I am finally here...

Whew. I am here, and all in all the travel was not half that bad as I had expected!

Laurie and her parents picked me up at 4:15 in the morning on Sunday and were ready to roll. I had a small and big luggage to check, with a backpack and purse to carry on. So we piled into the Honda Civic and was on our merry way to the Lindberg Terminal.

The only big travel problem we had is that we thought we had to check in individually and found out we had to check in our group of 16 all together. So, the lovely gentleman Bradford (only lovely once we left and were all set) helped us.

Then we get to our gate, and spot Rev Run. Yes he was in first class, but I have no idea what he was doing in Minneapolis on a Memorial Day weekend. A girl, Katie, in our group did shake his hand and we did get a picture of him. But apparently he did not have a "firm handshake". Ha. I will admit that I had NO idea who this man was, and eventually got the update by fellow group members.

I basically slept from Mlps to New York City, where we had a seven hour layover in JFK airport. We spent time with Phase 10, Toblerone chocolate, book stores, and getting our boarding passes for South African Airways.

I have to say, South African Airways is by far the best airline I have ever flown. Next would probably be Emirates. We did have little TV's in the back of seats and I tried to watch There Will Be Blood and Juno and fell asleep BOTH times. Not to mention this plane ride was 18 hours in total, and I basically slept the whole time, except for meals. We did have a pitstop in Dakar, Senegal to refuel and add more passengers. We were fed four meals, yes four, and were not that bad. I did have a great plane buddy, also my suitcase and roommate buddy. I made sure to do exercises and drink plenty of water, because a lot of us were waking up from a nightmare of blood clots or feet falling asleep. We did also meet this couple from Johannesburg and they did give us the safety talk. Don't pick up rides, watch your bag at all time, watch out for bars, etc. They did tell me that Cape Town is not Africa, it's more like England. I was just trying to listen and not give my input, because I am remembering that I need to listen more here than talk. Which as many of you know, is pretty hard for me. And then before you know it we were in Johannesburg, South Africa.

Now this was the connection we were primarily worried about. We only had an hour and 45 minutes to get our luggage, go through customs, and recheck our luggage. Luckily, we did not have to declare anything coming into South Africa. With an a group of 16 Americans, the porters were able to point us out quickly and basically forced us to follow them knowing there was an incentive afterwards. These porters probably thought of us as stupid Americans, because they did get tipped really well. Now, Johannesburg was under construction, so we have to go about 400 meters from one part of the airport to the other... and from being in an airplane for 18 hours, that was a little rough with all the luggage and all. But we did it.

And now, I'm here in Cape Town. Our instructor Aaron, the interstudy group:Dianne, Ajith, Ouma, Niki, and Sopheimo, and another student with our group Kate, met us at the airport. We piled into two vans and came to our two houses. Now all houses were supposed to be student residential housing. But, we wouldn't have been very close together. Then a bed and breakfast opened up and we ended up using that one as well. And no, I am not staying in the GORGEOUS bed an breakfast, I am in the student residential house, which is pretty good actually. I honestly feel like I am a celebrity in the Real World tv show and all that is happening should be video taped.

Granted we did have jet lag, and I had slept a majority of our travel, I was wide awake. And I knew tomorrow was going to be a big day. So more Phase 10 came about and then it was time to hit the hay.