Where we gonna go from here...

January 28, 2011

Where we gonna go from here….

                The six week Christmas break treated me well. I adored getting to spend time with my wonderful family. The time really reminded me of what a great gift a family is. The time the six of us spent together in Charleston was so good. I also had the great opportunity to spend a few days with my best friend. Break was so very great, a great time of rest and time with friends between my two very large adventures. Now that I have been to Ireland and had a great break it is time for South Africa.

                Thursday morning was my mom’s birthday. How very rude of me to leave on her birthday right? After a tearful goodbye I headed off.  I had a flight from Denver to Washington Dulles. I cannot lie while I was on the plane I was thinking “What am I doing? I am not ready for this.” I am sure my parents love reading that. When I arrived in Washington Dulles I headed straight to find my gate knowing that I had to check in with my next flight. When I got to the counter I was standing in line and met a girl in my program. It was nice to meet someone right away. When we finally made it to the counter to check in we discovered that a flight to Johannesburg the day previous had been cancelled and they were trying to put all of the passengers from that flight on ours. At that point I was worried that I would not get on the flight. Obviously, I did get on the flight, I did not get the window seat my mom had originally booked and the flight was delayed but I was on it and that is all that really mattered at the time.  When we finally left it would be a seven hour flight to Dakar Yoff in Senegal, an hour in Senegal (which you cannot get off the plane) and then another eight hour flight to Johannesburg. So I was looking at seventeen hours on the plane. Yikes.

                Luckily I was able to sleep for a really long time. I think I watched one movie and then crashed pretty much the rest of the time. I only barely remember being in Senegal.  Beside the lady next to me waking me up so she could get up, the flight was much better than expected.

                It ended up that there were five people from my program on the same flight. When we finally arrived in Johannesburg we all meandered through passport control and customs no problems and found our program director very easily.

                Tonight we are at a “lodge” and will be here until Tuesday. By “lodge” I have gathered it is an upgraded hostel.  We had spaghetti for dinner; it was nice to have our first meal together and to meet everyone. I am still a little disoriented and cannot really figure out what time I think it should be. It is 10:20p.m. on Friday.  Not really sure what happened to Friday.  From what I can tell we are going to be super busy.  Orientation week is going to be packed with trips and information about the program. I do not remember exactly what we are doing but I know we will be flying to Cape Town on Tuesday. For now I think that is all I have to tell. I am not sure what to expect and already feel a little home sick but I think that I just due to a. how awesome my family is b. exhaustion from traveling and c. not knowing what to expect.

Thank you all for reading my blog. I cannot wait to share this experience with you all!

Keely