I spent the Easter holiday in Lagos-- the Nigerians celebrate the holiday with two official days off, so I had a four day weekend! Too bad we don't do that in the States. :T However, I probably spent half a day commuting to and from AND waiting at both the Abuja and Lagos airports... true testament to how inefficient things are run domestically. I arrived on Friday to the Abuja airport, right before 12 noon, and was greeted at the domestic terminal with a mondo crowd of people--there were NO lines, just a massive chaotic group of passengers clamoring to get their boarding passes. Good thing I'm small... all I had to do was squeeze my way to the front, and it took about 10 minutes to get it in hand. Course, I started out standing in the wrong "line"... was waiting in the business class line for about 10 minutes before I figured it out. O_o Since my flight to Lagos wasn't until 2:30, I decided to sit outside on the curb and eat my sandwich that I packed, and people watch. I think people were a bit confused as to why I was sitting outside... or maybe they just can't stop staring at non-Nigerian peoples... who knows. Well, turns out, after going through the security check, that my flight was delayed for what turned out to be almost 3 hours. The thing about the domestic airports here in Nigeria is that they don't have the technology savvy enough to list which flights are on-time, delayed, blahblah... so they broadcast it over a PA system. It's not a very good PA system, mind you, and with the thick Nigerian accent, I could barely understand the lady doing it. So like I always do, I befriended the guy sitting next to me and asked him to listen for me... good thing he was on my flight too. While I was sitting there waiting, a little albino toddler came up to me and started staring point blank at me... his mom was sitting across the aisle from me and told him to stop bothering me, haha... to "come back to your black momma", as she said... apparently I guess he thought I was more like him than his own mother. Super cute kid, just... albino. And they're pretty stigmatized in Africa, although it may be better in Abuja than in the rural areas (you read reports on the news about how albino kids are kidnapped and killed in weirdo rituals or something :T).
We finally made it on the plane 3 hours later and I arrived in Lagos, got picked up by the son of a family friend... how to explain this... my mom's sister's best friend growing up, her brother was best friends with this guy that has now, lived in Nigeria for about 37 years. Well, when my aunt heard that I was going to live in Nigeria for the next year, she called up her bestie and tried to track this guy down, thinking he was in Abuja. Turns out, he was in Lagos, and has been all this time, so I decided to finally take a trip out there and visit him, say hi, maybe have him show me around. Apparently his son lives in Lagos too, prepping to take over the family business, so he came to pick me up at the airport. Phew. He instructed his driver to take the "scenic route" in Lagos--it's not exactly a tourist destination, so by scenic, I mean, the hustle bustle craziness of the crowded local streets. The family actually lives on Victoria Island, one of the poshest neighborhoods in all of Nigeria, so I got some pretty good host treatment, haha. The first thing that the family friend said when he met me was, "There's not much to do here in Lagos, so we're just going to take you to eat good food". Fine by me! :D For dinner on Friday, since I was so exhausted from traveling (yes, it was short, but waiting for a delayed flight always makes me so nervous and stressed out), we just ate at home. His Ghanian cook made the most AWESOME Chinese food, it was unbelievable. Fell asleep after watching a bit of the US Masters Tournament on TV...
Saturday morning we had Chinese porridge and Taiwanese breakfast dishes to go with it, before heading out to the city to drive around and show me the rest of Lagos. You don't really experience the crazy traffic jams during the holiday weekend, which I guess, is just as well. We ended up going grocery shopping (so they could show me the "mall" in Lagos), then proceeded to go to this Italian restaurant "Pizza Riah" for lunch. ZOMG, the woodfired pizza was so good. Also had pasta bolognese, and beef+chicken suya, and grilled lamb chops... I was so stuffed afterwards I just sort of sat there in a food-induced coma. The dad decided to take me to see the golf course/country club in Lagos and play a round of golf to walk off all that food, so we could continue to stuff ourselves for dinner. It was humid in the afternoon, but not too hot... still got a tank-top tan though (gotta figure out how to fix that when I go home). I ended up just walking the course with them, which was fine... probably walked 5 miles, which is, pretty good, considering the environment that I'm in. Dinner was crazy good Chinese food at this 2 story restaurant called "Pearl Garden". We had these enormous butterfly prawns, ma po tofu, crab and vermicelli claypot, eggplant claypot, spare ribs, Chinese cold cuts (they make their own tofu in house!!)... so full. Went back to their house and just passed out from all the eating. (Makings of a fattie!)
