Email Update--Brinnan's travelog

we are here... we are here!!!... WE ARE HERE!!!! and no I'm not talking about the who's in whooville

WARNING: extremley lengthy. sorry 'bout that.

Ladies and gentlemen, cats and dogs, red pens and mechanical pencils, I proudly proclaim that I (yes, indeed!) am finally in MADAGASCAR!!! woo-hoo!

We took the overnight flight to London-- and let me tell you First Class was great (my dad was able to upgrade 'cause he flies just so darn much)-- but I am terribly jetlagged. As I am typing this, it is 11:35 p.m... don't ask why I'm staying up so late, my dad's snoozing across the room... and currently back home it is 2:35 in the afternoon!!! Aaah!! I'm not supposed to be sleeping now, Dad, sheesh! (although as soon as its afternoon tomorrow I'll be struggling to stay awake). Yep, that's me, the girl who travelled to the future. Oh, yeah. And--just a heads up--so far, being nine hours ahead of (most of) you, the sun has not gone nova yet. Thought you might like to know. :D

Anyhow, we arrived in London at about 11:20 a.m. and immediately went on one of those double decker bus tours. It was pretty great. As you can see, I also got a would-be-awesome-if-it-wasn't-on-my-head British flag style hat (I was completely humiliated and took it off when the guy selling metro tickets pointed at my hat and said "Is it King George Day?" hehheh, yeah that was embarrassing). We saw Big Ben (which was completely awesome and indeed very big as a matter of fact) and London Tower and Tower Bridge/London Bridge (I'm not sure what they call it) and had a ton of fun. So yes, ladies and gentlemen and all the other folks I mentioned previously, that was our whirlwind tour of London.

At 6:00 pm that day, (wait a second... was that yesterday? boy time does fly when you're on a plane for 2 1/2 days... blech) we took a plane from London to Johannesberg. Not nearly as pleasant as the First Class ride I had to London... *pause while Brinnan stare dreamily into the distance*... but it had a t.v. screen built into the back of the seat in front of you, and a ginormous movie library, which was, I have to admit, pretty cool. So we slept yet another night on a plane (not the most fun thing to do) and arrived in Johannesberg, South Africa 8:15 in the morning (today).

I know, I know, most people would be like "Wow! Africa! And we have six hours until our plane ride to Madagascar! Let's go sight seeing!" Let me correct myself. Only super-hyper-caffeine-loaded-robots would say that. Most people who were as jetlagged as we were would book a day room in the nearest hotel for the next six hours, and then collapse on their beds and sleep until their plane. Which is what we did... that is, we tried, but we ended up with the room that was surrounded with loud construction... oops. Luckily, I was tired enough to pass out on my bed for the next 4 hours (way to go, deep-sleeping me!) while my dad was the one who couldn't sleep; therefore, it is he who is currently snoring in bed while I am typing this super long email.

Then we took the 2 hour 50 minute flight to Madagascar... basically three hours! Can you believe it? Who ever thought flights could be that short!?!?! My dad and I played Risk II on his laptop... I would have won, of course (I had Africa, Asia, Europe and Australia) but we had to close the game down to land (dang it!).

So we were in Madagascar, at around 7:20 pm. And I don't have a clue what anyone's saying when they talk to my dad (who speaks fluent French), except whenever I heard him say Utah and Las Vegas. This was because I had heard that conversation (though in English, not French) several times in Johannesberg.

"So, where are you from?" thickly accented local South African would ask.
"Utah, in the United States." Either me or my dad would reply.
This was followed by a blank expression of confusion on our fellow conversationer's part.
"I don't know Utah." they would then say.
"Do you know California?" My dad would ask.
"Oh, yeeessss, California!" they would reply proudly.
"Well Utah's near California. Do you know Las Vegas?" my dad would ask.
"Las Vegas! Yes! The... the city that never sleeps, correct?" they replied excitedly.
"Yeah, we live near Las Vegas."
"You live near Las Vegas?" they said, pronouncing it 'Las Veegahss", looking slightly jealous. "how far away from Las Vegas?"
"Uh... about 5 hours." my dad would reply. this was almost always followed by a disappointed "Oh... that's not very close then."

Next day-- I just had a dinner at a restaurant with four of my dad's super-cool-and-nice coworkers. I had a dinner of chicken in 'Vanilla Supreme Sauce", while my dad had roast zebu (my dad thinks it tastes good, but i think it tastes like beef mixed with slightly rotting fruit) and french fries. ha ha. french fries... the French certainly did have a big influence on the Malagasis. Ha ha. My lame little joke there. :D

To continue the flight story: we took the flight to Antananarivo (nothing much happened) and then got a ride to our hotel (Hotel Colbert, for those of you that must know). And then we had dinner and came back to our hotel room and I started writing this ridiculously long email. My dad eventually convinced me to go to sleep, but I refused to send this email until it was complete, but I found that delaying the finishing of it has only made it longer since I now have more to type. Sorry.

