Hello From Dakar

--I started writing this post on Friday but didn't have time to post it. I just finished it and am going to break all of this into smaller posts to make them easier to read!!--

Finally I made it to a cyber cafe so it's time for an update. I was going to write earlier today but got kicked out because the guys working there had to go to the mosque for Friday prayer. Anyway, I prefer this computer to the one that I had before because the keys with symbols on them did not correspond with what actually appeared when they were pushed. The keyboards are already strange (like why do I have to push shift for the period and not the exclamation point?)

It already seems that I've been here for a long time. Kind of strange. And even stranger perhaps is the fact that everything seems pretty normal. No culture shock so far. I was worried that I had romanticized everything and that I would come back and be super annoyed with everything. Now I guess I just know what to expect.

My flights went well and were on time for the most part. The only bad thing was the 10 hour lay over at the Madrid airport. I was thinking about taking the metro somewhere but then I think it was too cold for how I was dressed and I didn't really want to deal with going out through customs and then coming back into the airport. I spent my time looking for place to change my money, walking around, reading, sleeping and trying to sleep. The time actually went pretty fast considering that there wasn't much to do.

I arrived in Dakar at around 10:30 pm and was happy to smell the air that I remembered....fish and ocean and humid, but it good way.

I went though the passport checkpoint (or whatever you call it) and made it into the baggage claim to a scene that we all grew to know so well in Senegal - baggage EVERYWHERE, people everywhere, pure craziness. Amazingly, I got my bags very quickly and didn't have to deal with any of the annoyingness of lost baggage. I made it outside (where some guy immediately tried to tell me he could find me a taxi)and then back into the departure area where the hotel I had a reservation at was. I was happy to find that the hotel actually did exist. It was simple and too expensive for what it was, but it did allow me not to have to get a taxi and it only took me 1 minute to get there. Unfortunately, it was only about 6 pm Minnesota time at that point so it took le a while to get to sleep.....