Before heading to Africa, I arranged a three day pit-stop through New York so I could visit my friend Alejandro who just moved there after graduating Georgetown in the spring. He lives in the "hipster" part of Brooklyn—Williamsburg—which apparently means he had to ruin all of his expensive designer jeans and make them into cut-off capris. He's also invested in bandana's to tie his hair back during the hot days; it's kind of a Huck Finn meets the Scissor 
Sisters look, like maybe what a slave would have worn while listening to Benni Banassi's Satisfaction Remix while doing lines of coke, no?
So I lost my NY Bar virginity last night and $100 later and like 4 drinks passed that crucial line, I had a panic attack as I realized it was my last day in the 1st world. A little late but it had to come sooner or later. This whole summer I had either been avoiding the matter altogether or getting excited for what I basically thought of as a three-and-a-half month extension of summer in a "resort" town (quotes were added at a later date after discovering how oh-so-wrong that really was) sitting on the beach all day and absorbing a nice tan, basically avoiding the reality that I was going to the poorest continent on the planet. Period. People had told me that Dakar is remarkably cosmopolitan and developed and not unlike a city in Europe and blah blah blah but it's like hello, I'm going to AFRICA. I checked and Senegal's still on the list
of top 20 least developed countries in the WORLD so evidently the next three and half months aren't going to be a trip to The Four Seasons. Unfortunately (or fortunately, I'm not sure which) it didn't hit me until I was standing on a random corner outside a bar in the East Village the day before my flight left. Bon voyage, right?
So yeah, I have this intense pit in my stomach right now as I'm writing to you guys. This is probably the most nervous I've been in my life, but I guess this is the biggest thing I've done thus far. It's not like I'm one of those people that has to be close to home – I spent a year of high school at a boarding school and I go to college 3,000 miles away from where I grew up – so distances hardly scare me. It's just like this time I feel like I'm leaving civilization.
Cause I am. For a loooong time. And who wouldn't be scared by that, right? My Dad tells me that I'm supposed to be feeling this way but OK Dad that doesn't make me feel better and you're supposed to make me feel better. That only makes me feel normal but normal people don't go to Africa they go to Paris or London or some place where you don't have to get yellow fever shots and mosquito nets before you leave. So what does that make me?
My flight doesn't leave until 7PM so I have all of today to "enjoy" myself but it's pretty hard because I'm sitting in a McDonalds right now eating a hamburger and thinking this is my last meal. It's like I'm on death row. Oh which reminds me, I checked and there isn't a McDonalds in Senegal. So really it is like I'm on death row. Great.
Sisters look, like maybe what a slave would have worn while listening to Benni Banassi's Satisfaction Remix while doing lines of coke, no?So I lost my NY Bar virginity last night and $100 later and like 4 drinks passed that crucial line, I had a panic attack as I realized it was my last day in the 1st world. A little late but it had to come sooner or later. This whole summer I had either been avoiding the matter altogether or getting excited for what I basically thought of as a three-and-a-half month extension of summer in a "resort" town (quotes were added at a later date after discovering how oh-so-wrong that really was) sitting on the beach all day and absorbing a nice tan, basically avoiding the reality that I was going to the poorest continent on the planet. Period. People had told me that Dakar is remarkably cosmopolitan and developed and not unlike a city in Europe and blah blah blah but it's like hello, I'm going to AFRICA. I checked and Senegal's still on the list
of top 20 least developed countries in the WORLD so evidently the next three and half months aren't going to be a trip to The Four Seasons. Unfortunately (or fortunately, I'm not sure which) it didn't hit me until I was standing on a random corner outside a bar in the East Village the day before my flight left. Bon voyage, right?So yeah, I have this intense pit in my stomach right now as I'm writing to you guys. This is probably the most nervous I've been in my life, but I guess this is the biggest thing I've done thus far. It's not like I'm one of those people that has to be close to home – I spent a year of high school at a boarding school and I go to college 3,000 miles away from where I grew up – so distances hardly scare me. It's just like this time I feel like I'm leaving civilization.
Cause I am. For a loooong time. And who wouldn't be scared by that, right? My Dad tells me that I'm supposed to be feeling this way but OK Dad that doesn't make me feel better and you're supposed to make me feel better. That only makes me feel normal but normal people don't go to Africa they go to Paris or London or some place where you don't have to get yellow fever shots and mosquito nets before you leave. So what does that make me?My flight doesn't leave until 7PM so I have all of today to "enjoy" myself but it's pretty hard because I'm sitting in a McDonalds right now eating a hamburger and thinking this is my last meal. It's like I'm on death row. Oh which reminds me, I checked and there isn't a McDonalds in Senegal. So really it is like I'm on death row. Great.
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