Back in Africa!

Just landed in South Africa - after a pleasantly uneventful flight. I guess it helps to prepare yourself for a real headache cause then you'll be ecstatic when all you have is a little jet lag. Not doing too bad really in that department either.


Some thoughts:

I just covered more ground in 24 hours than people could have covered in 24 months just a few hundred years ago.

I saw the sunrise this morning in Senegal. Again, I saw the sunrise this morning in Senegal. Pretty amazing.

There are deciduous trees in South Africa. I wasn't really expecting that. And it's a little chilly outside (they're in the middle of winter right now - it's probably 65F or so). Weird to see something so familiar so far away.

There's no one here to take pictures of me without Megan.


A run down of the last 24 hours:

Walking up to the boarding gate in Atlanta, I was greeted by a few friendly faces that were boarding towards the rear of the plane, like me. Chatting a bit discovered they were also going to Blantyre, Malawi. Although, they didn't know exactly when. They informed me "you might be interested in this" that the latest rumor they heard was that the landing lights at Blantyre airport were stolen this weekend. I suppose that's Africa. We'll see what happens tomorrow.

I kind of like that I'm going to a place where it's not that uncommon for the landing lights to be stolen at the airport.

I'm kind of nervous going to a place where it's not that uncommon for the landing lights to be stolen at the airport.

Like I already mentioned, Delta outperformed their reputation (which wasn't very high - see last post) for this flight. All the seat backs had video screens. On demand music (Amy Winehouse, Tiesto, and Madonna? Sure.), on demand movies (Cloverfield, Young at Heart, and Jumper? Sure), and on demand games (I was the plane-wide trivia champion on the first flight, but got beaten by 50pts on the second flight). ALSO, and a BIG also.... free drinks, anything you want, the whole way. I was out after the 3rd whisky and coke and slept from Bermuda to Cape Verde - almost a full night. AND they put a special sticker on my seat that declared me a vegetarian, and got served dinner before everyone else b/c of it! Pretty not bad. I didn't even mind being in the middle seat.

My seat mate (A Kenyan working in Los Angeles on a development/education program) failed to make a reservation at the Transit hotel here in the Jo'burg airport for her 6am flight tomorrow to Lesotho, so I offered her my reservation. When we got the the hotel check in counter about an hour ago, we were both like, there's two beds, why don't we just share?

The whirlwind continues.

More tomorrow, from Malawi.



on the plane


seatback map - almost there