Ready

As silly as it sounds, this is the only photo that I took on what was quite possibly the most nerve-wrecking day I've ever experienced.

There were a lot of 'firsts' for me today
- The first time driving to Birmingham
- The first time driving to London
- The first time at an airport
- The first time on an aeroplane
- The first time setting off on an adventure with people I didn't even know.

I cried when I left home.

I drove to Birmingham to pick a girl from the group up, so that we'd arrive at the airport together. I ended up taking the wrong exit off the A38 and ended up going below spaghetti junction (which terrified me) instead of over it. I did have my navigation system on my phone up, so I followed its 're-routing' instructions. Anyway I made it to Elly's house, and we set off towards London from there.

I had decided to leave my car at my aunties house while I was away (which she kindly agreed to) and I'd drive back home after the trip. We arrived at her house, and then she took us to Heathrow terminal 4 (about half an hour away).

Me and Elly were the last to arrive at the airport, but the group were waiting for us and we proceeded to check-in straight away. Elly hadn't flown before either which put me at a bit of ease - at least I wasn't the only one.

Airports are confusing. If I hadn't been following others, I would've been at a complete loss as to what to do. While waiting to board, I became increasingly fidgety and nervous and didn't really feel like I could talk to anyone. Groups were already forming and I wasn't part of any of them.

On the plane itself, we all decided to swap seats to sit by people we wanted to - me and Elly sat together and everyone reassured us that everything would be fine. We were both scared at take off, but once we were in the air we were absolutely fine. In fact we became pretty bored quite quickly. It was a 9 hour night flight, so people tried to sleep but I just couldn't.

We were provided with food - or at least we were meant to be. When I asked for the veggie option and they said they had none I kicked up a bit of a fuss - it turns out the charity hadn't informed the airline that I required vegetarian food (which I'd put on the pre-departure form). The attendant went off to see if there was anything he could give me, and came back later with a questionable curry.

The first bit of turbulence experienced just had to happen when I was in the toilet didn't it? Nothing major though, I didn't feel scared. We arrived in Nairobi at approx 6.30am the next day.