HOURS on a plane! (July 1)

Since this is our second trip it is hard not to make comparisons to last time.  The flight had a very different itinerary.  Last trip we left Boston at 6pm, flew to Amsterdam, then to Kilimanjaro airport.  This time we left from JFK at 11am and flew to Doha, Qatar.  The nice part was we weren't flying alone. Several people from the group were flying through JFK from Florida so we all travelled together.

Brian and Devin brought us to the airport- making sure we were there the full 3 hours before takeoff!

Checking was easy (we did pay $65 for one overweight bag- we ended up with a Total of 170 pounds of donations!)and we said our good byes.

After about an hour we saw Garrett and Kelly from last strip and met Theresa, Ashley and Doug. Kelly asked if we were all geared up for the long fight and I compared it to labor!  It's long and difficult but at the end it's worth it. And then you kind of forget about it before the next time! Finally it was time to board.

Owen and I got to our seats and discovered that we had a window seat and an aisle seat with a man in the middle. We settled in for the 12 hour flight. 12 HOURS. Luckily there was an extensive choice of movies. Neither of us slept. I ended up watching 5 movies: Hidden Figures (excellent), Table 19 (funny indie movie about a wedding with Anna Kendrick), You Before Me (book was better- duh), Did You Hear About the Morgan's (funny witness protection flick with Sarah Jessica Parker, Sam water son and others), and If I Stay (which I didn't finish but I know how it ends)...

We got off the plane and boarded a bus to the terminal. It was about 108 outside! So we did tough the ground outside the airport in Qatar...  

The airport was huge with lots of upscale shops. Brian thought I might have to cover my hair but a video shown of the airport during the flight proved otherwise.  We all gathered at a table in the food court. Since Owen ate nothing but bread in the past 12 hours he opted for some Burger King...

And I got a Diet Coke because I liked the can!

Along with lots of shops, there were some kids play areas that were...a little strange. Metal sculptures with 😐 faces and I don't know what the deal was with the giant teddy bear:

Children's'play areas:

After eating snacks, Owen and I FaceTimed Devin (even though it was about 1am.  We got silly. Owen tried to get him to wake up Zeus, but thankfully he refused. Every time we lost the connection and called back, we were greeted by Buzz or the Tick...

I managed to sleep about an hour at the beginning and end of the next flight. Owen was determined to stay awake but he didn't make it. I took a picture of him sleeping, but I piuromised I wouldn't post it!😴

We landed in Tanzania at 4:30. It took forever to get our visas because they wanted to charge us $250 instead of $100 since we said we were volunteers.  Cathy and Tashoy only paid $50 a few days earlier. We changed our forms to say vacation and finally got through.

Kilimanjaro International Airport- outside

Inside waiting to go through customs.

We got to Springlands - home sweet home - in time for dinner (and Owen"s first of many grilled cheese sandwiches!