Toilet Paper Gratitude, or Four Days On the Road, One Night in a Bed

My latest adventures started Sunday, with a trip to the airport.  I was flying Dallas Fort Worth to Cincinnati to Washington, DC.  After a night in a hotel there, I'd head for Addis Ababa, Ethiopia Monday.  Boarding started, and just as I was about to hear the satisfying beep of the gate reader, the pilot came out to the gate and said "stop boarding, we have a problem".  Within a few minutes, the delay was such that there was no way I was going to be able to make my 30 minute connection in Cincinnati, so after a phone call to Delta, they got me rebooked on the AA nonstop flight the next morning.  I got to go home and spend another night with my cats.

Knowing that my flight was leaving at 7 a.m., I went to bed around 8.  And was wide awake at midnight.  I tossed and turned, and when the alarm went off at 3:45 a.m., I was actually grateful.  To make it slightly worse, it was the night that the clocks "spring" forward, so there went another hour of sleep.

The flight to Dulles airport was uneventful, and I made the Ethiopian Airlines flight to Addis with plenty of time to spare.  Thirteen hours in the air, and try as I might, no sleep for me.  Just when I thought I might doze off, there was a tap on my shoulder. 

"Canape, ma'am?" 

I looked up at the flight attendant, and said, "when is this flight landing?"

"About 7 hours, ma'am", he said.

"And you woke me up to ask me if I wanted canapes?"

I politely declined more food, and rolled over.  I still couldn't sleep, and now I was pissed off because the flight attendant wanted me to sit up and eat.  So I sat up and played games on my iPad the rest of the flight. 

We landed an hour late, made it through Immigration and Customs, and headed to the hotel for a shower.  We somehow showered, changed, and applied makeup in twenty minutes - my personal best.  The bus that was supposed to pick us up never showed, so we took a taxi to the office.  Of course with the office being on the airport grounds, they had to drop us off at a security office about a half mile from the actual building.  After getting permission to come in, we walked.  And walked. 

We made it to the office, and what was supposed to be a two-hour meeting turned into six.  At this office, the bathrooms are cleaned often, but the toilet paper is stocked once.  When the one roll is gone, it's gone for the day.  I really missed my own office building, where the toilet paper magically appears when it's close to being gone. 

Back at the hotel, we debriefed for two hours (and I must admit, had a couple of beers), then I hit the wall.  I had been awake for 36 hours, so I went to bed without supper.

The next day, I got up at 5 hoping to catch up on some e-mail.  We caught the bus this time, and worked until 6:30 p.m., when we were taken out to dinner at a traditional Ethiopian restaurant.  There, we learned about injera, a pancake-like bread, which is used to form the bottom of the plate.  After a hand-washing ceremony where only the right hand is washed, we chose several stew-like dishes to ladle onto the injera.  Extra injera is taken to eat the food with.  There are no utensils - you tear the injera using only your right hand, and use it to scoop up bits of the other food. 

Music and dancing ensued, and then the bus showed up to take us to the airport.  A fifteen hour flight later, we landed in Washington again, still with no sleep.  Delta messed up again, this time to my advantage - they rebooked me on a nonstop flight home.  So instead of getting home around 5, I walked in my door before 2. 

A short power nap later (5 hours), I awoke and watched TV.  For 2 hours.  I hit the wall again, and slept until 6 this morning. 

This is exactly how not to travel if you can help it.