The flight to Amsterdam

Finally, the day of departure has arrived. My wife and daughter took me to the airport to send me off on my grand adventure. All of the details of the trip and travel have been meticulously been taken care of. No stone was left unturned, there could be no hitches of any kind, right? As I was checking in at the gate, the airline person informed me that my visa for Tanzania had already expired. That hit me like a brick wall. I had done everything by the book and the visa was good for 6 months, March to September. After about 15 minutes and pulling in several other airline supervisors to check this out, it was finally discovered that the dates on the visa are done in British or European fashion. So, the expiration date of 2-9-07 did not represent February 2 but the second day of September, 2007. That was a huge relief. You would have thought that the airline people would have known the difference. Well anyway, the check in was completed and I was off. After saying goodbye to my wife and daughter, my plane managed to leave right on time.

I had to make a connecting flight from Minneapolis Minnesota. Everything went well there again. Another on time departure. The plane was not full. There was lady sitting in the seat section with me as we took off. She had very grey hair and was well tanned. She looked like an outdoors type and was even dressed in safari typed clothes. Her name was Seda and she was originally from Turkey. As we began to talk, it turns out that she is an adventure tour guide on her way to Kilimanjaro to meet a group of people for a tour of Tanzania, Zanzibar and to climb Kilimanjaro. She and her husband run a river rafting operation out of Boise Idaho in the summers. She takes groups all over the world to places like South America, Nepal and Tibet. I have put her web site as a link on the blog. We talked a lot about traveling to different parts of the world and some of the things she has seen. It also made the nearly 4 hour layover at Shiphol airport in Amsterdam a little more enjoyable having someone to talk to and walk around with. I came away with the idea that a guided trip with Seda would be a well organized and managed trip. I have included her web site for anyone looking for a good international adventure tour guide. I have no doubts, her trips are anything short of fantastic.