November 29-30, 2007

We were up early this morning to all shower and get ready in the morning. Tonya came into our room to say goodbye to us, and Bonnie gave everyone hugs. We went downstairs to say goodbye to Enice and Hazel and that is when the tears started to come down. We gave hugs and Q came over to see us all off. He waited with us for our ride from Lucky Taxi and I was crying so much saying goodbye to him. Every time I looked at Q, I would start to cry, and I just couldn’t talk to him because it made me so sad. He helped us pack our things into the Kombis and he gave all of us a hug and then stood on the curb and waved us as we drove away. Ugh! It made me so sad saying goodbye to him. As we were leaving he told us, “It’s just like you girls are going away for the weekend and you will be back on Monday and I’ll see you then. It’s “see ya later” not goodbye.” He always puts things so nice and makes you feel better about things. The plan is that we will see him again because he is planning on coming to Minnesota to visit hopefully this summer before he gets tired down with things. That would be so much fun…we already started a list of things that we could do when he comes to visit.

We got to the airport in PE and had our bags saran wrapped so people couldn’t break into them, then off we went for checking our bags, I was so worried that my bags were going to be overweight…but I didn’t get an overweight tag and I didn’t have to pay extra money for the bags which was a pleasant surprise! We got through security and we sat in the airport for three hours waiting for take off. On the flight to Jo’burg, I sat with Leslie and Christy right in the middle of the two. The flight was an hour and a half and then we made it to Jo’burg and we made the confusing walk through the airport there. It’s a good thing that we got lost there when we came to South Africa because we knew exactly where we had to be going! We waited to check in with Delta and then we did our Vat tax refund and I got back almost $100 from the taxes that I spent in South Africa. After getting our money we grabbed sandwiches and I got a pepperoni sandwich and it was delicious. We were told that we couldn’t exchange our Rand at the bank in the airport so rather than worrying about it, I did a little more shopping at a few stores in the airport and I spent the exact amount of Rand that I had left! We were able to leave Jo’burg an hour earlier than scheduled. Laura, Kasy, and I sat across the aisle from each other. I sat next to a very friendly man from Juno, Alaska and we talked for quite a while on the trip, exchanging stories about our African trips (he was in the Congo and Botswana) and we talked about nursing and my clinical experience. I learned that he is a writer and his third book was published and released last Sunday and he has interviews all next week in New York. It was neat talking to him about it, and he wrote down the names of his three books for me to check out. One of them is a memoir about his travel experiences in a humorous light. The other two books are about World War II. We were lucky on this flight because we all had personal televisions on our seats! I definitely got my use out of the TV. I watched many movies on the flight to Dakar (Georgia Rule, License to Wed, Hairspray, The Office, My Name is Earl, and I played a game and listened to some music.) I managed to stay awake for the flight to Dakar, only sleeping for 45 minutes. We arrived in Dakar at 2:10am (South African time…about seven hours after leaving Jo’burg). Then we stayed on the plane to refuel and have security come through and we were back in the air an hour and a half later. I took a Tylenol PM for this flight because I wanted to get some sleep. I slept for about three hours on this flight, and ended up watching more movies (I Now Pronounce you Chuck and Larry, Harry Potter IV, Evan Almighty, and part of Surf’s Up). When I was stretching my legs in the back by the bathroom, I was asked by a random man, “Do you accept Jesus Christ as your Savior?” and for 15 minutes I was given a speech about the Bible and religion and his beliefs (he asked me if I knew what the Bible was). Finally the bathroom was my turn and I was able to escape…I was not in the mood for that conversation at 5:00am.

The plane ride was dark the entire time from leaving Jo’burg which was nice because it meant that we weren’t trying to sleep with the sun coming in, and the sun only started to rise when we were coming into Atlanta. We arrived at Atlanta at 7:35am after 9 hours and 20 minutes of flying from Dakar! We got our bags and went through Customs in Atlanta and had a three hour layover. Kasy and I went to get coffee and cinnamon rolls and it was so strange playing with things in American dollars, and seeing prices cheap and not in the Rand! We changed clothes and freshened up in the bathrooms and were on our way on the final of the four flights back to Minnesota! We were told that we are supposed to get a big snow storm tomorrow…and that there is snow at home! It blows my mind tha I am going home to that cold weather! Fortunately, when we took off in Atlanta we were able to see the trees and their colors change, so we experienced Autumn for about 30 seconds!

Now, I am sitting on the plane typing away and counting down the minutes until I am home in Minnesota and able to see my family! Mom and Dane are going to be at the airport to see me and Marcus is going to meet us at home when he is done with classes. We are going to go out for Mexican at Pablos tonight for dinner because I have such a craving for Mexican food…I haven’t eaten it since the night before I left for South Africa! I can’t wait and I am so darn excited! Only an hour and a half left on this flight and I’ll be home! I am so excited right now. But is’ strange because I’m sitting in the window seat looking out at the towns below and seeing American soil, but I am listening to my South African music….you can take the girl out of South Africa, but you can’t take South Africa out of the girl I guess. I am over the sadness of leaving SA…it’s just that I am going to miss Q and all of he other people I met so much, and that is what made leaving so darn difficult! But we have internet, Facebook, and all of the other wonderful ways to communicate! That’s about all that I have for right now…Minnesota, here I come!