Leaving Nigeria

As I've come to expect, the flight from Abuja to Lagos was delayed (90 minutes) and included the bizarre rituals of security and so on. We met a new friend while collecting baggage in Lago (in a tiny room just off the tarmac, probably used originally to house cattle). Anil is an Indian (now a US citizen) working in California in IT. Happily, his company provided a driver and he invited us to join him for the trip between Lagos airports. This relieved my fears of finding a registered cabbie who wouldn't take us to some back alley and strip us of our belongings and passports. Note that the other airport is a turtle-crawl distance away and the two airports use the same runways, but it is a 10-15 minute drive away; no shuttle service provided. This situaiton could make one cynical if one were weary from travel.

Flew from Lagos to Amsterdam, which takes nearly a million years (quiet seatmate though and relatively few crying babies). I love the seat-back video screens - such a brilliant way to keep the passengers passive and undemanding. Watched Avatar (not as good as I expected) and a couple of tv shows (30 rock, and a quebec-candid-camera rip-off that was relatively funny. Had dinner. And breakfast. And a sunrise and now it's 5:30am (Nigeria time) or 6:30am amsterdam time or 11:30pm Iowa time, but I'm not sure which day it is. Travel just wipes out my sense of time cues.