Our first order of business once we hit Arusha was to find our hostel. Which was an adventure in itself. A-Town Hostel is located in a local village about a 10-minute walk up from the only traffic light in Arusha. Ergo, no address. Living amongst real Tanzanians? Awesome. Attempting to explain exactly where we were located to our taxi drivers and guides? Not so much. But the manager of our hostel, Justin, and his girlfriend, Jenna, were absolutely amazing as ho...

The next morning, the Impala Shuttle managed to pick us up only 40 minutes late, a feat by African standards, and we were soon bouncing along on the ever-so-dusty road to Arusha. I have to confess, it took me a full hour to adjust to the driving style in Africa. We were basically kissing the butt of every car we stopped behind. Looking back, it is actually ridiculous that we made the entire trip without hitting anyone. Morning commute tailgaters have nothing ...

Dubai has the largest terminal I've ever seen. It takes 46 minutes to walk from one end to the other according to the signage. It's also packed with duty-free shops and seemingly-endless restaurant options, although when you're famished, the walk to get to ANY restaurant felt like a life time. I was pretty close to giving up and busting out a power bar before we finally managed to find a café. After wolfing down our meal, we decided to continue exploring the...

After deplaning, we promptly got into a ridiculously monstrous line for immigration. Here's what I've learned about lines in Africa: you should just ignore the signs and go to the shortest line. However, as first-timers, we located the foreigner sign and spent the next hour in line commiserating with a scruffily cute Chicagoan, who had already gone through three different security checks coming off his flight from Uganda. I'm great at finding silver linings. :) A...

Despite getting into Dubai in the wee hours of the morning, the first thing I experienced was the dry heat. It must've been close to 40C degrees. Breezing through the super-empty immigration lines, we were in bed at the Admiral Plaza Hotel within the hour. Not wanting to waste a moment of our now-truncated layover, we took a four-hour power nap and by 7.30am, we were in a taxi headed for the Burj Khalifa, the tallest building in the world. The only problem? Appar...