I arrive at the airport and Kelley is waiting for me!

Sunday, May 8th, 1994.  3 pm.  I am in Africa finally!  We are in Cotonou at the home of Alfred, a band member that kelley plays her Clarinet with.  His family is so wonderful!  Let's see, here is a recap of Friday and Saturday.  Friday, I had a terrible headache during my 5 hour layover in Chicago.  It finally eased.  While waiting to board, I met a girl on her way to backpack Europe for 5 weeks and a guy named Larry who was on his way to Dakar to begin a 4 month + trek/safari across Africa.  The three of us talked for over an hour and a half.

I threw up as soon as the seatbelt light ws off and then went to sleep the majority of the flight.  The plane was fortunately not full, so I was able to lift all the arm rests in the middle and spread out.  The girl (who's name I do not know) ate breakfast with me.  Larry and I had discussed seeing Brussels together and we did.  He was not planning on leaving the airport, but I convinced him to accompany me.  We stowed our backpacks in a locker and took the airport express to the city.  We were there quite early (about 7 am) and nothing was open yet.  We found out we both have the same camera, so we went around photographing old buildings (The Grand Place & Mannequin de Pis) and each other.  In Brussels the U.S. $ is only worth 33 cents!  It sucked.  Everything was so expensive.  But we had a wonderful day.  We found a bakery with very reasonable prices.  Small croissants were 15 francs.  I ate 3 and a coke for my second breakfast.  We later went through the Old town section where the streets were very narrow and all the restaurants were preparing for lunch.  Lunch started at $12.  Larry and I finally found a deli where he had a Pate' sandwich and I had a salami sandwich (75 francs).  The bread was delicious.  We looked in some of the shops and then headed backto the airport to get our stuff out of storage and find our terminals with plenty of time to spare.  We parted ways and wished each other well.  It was then that I finally felt alone.  NO ONE was speaking English anymore.  I probably had an hour wait and it was so hot and lonely.  At least in Chicago I had Larry and the girl to compare notes with.  The flight from Brussels was very long.  I napped but didn't sleep like I did from Chicago.  I did not know beforehand, but we flew to Lagos, Nigeria then to Cotonou.