9/16 Finally, after much anticipation, countless days of preparation and spending over 40 hours on planes and in airports, I have arrived on Bioko Island. Although I just got here, the only thing on my mind is sleep. Having taken 3 connecting flights, I didn’t exactly get much quality sleep while sitting in a small airplane seat or waiting for my connecting flights in airport lobby areas. Although I planned on getting some rest at Heathrow airport during my overnight stay, I was too afraid of oversleeping and missing my flight that I simply stayed up for 9 hours reading and watching movies on my laptop. Once at the airport terminal on Bioko, our study abroad group had to go through customs and have our baggage thoroughly checked. A customs officer went through everything in our checked-in luggage and found a few things that he didn’t approve of: a pair of binoculars, a computer and some other electrical equipment. We tried to explain to him that it’s scientific equipment that we will be using for research purposes but he didn’t seem to care too much about that. He did not give a reason as to why he had an issue with those items, he just simply did. One of the members of the BBPP began arguing with him and after a long heated debate, she gave him some money and we were free to go. “That’s how you have to take care of things here sometimes”, said my resident director. The Equato Guineans often give travelers a hard time so that they could get a bribe at the end. As we began driving to our soon to be home in Malabo, I noticed that the city is actually very modern. The roads were high quality with no noticeable defects, signs were situated at every place where necessary and there were many fancy businesses, such as restaurants and hotels that outclass a fair amount of the ones that I see back in the United States. I guess the oil companies have been treating the island quite well, as well as its government, considering the president’s spouse has her own mansion that is roughly the size of my middle school! Our little home is in better shape than I anticipated: there is running water, a washer and a dryer, electricity and even internet (although for some reason my laptop isn’t compatible with the modem). I attached a picture of the living room so people can get an idea of what the house looks like. The next day our group went to U.N.G.E., the university where we will be taking some of our classes. The school is quite large; I asked one of my classmates how big the student body is and he said there are more than 300 kids in the university. We checked out the school cafeteria and I must say I liked it a lot. It looked more like an actual kitchen that you would find in an average house rather than the restaurant-like cafeterias that are dominant in the U.S. The food looked quite appetizing and it was cheap as well, roughly 5 U.S dollars for a dinner/lunch for two. Tomorrow we’re going on a tour of Malabo (the capital city that we’re staying in) with some of the students from the University. I will update the blog next time I have access to the Internet.