New Flower

Arrived here in Addis Ababba on Tuesday evening. Addis Ababba means "new flower". This city is much more modernized than Kampala however internet is government owned so much less access than Kampala. The time here has been taken up much by the Rotary Conference however we have gotten to a few museums and some Rotary Projects. We're staying in a guest house here (a fancy hostel) and we are also staying with the GSE team from Sweden that spent their first 3 weeks in Tanzania. They are great fun and its fun for me to have Swedes around after my 5 months there in college. The city is great and I really wish we had more time to learn and travel Ethiopia. The history of being one of the only countries not colonized is pretty fascinating as well as all of the civilization history. Also the roads are almost all paved which is a huge improvement over Kampala and there are less goats, cattle and trash fires on the streets. This is making for much cleaner clothing. Overall this exp will be great but much different from the first three weeks. I really feel fortunate that we got to see some of the "real Africa" from our time in Uganda. While it came with some struggles and dangers (glass in my food!) it was truly a rich cultural experience. We are off to a brewery tour today!! and then to an Ethiopian culture night tonight for the conference. More on Addis to come...