The Arrival

We are in AFRICA! While we may not be clever enough to correctly identify the ampersand (there it is - &) on the keyboard, we have successfully navigated ourselves half way across the globe. I think I just like the word ampersand, and am suffering from sleep deprivation.

As we flew in, we saw Cape Town's most famous landmark, Table Mountain. It's truly beautiful. (I promise, we'll take better pictures now that we've arrived.)
Our pessimism about our luggage was misplaced. It arrived, as did we, without a hitch. Even coach on South African Airways was fabulous, even for 10 hours. (My assessment of this wonderful airline was absolutely mistaken in my previous post). We had our personal entertainment system, where I watched a South African movie - Beat the Drum - that more than made up for the horrible movies we chose on United. It's the story of a little Zulu boy, Musa, whose family is killed by AIDS, and his journey as a street kid in Johannesburg (or, for everyone here, Jo-burg) where he works to earn money to buy a new cow for his grandmother. (Her former cow, and Musa's beloved pet, was sacrificed by the tribe elders to appease the ancestors to remove the plague - i.e., AIDS - from their village. I can't remember the cow's Zulu name, but it meant something like "cry to the point one has no more tears".) He also searches for his uncle to return home and take care of his family. It's a great movie, especially for the tender-hearted among us. Rent it.

The dinner they served was actually VERY good. A spicy chicken and rice, and boy was I hungry.

There was a minor glitch, namely a glass of fairly decent shiraz on the plane that has now cast its pinkish purplish shadow on my formerly "soapstone" colored pants. For those who know me well, this is no surprise at all. In any case, Stacey's pant-count is now down from 3 pairs to only 2 and that's before I even arrived. Who needs pants anyway? At least I very much amused my quite handsome and very amiable flight attendant.

Upon arrival, we caught a cab, and drove with our own Capetonian "Ricky Bobby" cab driver to the Hippo Boutique Hotel, where we now reside for three days. Thankfully, there's a computer with internet access - albeit slow - right here in our own room. Thus, we write.

Now, we're headed out to explore what appears to be an incredibly beautiful city. Not if I have anything to say about it. I am exhausted and I am going to take a nap so I'll see you later. ;)

I just woke up from my nap - I now know what jet lag really feels like. The mix of being sick and flying the past three days has made me really tired, but I feel great now. It's funny, Stacey and I have such different 'vacation' styles - she wants to do something every minute or she feels like she is missing out on something. I on the other hand know that I'm going to be in Africa for almost 7 weeks so I'm totally cool with using a couple days to just relax and unwind. I've been in "go, go, go" mode for a couple months now so I'm going to take it easy and enjoy myself (up until I work with the children and hike Mt. Kilimanjaro of course).

As Stacey mentioned, the flight over was pretty nice. Other than trying to avoid Stacey's wine spillages (if you've ever been around Stacey, you have to have an eye on her at all times because she is a disaster waiting to happen, and oftentimes you are part of the collateral damage), I got to see "The Illusionist"with Edward Norton - great movie with a great ending. We got to sit on the upper deck of what I think was a 747 - holy crap that is a huge plane. I am still amazed everytime I think that something that big gets off of the ground.

Here's what I've noticed so far about South Africa/Cape Town - the people are extremely hospitable, they all have great accents (although I can't wait to hear a language where they use that clicking sound), and there appears to be a plethora of amazing restaurants walking distance from our hotel, the Hippo Boutique Hotel (http://www.hippotique.co.za/) which has a plasma TV and computer in each room, something I don't expect to see in a couple days or so.

Oh, Stacey forgot to mention our luck with Customs - apparently in South Africa, you have to declare anything you bring (including personal effects) worth more than $3000 ZAR total - this comes out to about $400 U.S. For anything on top of that, you have to pay them some fee of 20% or so for everything exceeding that limit. You could imagine my concern when in my possession I had a $1,000+ Nikon D80, brand new 80-Gig video iPod, Stacey's new Blackberry Pearl, and about a gillion dollars worth of newly bought mountain wear for the Kilimanjaro climb. Anyways, I filled out the declaration card and went to the Items to Declare line and gave my card to one of the 4 guys working a booth with no other passengers in the entire area so I was getting ready for the full anal probe. As it turns out, he took our cards, said thank you and sent us on our way through the glass sliding doors leading to the outside world. I don't really know what happened, but I'll take it!

I am about to get ready for tonight's New Year's Eve festivities - we're going to a place called the Africa Cafe (http://www.africacafe.co.za/) for an all inclusive dinner with entertainment in the form of traditional African song and dance, it should be a blast. (Don't worry Jimmy, I'll stay away from the beef but I might go for the crocodile.) I'm hoping I can change my opinion of African food which I have always referred to as "poor man's indian food". Anyways, we'll write more again tomorrow but we wanted to wish all of you a very Happy New Year and have a great, safe time celebrating tonight!!!

P.S. Thanks for the lovely pic Ashlee, I should totally grow out two ponytails on the sides of my head, it'd be great to have a Last of the Mohicans look. Or maybe I'll just grow a mullet, that'd look really nice with my baldness up front.

By the way, Dan posted us to Digg, so check in there and digg us. You can link to it from his comment on our last post.

And, Janet, my friend from Chicago, sent some more photos from Krispy Kreme & Steak & Shake that you can check out in one of our previous posts below.