In Washington, we met up with Blair, but checked in too late to get seats together (flights didn't have much time between them). Luckily, the flight wasn't full, and we still sat beside each other through seat-swapping. Unfortunately, our original flight had broken down earlier that morning and we flew in an old Iberian Airways plane instead. No leg-room or personal TVs. Someone even complained about The Mechanic being inappropriate for kids, so they stopped screening it and showed Toy Story instead. Then No Strings Attached twice....
When we stopped in Dakar, the doors were opened and mosquitoes flew in...since we never asked the travel clinic about mosquitoes there, we're hoping they don't carry malaria! LOL. Also bizarre was the new practice of spraying chemicals into the air-tight plane to "clean" the air, but it ends up suffocating everyone instead. Not a fan, obviously! At least I got 6 hours of sleep on the 8-hour flight that time!
After what seemed like forever on the ugly plane, we arrived in Johannesburg at sunset! It was beautiful, warm and humid. We picked up our bags and headed over to domestic flights. Our prof had warned us about people wanting to take your bags for you and how they demanded money, so I was pretty on guard, but one of the illegal porters tried taking us away from where the legal porters told us, and I got the other two to leave him. The man got arrested after. Haha. The lady at the check-in counter warned us about them!
I made a crucial traveling mistake by forgetting to call Mastercard before I left and I didn't have any South African rand ($) on me, so I was in a catch-22. If I used my credit card to buy money, my card would get stopped, and if I used my card to call Mastercard, it would also get stopped. Luckily, Marion bought a calling card, and I used it to make the call.
My second mistake was eating at Wimpy burger place. Haha. We sat on the plane from Johannesburg to Durban next to a local who told us it was worse then McDonald's. And the ketchup is weird! BUT they do have white vinegar for fries, ketchup and regular mustard, which cannot be found in Europe.
Our takeoff from Jo'burg was delayed by a half hour because of thunderstorms and other flights were cancelled, but the weather was "obviously better in Durban" as the captain put it! Our driver was there waiting for us with Alena and Courtney, who had flown through Dubai.
So we finally went to bed around midnight here after caling home and settling into our hostel. We're not supposed to go out after dark, and last night we noticed that the streets were BARE. The driver said that even black people are risking their safety by going out at night.
Mom will love this: the sign in the communal bathroom says showers have a maximum of 7 minutes because of water shortages and due to power shortages, they asked us to turn off the lights in our cabins when we're not there. Thankfully nobody timed my shower because I went as fast as possible, but you can't get the shampoo rinsed in 7 minutes when the water pressure is bad enough that the water falls limply from the shower head! I hear the other shower is better, so I'll find out soon enough!
Today we went to Musgrave Mall, with a wide racial variety and took out rand and had lunch. Food is basically the same price, but they have my FAVOURITE peach iced tea that I found in France! The walk was nice and very hilly. Everyone here has gated homes. Then we went to get groceries and they are basically a steal compared to Canada. The conversion has most of us scratching our heads at prices, though. Since it's 7 rand to 1 Canadian dollar, we are constantly dividing my 7. I need to buy a phone tomorrow if only for the calculator function!
So far, we have only driven past the stadium built for the World Cup and the big sugar factories and the port (9th biggest in the world, biggest in Africa). Tomorrow we hit uShaka Marine World on the beach with our prof now that the last 4 girls made it in!
Time to figure out dinner!
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