The Flip Side of the Coin

Festive Greetings from Addis Ababa in Ethiopia! As you may have noticed the website has been rather quiet recently – this is due to the fact that the main internet connection for Ethiopia was severed last week and the whole country has been almost completely offline for the last five or six days. So please check the previous posts as we have put up quite a few all at the same time, explaining what we have been up to during this silent period!

This is turning out to be an even stranger Christmas than last year. We are in a country that is even less Christmassy than Uganda, as for Ethiopians it’s the middle of April! This has meant that we are struggling to get in the spirit and we are already looking forward to next Christmas, for all its build-up and over-the-topness and most importantly being with family and friends.

We have already given ourselves an early Christmas present by staying in a nicer hotel than normal before we fly out to Delhi on the 27th December. We’ve upgraded from a $6 room to a $56 room and for that we have luxuries of running water, flushing loo, electricity, satellite TV, a bed that isn’t U-shaped and even a hot shower. These things are so much better when you have been without them for a while!

On Christmas Day itself we are meeting two friends from Uganda who are also holidaying in Ethiopia. This is a day to spend with friends and we look forward to chilling with Mark and Eileen at the Sheraton Addis tomorrow. Then once we have done the sitting-by-the-pool-thinking-of-friends-and-family-at-home thing we are off to India for the final (yet big) part of the adventure…

We wish you all a very Merry Christmas and Happy New Year, and thank you for all your comments and feedback on our posts. We promise to start uploading photos to go with our posts once we reach India – it just hasn’t been possible here as Internet speeds in Ethiopia make Uganda look like silicone Valley!

Love to all,

D & G