Sylvia's Journal

I have been busy this week adding things to and scratching others off my to do list before my next trip which will take me from Boston westwards to Korea and then Mongolia and then further west to Moscow, Paris, then south to the Democratic Republic of the Congo and then back home.

It took us several weeks to get the itinerary right and within budget limits. This was no small feat and the travel agent and I got very chummy. And then just when we got me routed back via Nairobi and Amsterdam because Air France doesn’t fly daily to and from Kinshasa, our security people put a stop on all Nairobi flights. And so I leave a day earlier than planned which hopefully no one minds.

The Mongolia trip is a repeat of the Philippines sequence of events although I am sure the context is quite different. For one, we will need to work with translators and secondly, I can’t even pronounce the currency. The good thing is that it is Asia which holds the promise of some wicked good and inexpensive massages and having my Filipino toe nails redone.

After Mongolia I have to take a deep breath and plunge into long stretches of flying and waiting: 7 hours to Moscow, 5 hours waiting, 4 hours flying, 8 hours waiting, 7 hours flying and then unknown hours in a car before I can crawl into a real bed, hopefully, in Kinshasa. After that I will request a medal.