am to spend 8 or 9 hours wandering before catching an evening flight
to Rome where I will be for a few days. But in his welcome speech, the
pilot says, "Welcome to Amsterdam. It's minus 2 degrees and...."
Minus 2?! I haven't been in less than 20 degrees in more than 8
months. What was I thinking?
I couldn't do it. As soon as I got off the plane I immediately went to
the airline counter and asked when the next flight to Rome was. Two
hours. I paid the change fee and took it. At least Rome was a BIT
warmer at 7 degrees. YIKES!
But 7 was definitely colder than I could handle. I went walking
wearing almost everything I brought with me and still found myself
hopping into galleries, cafes or whatever looked warm every hour so I
could stop shivering.
Ya, Canadian, right?
It was also funny in the airport waiting for the flight to Italy. I
had brought some peanuts with me in my bag from Uganda (called g-nuts
in Uganda, because peanuts grow in the ground). I pulled them out and
started eating them, making quite the mess actually (partially because
they had burst in my bag and fell all over). These two guys from Ghana
looked over and saw me. They laughed, came over and asked, "You've
been in Africa, haven't you? No one here eats g-nuts, and definitely
not like that..."
We all laughed, and then spent the next two hours sharing my g-nuts
and pointing out the differences between African countries and the
west. We laughed, for example, that the airport itself was bigger,
newer, more modern than most African capital cities. How there were
over 100 gates here and in Entebbe, for example, there were two, and
seldom both are full.
Culture shock with new friends. Much more fun.
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