Packed and Rolling

After a long week of finalizing details, celebrating, and simply enjoying my last moments of a traditional Summer, I have successfully completed the first leg of our Africa travels. I had taken care of the most important things I needed for this trip such as a passport, vaccinations, and insurance materials a while ago. General packing, on the other hand, was a different story. Having not travelled internationally before, nonetheless for an extended period of time, I struggled deciding what to actually pack. Thankfully my program provided a packing list. When I laid all of these items out, my floor looked like this:

& Believe it or not, I got it all to fit into this--

(Plus a laptop bag)

Then I realized I forgot this.

I am lucky enough to be travelling in a group where we did check a few bags and tubs of personal and school supplies, so I was able to pack some liquids that exceeded the 3-3-1 rule.

At 9:15 Logan, my family, and I left for the airport. I met up with a portion of the ISU team and we spent about an hour checking in our supplies. Goodbyes (temporary) were said and we boarded our first flight to Minneapolis. This was a short hour long endeavor where I began reading, "Into the Wild"(Seems appropriate). Soon after we landed we hopped on the airplane for our first long leg of the trip to Amsterdam. We left at 3:10pm from Minneapolis and landed around midnight Midwest time, but 6am here. In the next four hours I will try and fight fatigue and board our final flight to Entebbe. We should arrive around 10:30pm, Ugandan time. Despite the long flight, the travel has not been too taxing and it has been nice to have friendly faces to travel with.  I'm not entirely sure when the next time I will have internet is, but I plan to continue journaling and blogging throughout my trip, they just may come randomly. Thanks to everyone who has supported and helped me so far, I'm excited to see what Africa has in store for me!