She's A Her Birthday Too! January 31st, 2008

The night before my departure--actually the day before--was filled with chores and checklists. Once I was packed I figured I could spend the rest of the evening on the last-minute details. Bt that day was also Cindy's birthday, and though we had earlier agreed we would celebrate when I returned, I had no idea that perhaps she would want to go dinner--a simple acknowledgment of her day, just before I left. That, however was not the first thing on my mind--though admittedly, it should have been. By the way, that new Panda Bear Express restaurant is pretty good!

A 2 1/2 hour drive to SeaTac Airport, check in and then a brief visit with Cindy was the order of the day. The Northwest Airlines flight to Amsterdam took all of it scheduled 9 1/2 hours, but it was quite relaxed and pleasant. Nothing to do really, for the next several hours but relax, eat, snooze and watch a few movies.

We arrived in Amsterdam at 7:15 am local time. My traveling partners, Barbie and Mariah Morrison and I spent some of the time in the layover repacking our carryon and then waited for the team from Princeton, Illinois to arrive. We would be departing together on our next KLM flight to Entebbe, Uganda.

After a few hours we met our fellow team members at our new gate of depature. We exchanged hello's and names. there were 8 team members added to our 3. Many of the Princeton team members had previously traveled to Uganda. Only 3 members were--as I was--new to this experience. We had a lot to see and to learn.