The goal was to be packed up and out of the house by 10, and we left at 10:15. Not bad. I love the mid day flights that mean we aren’t rushing and don’t arrive too late.

We drove 1.5 hours to the airport and the roads were pleasantly empty. I assume everyone was at church. We listened to the “How are babies made?” episode of the But Why? Podcast and Millie seemed to take it all in. Her only question at the end was “so if mom made milk for me and I still like milk, why don’t you make it for me anymore?” Girl, no.

We returned the rental car, which felt rife for a scam to me. I’m generally the one who is cynical and constantly on the lookout for how someone can rip me off. This is a valuable skill but not a fun way to walk through the world. Hopefully it’s all fine.

We were early and spent 3 hours hanging out at the airport. Nick bought a ginger ale and we taught Millie the important life lesson of drinking from a bottle without wrapping her entire mouth around it.

She patiently awaited her iPad time and once we got on the plane she was locked in. We flew out past Kilimanjaro. We didn’t see it once while visiting because it was cloudy the whole time.

The flight to Zanzibar was just over an hour and easy enough. When we landed I did my regular 2-minute “time to put the iPad away” warning, and then 2 minutes later told Millie it was time. She snapped at me a little saying “I KNOW!” Not the greatest behavior but I know she was about to follow directions and it wasn’t a punishable offense. However, this older German lady near us did not like her attitude and literally wagged her finger in Millie’s face and said “tsk-tsk”. Millie was immediately embarrassed and ashamed (understandably) and began to spiral and wail, which then made this German lady stare at her. So Millie’s on the tiny plane yelling “I don’t want anyone to look at me!!!” While this woman is staring at us both, waiting for me to punish her.

Millie continued to cry while getting off the plane and then on the shuttle and then in the customs line. She struggled to calm down and it devolved into an all out meltdown of screaming nonsensical requests and pushing us. New enemy: German lady.

Zanzibar apparently requires you to buy a very specific type of travel insurance before entering the country. So we had to wait in line to buy that and show proof of it. Everyone kept cutting, Millie was screaming, it was hot, and after already having to buy expensive visas, we now needed to shell out for insurance. It was not a fun moment.

When we finally got in the taxi, Nick said “I’m going to figure out how to get airlifted out of this place to get my money’s worth with this insurance”. My thoughts exactly.

After a very frustrating hour, we started to regulate again in the taxi. Nick was happy not to be behind the wheel. I was happy with the air conditioning. Millie sucked her thumb and calmed down.

We had another 1.5 hour drive to the area of Zanzibar we are staying in. Every time we passed through a new town our taxi driver told us the name of it. “Now we’re in Bububu.” And 5 minutes later “this is Potowa”. Nick sweetly replied to every one but started losing steam and it made me laugh. “Oh bububu, nice” “ah, cool” toward the end, after being told the names of 15 towns we’d immediately forget, he just said “okay”.

As we got further from the airport things started feeling more tropical and we got glimpses of the sea.

We drove behind a cow running full speed for a while.

We got to our hotel right as the sun was setting, and walked to see the ocean. Millie had her first ever fresh coconut water. The tide was in and we sat on a swing while we waited for more fresh fruit juices.

We all lay on a hammock together and Millie kept trying to say “this is the life!” But she kept messing it up and said “this is my life!” In my head I thought, yeah this is your life. Can you believe it?

Dinner took a while. She played a bit with her little playmobil friends and Nick and I talked about if we feel like we’re moving too fast or too slow. We can’t really tell. We are always ready to leave a place when it’s time to go, but at the same time, we do feel like we need to recharge a bit. The constant planning is exhausting. We’re not sure what we’ll change yet.