Today we got up and went to one of my dad's work meetings, which lasted till noon. It would have been dreadfully boring if I hadn't have had a book, so I wasted the morning away reading in a corner. Then we went and had lunch at a Chinese restaurant... ironically one of the two co-workers that we tagged along with lives in China (he's American, but he moved to China for the work. He isn't Chinese. Just wanted to straighten that up.) Ha ha. However, he doesn't speak French, so after he ordered "Ravioli" from a French menu and asked my dad if that was, well, ravioli, my dad handed me the french to English dictionary and had me look it up. So, of course, when I found "ravioli" and saw that it meant "ravioli" (well duh) I couldn't resist.

With a straight face I proceded to announce to my dad's co-worker that, in French, ravioli means 'panfried duck brains'. Of course he fell for it. Oh, man, that was great. Wasn't even that far fetched, cause the other night I'd been choosing a meal on a menu that displayed things from snails and frog legs to fried lamb brains. Blech. So the coworker (his name's Mike by the way), after a look of panic, asked "You're joking, right?" and I burst out laughing and said that, yes, it means ravioli. Of course he grabbed the dictionary and checked, just to make sure. Yes, I have an evil mind.
*Demon child!... Demon child!*

Back to the point. After lunch, we trekked home. Literally trekked. Antananarivo is up in the mountains, so there are these super steep stone staircases everywhere, climbing up the slopes that line the roads. You are either going upwards or downwards everywhere in Tana (what the locals call 'Tanarivo). Once back at the hotel we collapsed on our beds and read/slept for a bit. Then we went to the market place. It was so cool. There would be a set of wide, steep stairs that would take you to a leveled out stone paved area with tons and tons of people selling things, begging, etc. So the stairs kept going until you reached the road. Now the road was crazy. Lots and lots of people shoved their way past you to cross the street, and you had to sort of squeeze past the driving cars that had come to a stop due to all of the people. Then the stairs went upward and upward and upward, still with little breaks of levelled off area where tons of people were selling things. Man, it smelled nasty, a mixture of way too many people, fish, animal manure, car exhaust, and raw meat (they had stands with huge chunks of meat hanging by strings, along with bald dead chicken corpses and stuff, enough of a stench to make you want to barf as you hurried by as quickly as possible trying to hold your breath).
And then it started sprinkling rain, and there was a beautiful rainbow.

My dad wanted to climb up to this cool looking church way up on the hill for a few pictures of the sunset, so he asked directions from someone and he led us up to where the church was, through all these tiny alleyways and staircases.

Along the way, I realized I was famous.

Seriously, I should have had a red carpet or something. While walking the streets before, I had noticed children/kids/preteens gesturing my way, or glancing at me, then whispering a word to the rest of their companions and they'd all turn and stare. Quite embarrassing. But when I was walking to the church, a group of Malagasi boys passed. The oldest (I presumed) winked at me and proclaimed "Mmmf, you blahn!" and the rest of his 'gang' burst out laughing. Of course I blushed furiously and hurried to catch up with my dad and our make-shift guide to the church. If you could understand his thick accent (I could, which was why I realized the source of my alleged fame), I was getting all of the attention because I'm a blonde, and have blue eyes. Quite uncommon on the streets of Tana, let me tell you. Later, when passing through one of those tiny alleyways I mentioned before, when a group of younger girls was passing me, one of them reached out and grabbed my hand (startling me) and shook it enthusiastically. So of course the rest of the girls all wanted to shake my hand/get a high five. It was pretty cool. So let me tell you, if you feel like you're invisible and life sucks, just come to Madagascar. If you're American you'll get pretty good awed glances in your directions. However, you'll score major bonus points if you're a blonde with blue eyes... like me :D -- not to brag. Sorry if I'm offending you brunettes and redheads and raven-haired folk out there. At least you don't have to put up with the blonde jokes :)

The cutest part was when my dad was taking pictures and I was waiting for him to finish, this little girl with her grandmother walked past us. In a singsongy voice she timidly greeted us, "Bonjour, monsieur. Bonjour, madame." She smiled shyly up at me. She was so dang cute!

Okay. That's enough for now. I'll try to send you our (hopefully much shorter) list of things-we-did tomorrow.

Brinnan
p.s. if possible please try to convince my family to let me live in Madagascar.