So! We are finally in Ghana! We arrived last night around 930 pm. The whole travel ordeal was absolutely crazy. My mom drove me to Philly airport and we got there at 4pm. I said my goodbyes :( and then my whole group and I checked in for our flight with British Airways. When we walked to the gate, I saw my sorority sister, Sam! She was waiting at the same gate because she is studying in London for winter session. It was such a nice surprise to see her! So, the plane ride to London was 6 hours. I slept for about 2.5-3 hours, I think. But, I don’t sleep very well on planes and I kept coming in and out so I really don’t think I had that great of a sleep. When we got to London, we took a shuttle from our plane to the airport, where we arrived around 6:45 am. A woman on the shuttle asked us if we were from UD. It turns out she went to UD and did a winter study abroad session but lives in London now with her kids and husband. Small world! We had a 7 hour layover there, which was terrible! We went to breakfast at a pub and myself, Kelly, Julie, Alli, and Matt got some beers and breakfast. We figured we were in London, so why not drink some beers even though it was only 7 am! After our meal and beers, we went back downstairs to the terminal. We waited and waited and waited. We were all sleeping on the hard, cold, tile floor or falling asleep bent in half over our backpacks. Let me tell you, out of all the weird places I have slept, this was the most uncomfortable by far. Finally, it was time to get on the plane around 2:30 pm. So we got on the plane and I was able to sleep for around 2 hours. I woke up to food being served. They kept feeding us on the plane! I felt like a cow when we got off! But, I watched 2 movies and then it was time to get off since we had arrived in Ghana!!! As soon as we stepped off the plane, the humidity hit. My glasses became foggy, that’s how humid it was! I even tried taking pictures and the camera lens was foggy! When we emerged from the shuttle we took to the airport and went through the customs area and found our luggage. Thank goodness it was all there! We exchanged our american dollars for Ghanaian cedis (pronounced seedys), which the exchange rate is 1.45 cedis for 1 american dollar. We then went outside and were immediately greeted by Ernest, the coolest tour guide ever. Not only were we greeted by Ernest, but by 10 eager Ghanaians who wanted to “help” us for cash. I just pushed my way through and didn’t even care to stop. If you give to one, they will all see that, and you will be broke by the first week! The bus ride to where we are staying, The Ghana Institute of Management and Public Administration, was only a short 20-25 minute ride away. We arrived to air conditioning! Yay! The building is set up like a hotel, so there are 14 of us on the trip and there are two people to each room. My roommate’s name is Allison. She’s really nice and we get along great! People were so shocked when I said I didn’t know anybody going into the trip. It’s not hard to make friends if you put yourself out there! Everyone is great and we are all having a fun time together. Me and Allison share room 206. Our group has a reserved floor. Allison and myself settled in our room, unpacked, took showers (since we felt absolutely disgusting after traveling all of that time) and passed out. We woke up at 8:30, which all of us as a group agreed on because we would go to breakfast at 9, but when I walked to the bathroom, I noticed a paper on the floor next to the door. OH it was just a note saying that breakfast ended at 9am. Well, Allison woke up, and we booked it downstairs so we could eat. The food wasn’t as bad as I thought it was going to be. There was sausage with onions and peppers, eggs, watermelon, sour oranges, and cereal with HOT milk. I was definitely not a fan of the hot milk, so I had one egg with some fruit. Not the most filling breakfast. We then went back upstairs to get ready for our tour of GIMPA. Our guide, Edwin, has been helping us settle in and he will help us throughout our stay. Edwin took us all over campus, introduced us to people, showed us where our classes would be and pointed out these ginormous ant hills. Most of them are taller than me! He told us to stay away from them, especially the dead ones, because reptiles usually live in them. He also taught us that GIMPA was established in 1961 by the UN. Also, it is expanding and adding on a new law school. The institute is not state run, so it makes profit only internally. After the tour, we went back to our rooms, and Dr.Davis just told us about our time here and what classes would be like and so on. We have class tomorrow at 9:30 am. Each class (we are taking 2) will be 2 hours each. I think it’s a bit much. When I was in Vienna, we took 2 classes, but each class was only an hour each. Because honestly, who wants to sit inside all day and learn about stuff, when we could be outside experiencing Africa. We are kind of isolated in GIMPA. If we want to go anywhere, we can’t just leave. We need to arrange someone to pick us up, etc. We were talking and we kind of just wish we could leave and do whatever we want after class or at night. But, we will see what happens. Anyway, after our meeting, we went back to our rooms to get the internet turned on. After that huge ordeal, I took a nice 40 minute nap (I was still exhausted from traveling, still am) and then went down to the lobby around 3:15 to meet for our group’s tour of the University of Ghana and the city of Osu. The University is beautiful! It has terra cotta roofs and so much greenery. There were lots of people walking around, all waving at us, which was nice. After the tour of the University, we went to Osu. It is crazy there. There were chickens and goats running around. 25 people hanging off of the backs of trucks. Children begging. People selling things on the street. There were even women carrying bananas on their heads! I loved riding through the city and seeing the way people make a living and live their lives. We ate at a restaurant called Frankie’s, where Ernest recommended the Jollof with grilled chicken and salad. It was actually SO GOOD! The jollof, he said, is rice in a sort of stew that is spicy. It was delicious. It sort of tasted like Jumbalaya. We also had some beers. The beer they drink here is called Star. It tastes really good and we enjoyed it. It was a fun time and we got to talk to Ernest a lot. He said that he has a 16 year old son but isn’t married. He is single and like to party, he told us! He said that once you get married, your social life is never the same and that he wants to be single for a while longer before settling down. I don’t blame him! He also said he would take us to the nightclubs so we are definitely excited about that. After dinner, we drove to the mall in Accra to go to the Shoprite to pick up some items. I got some apples (which we have to peel the skin off of so it’s safe to eat), bananas. yogurt, wine, beer and lots of water. We use the bottled for everything, such as cleaning off the fruit, brushing our teeth and drinking. After the mall, we dropped off Ernest, and made our way back to GIMPA. Today was a great day but I am still so tired and can’t wait to go to sleep! :)
The GIANT anthills
Everyone passed out in London-Heathrow Airport
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