london layover

I'm going to preface this entry with the following: I am sleep deprived and cold and in serious need of more coffee. I was hungry too but I took care of that with a severely over-priced chicken and avocado sandwich and some sea salt and vinegar chips. Be glad that my tummy is now full or else I'd say you might wanna stop reading now.

You've been warned.

I'm going to officially kick off the Uganda 2009 blogging with this post. I'm in the middle of my journey to the first stop in Uganda, Mbale. The first leg of my trip was from Philadelphia to the London Heathrow airport, an approximately six hour long overnight flight on British Airways. I received a pink pillow and blanket and toothbrush and sat next to a girl who only took up her allotted amount of seat so all in all, not a bad flight. London is cold and foggy and, no offense to my dear friends who have spent a good proportion of their lives here, I definitely feel called to live much closer to the equator. Wait! I think I see the sun trying to shine through the clouds. I take it back. We have a partly sunny day folks.

I arrived here at 9:30am UK time, which is 5 hours ahead of you east coasters. My next flight doesn't take off until 9:15pm tonight so I've got some time to kill, which is why you get something to read. This is only made possible, however, because I spent a good chunk of time punching some peoples' lights out to get access to an outlet. (Just kidding... I'm not THAT violent.) Next stop is Entebbe, Uganda and hopefully someone will be there holding up a sign with my name on it or else I'll be hitchhiking to Mbale. (Daddy don't you worry, I'll be very careful.) In case you were wondering, I'll be 7 hours ahead of EST once I get to Uganda.

Mbale is where the CURE hospital is located and where I'll be staying my first few days in the country. You can click here to learn more about CURE international, which an organization that was influential in my decision to go to medical school and help out in developing countries and low-resource areas. This sidetrip is completely unrelated to the work I'll be doing with Uganda Village Project throughout the remainder of the summer; I will be visiting some friends that my mom and sister met when they were in Uganda a few weeks ago.

Not too much else to report at the moment except that I am feeling incredibly unfashionable sitting amongst these trendy Europeans with my flipflops. :)