Picture Me Walkin'

(The Zambia-Zimbabwe bridge over the Lower Zambezi river) (Tower of mist from Victoria Falls, "The Smoke that Thunders") Saturday was definitely a day like no other. I had been complaining about things being too slow and uneventful for the last week or so, but when it rains it pours. Highlights of my day include: 1: Spending the day hiking and chilling around at Victoria falls, which does justice to the title of one of the 7 Wonders of the World* 2: A standoff with a troop of baboons whereby an unwitting AZN tourist nearly had her purse snatched. 3: A sunset booze cruise on the Mighty Zambezi where we saw hippos and crocodiles, in between drinking our faces off of course. 4: Getting a phone call from my family- post booze cruise, and wishing my Dad a happy Father's Day (It was his birthday, so an honest though not particularly impressive mistake) 5-6: More or less unknown 7: Waking up in a hammock at the wrong gueshouse, conversations with an unknown +44 phone number (...

I was talking with Former Field Director Filips the other day and an interesting story came up that I had forgot about from Paris: I was on my last day in town, my travel companion / older brother has already flown out. It's my first full day alone in 8 months, and my first time doing anything without Pat right by my side. I hadn't really been in a real city for more than a few weeks in months. And of course I speak maybe four words of French- if you count menu items. Needless to say I was a little out of my element. I was staying in a backpackers hostel in Paris, hanging around and generally impressing people with my Africa stories. At some point this weird, sketchy long greasy hair skeetchball Euro finds his way into the conversation. He says some generally unintelligible things, and one by one people make their excuses and go to bed. Fast forward to the next day and I'm out and about in a botanical garden zen-ing out and absorbing my last dose of order beating out chaos....