Missing Luggage

December 28th 5:00 pm
I have been sleeping for the past four hours and the flight is almost over. I have decided that I now know exactly what it feels like when sardines are packed into a can. On the bright side the food here is much better, lots of yummy Belgian Ice cream. I think I will ask for more, Jacob over and out.

December 28th, 11:50 pm
I sit in the hotel room at Kiyovu, the Kigali hotel where we are staying the night. This is going to be the last post of the Adventures of Nikki and Jake as we have finally met up with our comrades Christian and Mike. We are exhausted but well fed, ready for what awaits us. Oh yeah, the flight. We land in Kigali and are whisked away to be checked for Ebola and Yellow Fever and get our travel visas. We then procede to gather our luggage, only to discover that our luggage is missing.Between us and a group from California, over 11 bags are missing. GREAT... Tomorrow comes the mystery thriller of The Missing Luggage.

The Continued Adventures of Nikki and Jake

December 27th Saturday 4:00 pm
Jake and I decided to meet for lunch at noon which meant we both had the mornings to ourselves. I was able to catch up on some much needed sleep and Jake did some exploring of the hotel and its magazines. We met up for lunch at noon and then hung out in the hotel lobby for a while until our taxi back to the airport arrived. Once at the airport we had about 4 hours until our flight actually left, so naturally we wondered for a while. We did find a Starbucks on our little explorations, and so we got our last frappacuinos for a while. We then went to what we thought was our gate. As it turns out, our gate had been switched. So we walked to the new gate. However, upon arrival at the new gate we found that the gate was booked for both Geneva and our flight to Amsterdam. We returned back to the customer service desk to find the same man that had helped us last night. He looked at us like we were silly when we said that our gate was double booked. He ended up looking up both flights and finding that the gates had indeed been double booked. Now that all of that has been resolved, we are currently sitting at the gate reading and writing blogs and hoping that the next couple legs of flying will be a little more peaceful and smooth sailing! We did have a fun stop in Newark though and got to see a little of the city.

December 27th, Saturday time unknown
Somewhere over the vastness of the atlantic ocean is a flying metal tube shooting through the air. And in this awesome feat of engineering Nikki once again orders milk...Such silly. We took off from the Newark Airport with little issues, only a 20 minute delay this time. Dinner has been served and after triple checking to ensure we were not accidentally given the gruel intended for the serfs in the Economy seats, (We were bumped to Economy Plus due to United missing our flight the first time) we gagged down the food. We can only hope that Christian and Mike have survived and made it to Kigali without us.

The adventures of Jake and Nikki

December 26th, Friday 1:00 p.m.
After multiple delays accumilating in two additional hours sitting on the runway at Denver International Airport, Nikki and I, the amazing Jacob, finally are in the air. We can only hope that we catch up on lost time, as we only had an hour delay in Newark, NJ for our next leg of the flight. I immediately read my only book, completely...This could be a looong trip. Nikki orders milk to the bemused stares of her fellow passangers, particularly the young boy in front of her thinking to himself, "how silly!" and then she passes out.

December 26th Friday 6:30 p.m.
We arrive at 6:30, the same time that the plane is scheduled to leave, and see on our phone app that they are delayed by 20 minutes. There is hope! We bolt out of the plane, determined to make it to our flight no matter what. I yell at Nikki to aim for the elderly as I shoulder my way through a group of children (Disclaimer: This might be slightly embellished) and we run through and over fellow travelers until we, completely out of breath, reach our gate. Success, or so we think as we see our plane waiting for us...The only problem isM that the gate is closed, doors locked. No matter how hard we plead we are not allowed on board. we are instead directed to the evil and dreaded United Customer Service.Dun.Dun.Dun.

This is now Nikki writing, so the story may be less exagerated (just as a heads up)! When we reached the customer service desk, a little winded but strong in spirits, we began what would be the first in a series of conversations with the man on duty. We began by telling him we had just missed our flight to Brussels and asking what we should do to remedy the situation. I told him that our plane was still sitting on the run-way and asked if there was any possible way to get onto the plane. He said it was not likely, but that I could go and check if I wanted to. I did go back and check with the people working the gate, but they said that because the walkway to the plane had already been detached, that it was no longer an option for us to get on the plane. Upon hearing this, I gave our mentor Mike a quick phone call. He picked up and I told him of our predicament, and he was very understanding and we agreed to meet in the Kigali hotel in 48 hours. By this time I was back with the customer service agent. He managed to rebook our flights for the following day, but an hour early and this time flying through Amsterdam. This meant that Jake and I had a full 23 hours until our next flight. The airlines did pay for a hotel room for each of us and gave us meal vouchers. We caught the train and taxi that took us to our hotel. We were both very hungry and ate a big dinner! After this, we sat down and played a couple rounds of cards and then each went to our respective room and retired.