araalinng: it's all good!: Silver Linings Stop-over: Over the Rainbow in Abuja

On my way to see my Queen, the Divine Ms J, it would seem that disaster struck about an hour into my journey when the Air France flight I was on was grounded in Abuja shortly after midnight last night. It was a special week for my girl, and as I would travel to the ends of the world for my friends, I was off to Brussels last night with high hopes to party all night long tonight in celebration of someone who has touched my life and supported me in very important ways.

When the announcement was made over the plane’s intercom around 12:30 this morning that we were not continuing our journey, my initial reaction was annoyance. However, then I thought that no matter how annoyed I got, it was not going to change the current situation. Hell, I was in Abuja (which was the original plan I had in the works over a month ago for this weekend), a city I wanted to explore. Plus, The Booj is the current home of Becca, and time spent with Becca is always adored.

Waiting outside of the airport for transportation in the wee hours of the morning became one of those times when I decide the no one was a stranger. I struck up a conversation with a guy who had boarded the plane with me in Port Harcourt (turns out that he was on his way to the US, with a short window to meet up with his wife in Chicago before proceeding to Michigan, which he was now going to miss because of the delayed flight; it could always be worse), and our conversation made the time until our transportation arrived to take us to the hotel (that’s 4:00 am, my friends) suck a lot less.

I have had a Wizard of Oz moment during my stay in Abuja. What began as this

transformed into this

because of positive people deciding to make pretty good coffee out of a grounded airplane.

I cannot get over how great the cupcakes are at Chloe’s Cupcake Haven in Abuja. They are almost enough reason to go through the no less than six visits to a Nigerian High Commission it might take someone just to get a visa to come to Nigeria. Chloe’s cupcakes are great. (PERIOD.) I am not just saying that because I have been experiencing a dearth is tasty baked goods lately. I take my cupcakes seriously, and the red velvet, carrot cake, death by chocolate and mocha cupcakes I devoured this afternoon (yes, gluttony is now considered a virtue) made me want to shed tears of joy. Moist cupcakes which do not taste like baking soda and are soft with perfectly flavoured butter cream icing are descriptions more easily typed than actually achieved. I want a cupcake accompanied by Chloe’s ice cream on my next visit. Yes, there will be a next visit.

Fabulous people set the scene for an unexpectedly fabulous day.