Airport Fakeout

The young girl who checked me in at the Delta gate couldn't believe I was only checking my one backpack. "This is all you've got until August?" she asked. "Honey, you are definitely not a female."

Through security, I was already in travel mode, right hand instinctively reaching to pat my passport pocket. Then the Delta voice came onto the intercom. First it was a possible delay, then probable re-bookings, then a definite mechanical failure on our flight, the very last one out of RDU. After a couple of long conversations with a KLM Royal Dutch representative, and the help of a very nice lady named Julie at the Delta desk, I was re-booked for the next day. They even gave me my bag back.

Patrick was nice to turn around on I-40 and head back to RDU. So here I am now, sitting in High Point on a day I expected to be far from it, back in my own bed when I expected seat 36D.

And I'm off again now, through Greensboro, Detroit, Amsterdam, Nairobi, Bujumbura, and finally Kigali, Rwanda. Here's hoping I make it off the runway this time.

Summer 2010: Heading off and back again

To all my favorite family and friends -

For summer 2010 I've revamped this old gap year blog as a place for current travel updates. Expect stories, quotes, or plans from the ground, pictures when I can get them uploaded, or just pleas for help when I'm stranded at midnight in a peacefully dusty bus terminal.

Just kidding. I won't have internet then.

My certain and most immediate destination - Rwanda. I'm excited to get back to the beautiful Land of A Thousand Hills. Other probable destinations for this summer, before I find my way back to Chapel Hill - my favorite haunts of Uganda and Tanzania, and the unexplored (for me) lands of Belgium, Scotland, and Ireland... and many ports and stations on the way and in between.

So keep an eye out. And thanks for watching.

Love,
Joseph