Off the grid already! kind of..

On the bus ride from Philly to JFK, I got so excited about going to Africa that I wanted to get a jump start on falling off the grid, so I dropped my phone in the bus toilet and watched as the toilet magically immediately flushed it straight down. If you really want to know how it happened, my phone was in my shirt pocket, I was leaning over the toilet, the bus hit a bump, and it slipped right out and straight down the little hole. AWESOME. That's a little bit of a bummer to me as I'm sitting here writing this post in the airport, because there were a lot of people I had hoped to call before departing, and now I will only be able to reach a handful of them using the pay phone. I was also looking forward to all the good luck texts I was sure to get from all the people who regularly comment on my blog posts... ;)

Another little bummer of the day was arriving at the airport. We got to JFK at 11:30, about 6 hours early for our 5:30 flight. Apparently, you can't check in for an international flight more than 2.5 hours beforehand, so we're waiting by the check in counter, chilling on the floor. Oh well.

On a brighter note, last night was a great send off night with Noah, Ryan, and Laura coming to Philly. After a good dinner and lots of drinks, we were treated to a bit of entertainment when a drunk cyclist ran a red light and got nailed by a taxi. He'll be ok, but his head was bleeding rather nicely. I guess that's what you've got coming to you when you make the decision to a) ride a bike in downtown Philly b) late at night c) drunk d) without a helmet. The only person I felt bad for was the cab driver. I suppose it was lucky for him that he had us as witnesses, and a cop came right away and took our statement. Hopefully everything is okay.

Moving on -- I'll be getting a cell phone in Conakry, hopefully in the next few days. Seeing as I no longer have any numbers, please e-mail me yours if you'd like a call/text. Since it can cost up to a few dollars a minute to call from Guinea to US, but a text is only 25 cents or so and a call from the US is only 19.2 cents a minute, it's best to call me instead of me calling you. I can send texts to people and then they can give me a call and it's free for me - booya! I set my mom up with a calling plan through www.tel3advantage.com, which seems to have good rates. If you have any interest in talking to your long lost friend in Africa, you should check it out :) (If you want my number, send me an e-mail with yours, that way I don't have to post it in the wide open internet).