Chicago

We left last night from Chicago O’Hare to Brussels on our way to Nairobi. We are traveling with Peter’s parents and brother Greg’s family. Spirits were high as we waited in the airport lounge.

We got a little nervous as our flight was delayed multiple times and we had a relatively short layover scheduled in Brussels. When we left, we were still hopeful that we would make up some time so that we would be able to make our connection.

Looking a bit dejected as we waited to board our delayed flight

Flight 1: ORD to BRU

As we boarded, the kids were invited to take a picture in the cockpit of the 787. Nephew-10-year-old has recently been very interested in airplanes, thanks to Microsoft Flight Simulator as well as YouTube travel vloggers. The pilot told Nephew-10-year-old, “If you can land the plane in Flight Simulator, you could land a real plane.”

Malia settling in for the long flight to Brussels

Peter ready for takeoff

Highlights from our flight

• Peter had an ice cream sundae
• Malia watched Brooklyn 99
• We slept a bit but not as much as we should have in hindsight…

Layover in Brussels

When we landed in Brussels, we learned that we had been automatically rebooked on a later flight. Our new itinerary was through Addis Ababa and was leaving at 9:30 PM (our original flight left around 10:30 AM). So we suddenly had 10 hours to kill in the Brussels airport :(.

We also had some challenges getting our new boarding passes, as well as getting through security. We were supposed to talk to the gate agent when we got off the plane, but missed the turn and walked through a one-way gate—oops! But it all worked out in the end.

We spent about 9 hours in the lounge in Brussels. We were all exhausted!

Normal sleeping position

Malia somehow convinced Peter to abandon his principles and buy them both Starbucks coffee.

The Starbucks that broke Peter’s resolve

To kill 3 hours, we watched Lord of the Rings: The Fellowship of the Ring. Malia had never seen it before and Peter really wanted to explain everything. We were trying to mostly stay awake so we could sleep on our flight in the evening. Peter dozed off a few times (briefly!) during the movie.

Peter also spent some time working on the sanfari.com website design (Claude did most of the work). He is very proud of the domain name.

Flight 2: BRU to ADD

We boarded our flight to Addis Ababa on time around 9 PM. We were ready to fall asleep ASAP.

Ready for our second flight of the journey

Peter and Malia slept really well—so well that we missed breakfast. The flight went smoothly. Now we are sitting in the lounge in Addis Ababa writing this blog post.

We experienced the traditional Ethiopian coffee ceremony for the first time. It involves roasting the coffee and then serving it in a communal setting. The coffee is very dark but is served with plenty of sugar.

Ethiopian coffee ceremony

Our first taste of traditional Ethiopian coffee

We are flying out in a few hours to Nairobi. From there we are taking a small plane to Kicheche Laikipia, the first wildlife reserve where we are staying.