Wow.

That is the one word that sums up my first impression of Ghana, and Africa in general.

We arrived in Ghana last night at 9:00PM, meaning it was only 4:00PM in La Crosse and Madison (They are five hours ahead over here). We've heard that Ghana is in the "GMT" zone, meaning "Ghana Maybe Time"... I guess people don't stick to their schedules as much over here. Kind of cool though.

After we grabbed our luggage at the airport we walked through and finally found someone holding a sign that said "Kyle Walsh." After having our luggage and seeing that, Levi (my travel partner) and I felt extremely relieved.

About a 45-minute taxi ride later, we were at our hostel. The family that owned it was very nice, and showed us to our room. There were a couple of beds, and a small bathroom with a sink, shower and toilet. (I will be putting up pictures soon...)

We slept for about 13 hours, and I guess we needed it since we hadn't gotten much sleep the night before. When we finally woke up at around 1 in the afternoon (only 8:00AM back home!), we showered (which were very cold), and got started for the day.

We took about an hour taxi ride out of the area in which we were staying, and headed to James Town. It was quite overwhelming. There were so many people walking around, as well as those selling things under little makeshift huts and market stalls. We also saw Independence Square, a large open area representing Ghanaian independence. The Square is able to hold around 30,000 people, and I'm sure seeing that would be quite amazing.

Eventually we started to get hungry (as I'm sure you might have guessed), and decided to take a tro-tro to a restaurant. Imagine a mini-van that is supposed to be carrying 10 people actually carrying about 20, and that is a tro-tro. These only cost 20 pesewas (or about 14 cents) to drive about 20 minutes away. Traffic here is crazy! So many cars on the road... most of them are taxis, too.

We ate dinner at a nice restaurant, and had fufu and a peanut soup. We also tried some "red-red fish," which was spicy, and the bones were actually left in the fish... something I hadn't expected.

We're at an internet cafe right now, getting ready to take a taxi back to the hostel. It was quite a first day, and I can tell this will be a great experience. I miss everyone already, but time will go quickly... it will be different not spending the majority of my week at Lindbergh anymore... and I already miss seeing all of the students there, too! I hope everyone is doing well back home, and I'll update as I can! Pictures coming soon...

Interesting fact of the day: I drank a baggie of water for 5 pesewas- only 3 cents!