Each time I travel to a new place, one thing I love to check out is the food. Remember Momo – the barber, if you cannot, check out the round-up of my journey to Cote d’Ivoire here. On this occasion, we were served Spag and a special bread Micolo’s friend later called “Unleavened bread” – Exodus 12:15a. I took only a bite before abandoning it, while my friend managed to finish his.
It’s my first trip to Abidjan and I wanted to explore the City at the slightest of opportunity. After leaving Momo’s place, we made our way to our apartment and as we journeyed through the beautiful city, we passed through Stade Félix-Houphouët-Boigny – the venue of Nigeria’s final group game.
The bustling nature of the Abidjan traffic gave Lagos vibes and everyone cannot miss that; as well as the colourful displays around signifying the presence of the continent’s best for the AFCON.
In the few hours spent in the country so far, I now regret my decision not to take French as a language serious back in secondary school. I was struggling to hold simple conversations but I’m learning at a huge speed. We will meet at the end of the end of the tournament – I promise.
Finally, we arrived at the apartment where the rest of the boys will be staying. It was nice seeing those we have some resemblance with. By the way, there’s a great community of Nigerians here and we met a couple of them including one who helped us exchange our money from Naira to CFA Franc (it’s N2 to 1 CFA Franc by the way).
Well, Micolo and I took our shower at Momo’s place but that cannot be regarded as a bathe. We eventually had one at our apartment and our bodies received a bit of turnaround as if we just went through Jordan (2 Kings 5:10).
With our accreditation yet to be confirmed, we moved to the Media Centre at Palais de la Culture de Triechville. Within few hours, we got our accreditation tags and it was time to do some writing and complete planning for the duration of the tournament with ACLSports’ chief football writer Fisayo Dairo.
That’s all for now. More to come on the opening day of the tournament, more on the Super Eagles’ final training and the beautiful Alassane Ouattara Stadium in Ebimpe.
