linda Bork. They are currently volunteers working for World Teach for a 10 month period and are currently in their 7th month. It’s been really good to spend some time with them and hear about their experience (which is a positive one).

Their house is really nice, well really nice relative to the third world– 4 bedrooms, 2 baths, and electricity. Currently we have no water at the house though. It’s dry season in Rwanda so the water is a constant hit or miss. So right now we are in our 2nd day without any water at the house and I still smell great (relative great).

Today Becky and I had our first market experience - bought some ant infested bread (protein), oranges, and bananas. We’ll spend the rest of the day packing and planning out our trip for Uganda. Which we leave for tomorrow early in the morning. Our bus leaves at 5:45 a.m. and takes 9 hours to reach the capital of Uganda – Kampala. There we will meet up with one of my old intern friends and experience Uganda for 3 days until we come back to Rwanda.

Adventure of a lifetime.

In Venice at Margherita Plaza having a drink (sorry a little blury)



Water Bus traveling down the streets of water in Venice


Hike Day - Becky and I in Cinque Terre


Our apartment we stayed in, in Cinque Terre (Lindsey, Jaymi, Me, Becky)



In London - Me posing as Big Ben (the clock tower)


In front of Buckingham Palace