***spoiler alert: I made it***
My plane from Portland was scheduled to leave for San Francisco at 4 pm, so in true Katie fashion I obviously didn’t finish packing until about noon that day. I figured that since my flights to and from Ireland last fall were such horrible experiences, the travel gods would have to be helping me along this time so have no delays, missed flights or lost luggage. “Will anyone with a connecting flight to London Heathrow from San Francisco please come up to the counter.” Sweeeeeeeeeeeet. So I went up to the counter and the small little man behind the desk informed us that due to snow storms in London our flight might be canceled. Of course it would be snowing in London cos when the hell does it ever snow in London? So they had booked us on one hell of an alternate flight to get us to Cape Town. Instead of San Fran to London to Cape Town, we would be going San Fran to Chicago to Washington DC to Johannesburg to Cape Town. Getting us in to Cape Town around 10:30 pm January 7 instead of 10:30 am. In the mean time our plane to San Francisco was delayed 20 minutes—which turned in to be an hour. Before I had left I knew that there was going to be another girl on my flight from UO who actually was friends with my old roommate Nano. When we were called up to the desk and overheard that we were both headed to Cape Town we made the connection that we were “Nano’s other friend going to Cape Town,” so I had a travel buddy which ended up saving me.
Sooooo, thanks to our delayed flight in Portland we landed in San Francisco at 6:40 and our flight was scheduled to depart at 7 pm. We had no Idea where we were supposed to go or if our London flight was canceled or anything so as soon as we landed Liz (the other girl from UO on my flight) and I ran to the monitor saw that our flight wasn’t canceled or delayed and hauled ass across the airport to the international terminal. I seriously have never sprinted so fast through an airport with so much anxiety. It kind of felt like the amazing race minus the amazing part. Huffing and Puffing we (I still have no idea how) made it on the plane. I sat down in my seat all sweaty and asthmatic and remembered that the nurse at the health center had told me to bring my inhaler. I also remembered I didn’t. But at least I had made it on the plane.
Ten hours later, I had gotten about 2 hours of sleep, watched the movie paranormal activity while trying not to look like a wimp (followed by about 10 minutes of the movie Cars so I wouldn’t have nightmares), watched the end of slumdog millionaire like 3 times and finally had arrived to the snowy wonderland of Heathrow. We had about a 6 or 7 hour layover there so we grabbed some food and napped on the airport benches (the best sleep I got for 2 days) until it was time to board for the third and final leg of our trip. I knew that the flight from London to Cape Town was long but I didn’t realize it was 12 hours long. I knew I was going to die. There weren’t individual screens on this flight and they just played an episode of 30 rock, ice age 3 and pay it forward, however they made up for it with pretty good plane food and free beer and wine (scooorrreeee). However, despite the free booze, the flight was absolutely miserable and I slept for maybe an hour or so and my body was in soooo much pain from sitting for so long.
We got off the plane at about 11 am Cape Town time and were greeted by Sly and Jon from the Volunteer Adventure Corps group (the group that my internship is through) and they took Liz and I to our house where we unpacked then went out to a bar called Stones with Jon where we drank some beer and played pool. That night we watched tv with our other roommates (just the Americans are here right now because the South Africans are still on their summer holiday) Dan from Oregon also, Ashley from Virginia, Whit from Massachusetts, and a guy named Rob who doesn’t live with us but is with VAC and is over here a bunch. A couple of other people came since then but you’ll have to wait for future posts to hear about them. Annyyywayyyys, moral of the story is I’m finally here, I love it already and I’m impressed if you actually read through all this. The recap of days 2 and 3 will probably (hopefully) be shorter although those 2 days have been two of the best days of my life!
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