March 5 was my last full day in Addis, which I spent partly shopping with Lynda, Gordon, Frederick, and Tamir. Tamir brought Richard to work and me to the Hilton where I bought an air ticket to Axum and Gonder from Ethiopian Airlines. They charge ferengi a premium, so the ticket was nearly US$300 to the two destinations. After I got the tickets, I contacted Gordon and wandered around the hotel grounds until eating breakfast with Lynda and Gordon at the hotel restaurant. Tamir, being a taxi driver, was waiting in the Hilton parking lot, which was kind of a drag compared to how he traveled with us on the Bilen Lodge trip.

The first shopping was with Lynda, Gordon, and Gordon’s Ethiopian Airlines friend Frederick down from Bruxelles. We went to a leather shop where Lynda and Gordon ordered jackets.

Then, we dropped Lynda back at the Hilton to start packing up their apartment. The rest of us went on to a church shop for Gordon to buy a drum to bring back to his church in Canada. The shop staff got a bit carried away and had us trying on Orthodox Ethiopian wedding gowns.

We left the shop and I got one picture of Tamir and his taxi in front of the church shop, plus a picture of an Ethiopian Orthodox church in Addis Ababa.

My last full evening in Addis Ababa appears in the next blog entry for March 5.