The flight over was interesting. I have definitely never been on a flight as long as the one from JFK to Johannesburg and don’t feel a need to experience that again any time soon. At first it was cool. The plane was huge, and I ended up sitting near someone who was from South Africa and had lived in Eastern Africa for many years. So I got to have my first conversation in Swahili outside of class. It was a struggle, but pretty awesome too. I also met a lot of missionaries on my way over. Hmm. After talking with them about unequal education opportunities for a while and then watching The Departed and reading some of The Fountainhead, I was sad to discover that the flight was not even halfway over. Considering that The Departed is one of the longest movies ever, this was unexpected and not very welcomed news. However, we eventually landed, as was inevitable, and I had a little over an hour to get my luggage and recheck it before I had to board my plane for Cape Town. This is when I discovered that, unfortunately, my luggage was lost somewhere along the way. Ugh. I had to go to the baggage claim desk and file a report of my luggage. I was asked several times if I was traveling alone and couldn’t help thinking of my dearly loved CCP class and of the movie Taken and just hope that I wouldn’t get trafficked. Luckily, I didn’t.
Yesterday, after a little over 24 hours of travelling I arrived in Cape Town. YES. Finally! I was so excited and I met two other girls from MSU who will be interning this summer as well. Once I got to my room, I basically passed out immediately as I had not been able to sleep very well on the plane rides. It was about 6 pm Cape Town time, which is noon in Michigan.
Today, I woke up at 7 in the morning and went exploring in my yoga pants and oversized hoodie. I was on a mission to find a store where I could pick up a couple of things to hold me over until my bags get here. I couldn’t get over the fact that I was walking around and exploring a foreign country by myself. It was surreal. As I wondered up and down the cobblestone streets, I saw a lot of shops. Most of them were cafes or jewelry stores or athletic shops or banks, not exactly what I was looking for. Eventually, I walked into a clothing shop where Jenny from the Block by J-Lo was playing. This place seemed promising. As I walked around I tried to figure out what size I would be in South Africa and tried to convert the prices to American dollars in my head. 100 rand is about 15 dollars. It was very obvious that I am not from here and I looked like a total scrub. How American of me. It was fun to explore the city and I ended up getting a couple of things... but hopefully my luggage will arrive soon.
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