On the way to Africa!

Apwoyo from Gulu everyone!!! It has been a VERY long journey (spanned over 4 days….and 1 shower mind you) to finally get here to the Invisible Children house in Gulu, Uganda. VERY long. After leaving St. Louis on Saturday morning, I had a NINE hour layover in New York’s airport (horrible airport)….during which I pretty much wanted to shoot myself in the face from the boredom…by the way, thanks to all who kept me busy with texts and calls….you helped maintain my sanity in a BIG way! Finally, around 7pm, I met up with all the other teachers from around the states (some from Arizona, New York, Louisianna, Idaho, etc.), had a little meet in greet, and then boarded our flight to London through the night during which I spanned myself over three airplane seats (lap of luxury I tell ya) to have about a 3 hour night’s sleep. For those of you curious, yes, I was very careful to use my sweatshirt as a pillow and NOT the “pillows” or blankets provided by the airline so as to avoid potential lice, bed bugs or other creepy what-have-yous. J Yes also to the question “is Lauren surviving in Africa?” But that’s getting ahead of ourselves. So, we finally land in London for our TWELVE hour layover. What do you do in London for 12 hours…you explore, right? Well, some of you know that I have already been to London twice, so I take it upon myself to get a group of people to do this little downtown tour (by memory) of London that visits Big Ben, Westminster Abbey, Parliament and the Palace all in one go because they are relatively close to each other. Yea…I totally got the entire group lost. NO idea as to where we were…turns out I didn’t know the way around London at all and we just ended up moseying around some part of the city (Earl’s Court is where we got off….nothing there!) and lying in the grass under a tree in some supposedly famous park (Lauren had a problem here….I don’t like lying in the grass…too many bugs…more than on the airline pillows and sweatshirts aren’t big enough barriers….yuck). I just have bad luck in London. I don’t think that city likes me. Anyway, we finally make it back to the airport, had myself a little baby-wipes shower and boarded the overnight flight to Uganda. Not as nice of a flight….smaller plane, but good/weird movie (The Reader) and a couple of hours sleep. Just a small recap on the sleep situation: Friday night = 4 hours, Saturday night = maybe 3 hours, Sunday night (flight to Uganda) = maybe 3 hours. Do you think Lauren was in a good mood? Shame on you for those of you who said no (Heather and Cameron are the only ones who get a pass on this one)….I was actually in a great mood….exhausted but good mood. I had finally landed in Uganda. I got my visa, boarded an 8-man van with about 14 people, and began our drive to Kampala, the capital of Uganda, and my first experience with Africa.