A year of adventures

 [My internet isn’t great so I’ll publish this as text but will try to add pictures after.] The short summary is: it was a lot of travel, but it all went smoothly, I slept some, and I’m happily ensconced in my first home.  Ethiopia looked very lush! It was good to get the worst out of the way at the start - the red-eye and almost 5-hour layover in Chicago wasn’t awesome. Flying business class on the longest leg was amazing - my one-way flight cost 88,000 miles from my stash but was very worth it. The countryside in Ethiopia was breathtakingly lovely with so many shades of spring green, and the fancy airport lounge was pretty posh. I appreciated that the buffet there served both African and Western foods, but I wasn’t hungry enough to have any. (I did sample fenugreek juice. It was quite odd.)  The meal served between Addis Ababa and Nairobi seemed more Ethiopian in style and was delish! Landing in Kenya wasn’t nearly as pretty - quite brown so not as photogenic. It took two hours from

 In Portland we have a fun/odd tradition of posting pics of our feet showing our iconic airport carpet. No explanation required, it means “Adventure awaits!” And it’s my turn to post the pic. After months of planning and not quite believing it’s going to happen, I’m at the airport facing down 20 hours in 3 different planes, and 10 hours in airports. Here’s the plan:  Tonight (Monday) - 4-hour red-eye to Chicago 4.5-hour layover 14 hours to Addis Ababa, Ethiopia (in business class, baby!) 2.5-hour layover 2-hour flight to Nairobi, arriving 1p local time.  The red-eye is the worst part (I hope!) but I went on a lovely hike with a friend and had a great sushi dinner with my sister and midnight is totally past my bedtime, so I hope I at least nap. Having a lie-flat bed in business class will make the14 hours go quickly, but hopefully I’m awake to enjoy some of it.  I’m heading to 2 days in Nairobi, 12 days of safari, 3 days on the beach, and then I’ll go see friends in Dakar, Senegal. Then

 So I’m going on a safari (!!) and I leave next week. I’ve been wrestling with the question of technology: is my iPhone camera good enough, or do I borrow a camera? Friends prevailed on me to borrow a not-enormous camera with a pretty good zoom (both physical & digital). I’ve been playing with it some to figure out the uses. But I also have to figure out how to USE the files! From the camera  From my phone Four concert pics from the camera, using maximum zoom to see the musicians (Pavement) Swifts - pic from the camera Crowd & swifts - pics from my phone.  In conclusion: I think I’ll use both. Phone for close-up and low-light distance pictures; camera for well-lit zooming in to see animals.  We’ll see how they look when I hit publish!

 When last I posted, I was coming to the end of visiting friends in Toronto - which was more like being part of everyday life - and was about to resume more touristy travel in Quebec City & Montreal.  It was lots of fun! I had few expectations or impressions going in - I knew QC was famously historic, that Montreal also had some historic elements, and that both cities were largely French-speaking. That’s about all the prep I did.  My friend and I stayed inside Quebec City’s historic walls, up on a very steep (and defensible) cliff, and it was truly spectacular in its beauty.  We didn’t have any specific plans, and did a LOT of walking - 10 miles per day for a couple of days, easily. Ouch my legs ached on all those cobblestones! We took a walking tour, traveled by ferry across the river, went up the cliff in the funicular, ate some really great food, and just enjoyed meandering.  Then Sue went home and I traveled by train for some solo time in Montreal. I’d done a small bit of homew