Hello! Greetings from Kigali, Rwanda!!

It was a long day, to say the least. I've accomplished so many "firsts" in my life today. I watched the sun rise about 6 hours early as we flew into Brussels:


And here's my first glance of Brussels:


This may sound really dumb to all of you who have traveled internationally but there is something really cool about watching the little map on the airplane and realizing that you're actually flying over all of these places you've heard of before - London, Paris, Frankfurt, Naples, Cairo...it's unreal. There's so much to see.

In Brussels we hooked up with Simon, who showed everyone up with his iPhone:


It was really good to see him. I had a great time on our shoot in DC two summers ago and it was really easy to be in his presence again. I'm really looking forward to learning a lot more from him this week.

And here's Marc's token airplane picture:


Our layover between Brussels and Rwanda turned out to be really short with all of the lines we had to stand in. Unfortunately, I was in the very center of the plane on our flight to Africa :( No pictures out of the window. I'm a little disappointed about missing the desert. However, I did watch Wall-E twice and Fever Pitch. And, as promised, a sample of Stephenie Meyer's "The Host":

"It was a miracle - more than a miracle - when I found you, Melanie.
Right now, if I was given the choice between having the world back and
having you, I wouldn't be able to give you up. Not to save five billion lives."

"That's wrong."

"Very wrong but very true."

Moving, isn't it? It is turning out to be a pretty cheesy love story. I've heard it gets awesome though. We shall see. I'm not a believer yet.

After an 8 hour flight from Brussels, the plane landed in Kigali. By that time, it was already dark again. I walked off the tarmac and into the Kigali airport:


The weather was beautiful, hovering at right around 70 degrees. You can just make out the tree on the right side of the picture. I had immediate visions of the Animal Kingdom at Disney World. It set the scene perfectly.

After waiting for quite a while for our bags, we piled into our Land Rover, guided by our wonderful driver Egide, and raced through the streets of Kigali to our hotel. It looked and felt just like we were in Southern California. The land is very hilly and I would have sworn it was summer. Everything was perfect. Hopefully I'll have sunny pictures tomorrow.

The time is now 1:20 AM. I have not slept much more than 4 hours since my last post, and I think it's paying off. I have no worries about what I'll be doing for the next 6 hours. Good night to you all. I love you very much.

P.S. Michael thinks I have a mosquito bite.