Back to Africa

OK, so I've made it as far as Johannesburg. I'm sitting in the gleaming Johannesburg International Airport, enjoying a caffe latte and a muffin. I had a pretty good breakfast an hour or so before the end of the marathon 15 hour flight from JFK, but I don't know if we'll eat on the flight to Lusaka - and I don't know how things will go once I get to Zambia. The entire terminal is awash with World Cup signs and souvenirs. The flight over on South African Airways was very comfortable, aided immeasurably by scoring a bulkhead (I used World Cup fever, and how it compared to what it was like in Atlanta during the Olympics, as my intro into chatting up the counterperson when I talked my way into a bulkhead). It also helped to have an individual video screen and a movie library, even if you're not that hot to see the movies. In between napping and eating three times I managed to watch six movies: Sherlock Holmes, Wolverine, Fantastic 4: Rise of the Silver Surfer, 27 Dresses, Must Love Dogs, and Something's Gotta Give. It does eat up a lot of hours. Now I just hope they flip over the movie list before my flight back. I'm just about exhausted - I figure by the time I land in Lusaka I'll have been travelling for a little over 25 hours. I think years of profound sleep apnea has left me uniquely qualified for international travel. That said, I really hope the driver is waiting for me at the airport - and I'm glad I went ahead and spent the money to get the Zambian visa early and not waited to do it at the airport. I want to get checked in, find a place to work out, and maybe grab a swim.