Friday April 29th, 2011
Royal Wedding Day! I stayed behind in bed this morning to sleep off a major headache and watch some royal coverage. The excitement is contagious that’s for sure! I spent some time editing and catching up on the Kate/Wills gossip and my parents brought me home a chocolate croissant. After some advil, I’m starting to feel a little better although my tummy doesn’t feel great.
We took a taxi (50 birr = $3) to the center of Addis Ababa to confirm our plane tickets to Tanzania for Sunday. This was my first true taste of poverty in Ethiopia and although my parents had warned me, I was still taken aback. There are quite a few beggars, a lot of them with sickness or deformities. Even the small babies on the backs of their mothers hold out their hands for money. Men soliciting tourist maps and taxis approach you quite often. The worst part was while we were walking down a main road, the smell of human waste hits you. I looked over and behind this line of bushes, it was used as a restroom. Right there on the ground. Disgusting. There was another part of the walk where it happened again and it was so bad I actually gagged. I had to hold my sweater over my face to walk through.
We stopped at some souvenir shops to pick up some stuff for my friends and family back home. It’s amazing how cheap everything was! I wanted this giraffe statue and it was only 50 birr ($3)! I didn’t buy it since we are still going to Tanzania next week and I wanted to see what they had there.
check out the scaffolding...its wood!
We wandered quite a ways (at 7,000 ft above sea level, it was a hike!) until we found the Itege Taitu Hotel, which is where my parents lived when they first were in Ethiopia. We even found their old balcony where you could see a view of the city. Downstairs we walked in the lobby/restaurant just as Kate was walking out of her car to walk down the aisle. We joined a group of British tourists to watch the ceremony and had a beer (Castel). It was funny because they were all in to it, singing along to the English hymns and all. We left mid way through the ceremony since we had plans back at the hotel at 2pm.
The balcony behind them is where they lived!
Check out what’s on the TV behind me!
We found a taxi outside of the hotel and he was very nice. His name was Mundai (which means Monday) and spoke good English. He kept calling me sister and asking why I don’t speak Amharic. Shortly after, we met up with my parent’s friend Amsale at our hotel. She is the daughter of my mother’s former housekeeper (Mamite) when she lived in Alemaya and then Addis. I had never met her but she says she has a photo of me when I was a toddler. She was a teenager when my mom was here last back in 1978. We went to lunch at the Green View again, but this time ate tibs and injera.
Back to the hotel to rest and check email/Facebook.
Shibabaw wanted to meet for coffee around 5pm so we waited for him to come to the hotel. We walked about 10 blocks to Kaldi’s Coffee, competition for Starbucks! Their logo is even the same green color. It was packed! We snagged a table for four and ordered ice cream and hot chocolate. The hot chocolate was unsweetened so I had to add a ton of Ethiopian sugar. We sat there for awhile and then Shibabaw called a buddy who knew about places with wifi. One of the places was near a movie theatre just across the street where we were. We walked over there looking for a signal. I found one but it was too weak to load anything on my iPhone. We found out a few cafes in town that have it so we may try that tomorrow so I can add photos to my blogs! So much more interesting with photos!
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