17th February - Phoebe L

Leaving home :( soooo we’ve been here for 34 days and it has very sadly come to an end! we had the worst goodbye I think i’ve ever had, saying goodbye to pope and the 4 people staying and of course the amazing leaders! it was such a hard thing leaving i honestly dont think i’ve ever cried so much :( sat in the front of the van whaling, and etty had to come and sit at the front with me as i was so upset. we were playing our kenya playlist the whole way to airport and of course the trip song emiliana had us in floods of tears. 

we finally arrived at the airport with an hour and a half till our flight, we were all panicking as we walk into mombasa airport and see the queue which looks like it goes on for miles. we patiently wait and finally 40 mins later we get through security and check all our bags in. we get on the 2hr flight to ethiopia, and luckily etty had a free seat next to her so we got to sit next to each other and we watch the new harry styles movie “don’t worry darling” which sadly we didnt get to finish, but we stayed on the plane until everyone for off to try and finish it but we got kicked off as it was empty and they were worried we were going to miss our connecting flight, little did they know we had a 5hr wait at ethiopia! 

when we got to ethiopia we all went and sat in pizza hut and some of us had pizzas, me and lara shared a margarita which was yum but we didn’t finish it, we then moved to the silver lounge which was v boujee but we climbed through the side and got in (think your meant to pay for it) so we got sofas and all tried to sleep but then we got kicked out as it was closing, so we moved to the carpet where we met the 4 others who were fast asleep on the floor among 20 other people. it was carnage but we all fell asleep and made our flight on time. 

me and etty got to sit next to eachother AGAIN as a v kind man swapped seats with me! we watched high school musical but i fell asleep half way through, and then i was asleep for the whole 8hrs!! which is so so rare as normally i can NEVER sleep on planes but the flight went super quickly and i dont have many stories from it as i was asleep, but i do feel for for etty because when she needed the loo she had to literally climb over me. we landed in heathrow and into the cold gross weather which we had all been dreading….

we then had to queue for an hour as we had to go through passport control and our poor parents had been waiting for ages for us, we then all went through to baggage reclaim and all secured our bags :) we all walked through the doors holding hands to be greeted by our parents. it was so so nice to see my mum and my sister waiting for me, when i hugged my mum she burst into tears i was over the moon to see her. we then all had to say goodbye to each other but it wasn’t too hard and we are all seeing each other again in 2 days in london :) 

the best trip ever, it was a once in a lifetime experience and i will never ever forget how much of a special time i had with the most amazing group of people. 

OVER AND OUT