South African Airways plane!
Minute 7: My dad and I’ve officially sat down in the airplane. My backpack doesn’t fit under the seat, so I attempt to hide it from the flight attendant by bending my knees in an awkward position. Success! (kind of) Now I realize that thanks to Mr. neon-green-fourth-grade-backpack-with-a-flower-patch-on-it I have no legroom. Yay tall genes that make me go crazy when I can’t stretch my legs.
Me: Hello seat! We get to hang out for the next fifteen hours!
Minute 23: Must. Stay. Awake. To. See. Takeoff. I. Love. Tak……
Minute 47: Missed it. O well. Back to slee……..
Hour 1¾: Lunch is here!
Stewardess: Chicken or lamb?
Me: (Doesn’t even matter since I don’t even eat meat.) Chicken.
Well, at least there were rice and vegetables with it.
Hour 2: Movie time! Should watch Invictus. But Percy Jackson looks so exciting. *Begin watching Percy Jackson*
Hour 5: Movie ends. I decide to start another. Push button for Invictus. Want to fastforward through the two second company signs, fastforward too much, press play, press rewind, doesn’t respond, press play, press stop, press menu. Frozen. I love my life.
Hour 6: Leg cramps. Look over and dad is reviewing a powerpoint on fungus (why doesn’t this surprise me?). *fall asleep again*
Hour 8½: Dad is reviewing a powerpoint on urine.
Me: Urine?
Dad: Yeah they sent me a long list of things I should cover, (flips through powerpoint and points to other slide) there are also vaginal secretions, parasistology, fungal infections, incubation, vegetable cells, and hookworm egg found in stool samples.
Me: *nodd*
Dad: You writing a letter?
Me: Blog
Dad: You should write about the origin of Johannesburg. J-O-H-A-N-N-E-S-B-U-R-G.
Me: Definitely.
Dad: There are also yeast infections in the mouth.
Me: *trying to focus*
Dad: *talking about yeast samples*
Dad: Hopefully you don’t get hookworm.
Dad: You’re stomach probably has a lot of these. (points to picture of what my eyes register as brown celery stalks with muddy-green pebbles around them) They’re vegetable cells.
Dad: Did you study bichology? (I probably spelled that wrong.)
It’s times like this when I wonder how I ended up normal enough to have friends.
P.S. I’m incapable of understanding pictures of cells, bacteria, and fungal stains. I just always picture them with eyes and mouths and make them into little creatures with personalities. I don’t think I’m cut out for microbiology.
P.S.S. What do you mean I’m only halfway through the flight?
Hour 11: Flight attendant fixed my TV! Finally I get to finish Invictus!
sunrise outside my airplane window
Hour 13: Waffles for breakfast!
Hour 14: Almost there! It’s crazy to think that Africa is right below me. Besides my desperate want to run up and down the airplane to relieve my leg cramps and to tear open and chow down on a huge bag of spinach, I feel so… normal. Don’t laugh, but I had played over this moment in my mind with Lion King music pouring through the loud speakers and with the reincarnation of Steve Irwin appearing out of thin air and telling me that after all the childhood years I spent obsessing over his TV show, I was finally in a land where spitting cobras and spotted hyenas roamed free. Sadly, none of the former occurred. However, I could begin to make out the South African terrain and the plane played a world cup video that included children playing soccer in different countries and an African women wearing beads and gyrating around a fire.
Hour 15: I’m about to take my first steps on African ground. Best. Day. Ever.
Pictures from the airport:
In jet to Lesotho: I’m so sleep deprived that I won’t be surprised if this post ends up being gibberish but anyways, the airport in Johannesburg was awesome. It was completely decked out in World Cup ads and t-shirt kiosks. I tried to take some pictures of the ads (every single one I saw revolved around the world cup) as we practically sprinted to our connection. We’re now in a South African Airways “airlink” jet to Maseru. There are six passengers excluding us: an Indian woman who’s wearing a sari and who has amazingly intricate henna on her hands and arms, two Asian men, a well-dressed Caucasian couple with elaborate beaded bags, and a middle-aged Caucasian man with his hair gelled into a Mohawk. I wonder what’s bringing them to the “Mountain Kingdom.”
i love you and your sassy posts.
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