To Do Before I’m 30: #1, 132
#1: Travel to 15 countries - 2/15
My trip to Ethiopia wasn’t planned. As it so happened, I was supposed to fly back to Delhi and the airline screwed up my ticketing and refused to let me board my plane. I was insulted, mistreated, and made to wait for hours while my flight took off. Without me.
I later received an apology, a free hotel stay, and a trip that should have lasted twelve hours ended up lasting four days. The only good thing that came out of it was that I managed to visit Ethiopia’s capital city, Addis Ababa, and actually spend some time there. Not enough to be able to discover the culture and people, but good enough to get a feel of the place. Of course, I loved that part.
So, I’m back in Delhi. But not for long.
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#132: Buy a MacBook
I’ve been saying I need a new computer for the past one year. It sputtered and it crawled, it made weird old guy noises, and every two weeks, something broke– I was, at one point, using an external keyboard, an external mouse, had no CD or DVD drive, and required a restart every one hour. It didn’t help that the guy I paid to fix it a few months ago installed a pirated version of Windows and MS Office, even though–and you’ll understand my frustration at this–I paid for and have the original Windows software! All of it.
Anyway. Two hours after I arrived in Delhi, SpongeBob (don’t ask how it got named that), sputtered for the final time and died. (I think it was waiting to come home for the last time.)
I now have an as-yet-unnamed shiny new MacBook (and really, about two months ago, I was not one of those people who named their computers. I blame a certain guy). If you don’t see any entries on the blog for a couple of days, it’s probably because I’m playing with my new toy. I love my toys.
April 21st, 2008 at 10:41 pm
Reminds me of a similar experience about 15 years ago. I had a one-night stop over in Nairobi on a trade union conference trip to Togo. When I reached the check-in counter after more than half an hour in a long queue I was told my ticket wasn’t confirmed. After long negotiations they admitted me. A sigh of relief When I received my boarding pass. (Actually they had oversold tickets). As I was visiting the duty-free shops the air rep came at my search. I was ordered out and my luggages returned. They put me in plane the next to Addis where I stayed another night and then flew to Togo only to join the conference on the second day when all the big ceremonies were over. Like you I had an unplanned visit to Ethipia.
Well, that’s Africa. I hate Nairobi for that.
April 21st, 2008 at 11:24 pm
Brutal!
Have you seen that movie– Blood Diamond? In that, Leo Di Caprio is this guy who lives in Africa and uses the acronym TIA - This is Africa - with a shrug of his shoulders to say everything that can go wrong, will. Because TIA. This is Africa.
So true! All the expats and tourists in Ghana (and even some locals!) would just shrug their shoulders and go TIA every time the power went out or there was no running water, or you know, general inefficiency. Fun stuff.
I can’t wait to go back.