The Journey

Well, after almost 40 hours of travel, we have finally made it. I have never been more excited in my life to step off of an airplane. We started our journey in Seattle on Sunday night at 6 pm. We traveled over 9 hours to London where we had a 7 hour layover. I had been to the airport in London before so it did not surprise me to see nothing but shops in the terminal…the place was lit up with walls of liquor bottles and wreaked of perfume. Come to find out, you can actually taste your way through the “liquor stores.” We obviously did that wrong! Although everyone has a different accent and there are thousands upon thousands of people there, it still didn’t feel real. London was too much like home for it to really register that we were on our way to AFRICA! When we landed, we had to go through an immigration checkpoint. This line took absolutely forever and was completely disorganized—and all that not to text a stamp in our passports! This brought us to another security checkpoint that took forever to get through. My shoe got stuck going through the belt and I thought for a moment that I would have to spend the next amount of hour without shoes until I got my luggage in Windhoek.  Finally, we were through security and could relax for a while before our next flight. Despite some of us still feeling queasy from the flight, we headed to a restaurant for lunch.

Finally, it was time to board our flight to Johannesburg. We were all so excited to finally get out of the airport and be closer to the end, only to wait even more. Many of us agreed the 9 hour, 30 minute flight to LHR wasn’t bad, though we hardly slept. We were excited to sleep lots once we got on this flight. When you first get onto an international flight, they come through and offer you drinks pretty soon after take off so they can follow that with your meal. Well I fell asleep right away and missed that first pass-through…and by that I mean I missed a free mini bottle of wine! But, I wasn’t going to miss dinner. My body was so confused; I was exhausted, had no idea what time it was or what time I think it should be, and I definitely had no idea what meal I should be eating. Luckily I woke up before they came through for dinner. I chose the chicken dish that came with this lovely bean salad. Let me tell you, it was everything but lovely. I thought of my dad and his hatred for beans, as I wearily gave it one taste. It was hardly deserving of even a “no thank you portion.” It was awful.  Thankfully the flight attendants came through to collect the “rubbish” before offering us some tea (the best part of BA!) and the dreadful bean salad was gone (dad, you would have been proud!).

This flight didn’t seem so bad at first. A few of us talked after dinner before turning on a movie, or two, or three…the best part about an international flight is the TV screens right in front of you. I watched a movie or two and passed out. We were about 2 hours into the flight at this point and I was excited to finally sleep! Although, it wasn’t long before the turbulence woke me up again. Around hour 5, I woke up and realized it wasn’t even halfway over. It was extremely bumpy, which I later found out was because we were crossing the equator and the extreme heat can cause turbulence. Yes, you heard me…we crossed the equator!!! The next 5 and a half hours were grueling. Many of us were wide awake, since it was such a bumpy ride. For the next 5.5 hours, the only things that kept me going were the really awesome British flight attendants who would call me “love” every time I brought them trash or asked for something.

When we finally landed, after a very English breakfast of bangers and eggs (not as bad as the boxed breakfast the morning before), and once again had to go through some sort of immigration checkpoint, even though we were only considered to be in-transit. But this time, the line was short AND we got a stamp! That made up for the mess in London. This time, when we arrived, we found a restaurant that was almost empty (it was only 7 am) where we could stop for a coke and a bite to eat. I am not much of a pop drinker, but there is almost nothing better than a Coke while traveling, especially to calm an upset stomach. A few of us sat down at the restaurant to look over the menu. One thing I have noticed, even while in London is the lack of urgency of the wait staff. Having been a server myself, urgency is the name of the game, in the US that is. It takes almost forever for servers to bring your drinks back, and take your order. After that, many of us went to the bathroom to change our clothes (the most glorious feeling I have ever experienced after that many hours of travel) and brush our furry teeth—thank you Kelsey for that image (the second most glorious feeling I’ve ever experienced). We returned to the restaurant to play games (cribbage and this sweet game called Spot It that Nick brought with him) to pass the time. It was actually really fun despite how exhausted and anxious we all were. We then headed down to the terminal to board our next flight to Windhoek. Remember how I said there is not much urgency to be had here? Well, we boarded around 11:50 for our 12 pm flight. Luckily the flight wasn’t full, so we could move after takeoff. But before take off, it is part of South Africa’s health regulations that they spray the cabin. So before we took off, the flight attendant came by and sprayed the entire cabin with what smelled like public bathroom cleaner that later filled the cabin with mist—gross! I was so stoked to see a female pilot in the cockpit…but not as stoked after such a bumpy ride. In the US, it takes quite a while after takeoff for the captain to turn off the fasten seatbelt sign, but here, it couldn’t have been more than 5 or 10 minutes before we were allowed to freely move about the cabin. We all sort of looked around at each other in a bit of disbelief. Things are a little more lackadaisical here to say the least. The flight was short, only 2 hours. The landing, however, was less than pleasant. As we are all already anxious and not feeling the greatest after 30 something hours of travel, it took nothing short of a pep talk and some deep breaths not to lose the oh so wonderful lunch we were just served on the plane…yuck. Don’t worry, the woman across the aisle from me didn’t make it…yuck again.

FINALLY, we had arrived in Windhoek; it was looking a little questionable there during those last few minutes. It was extremely hot when we walked on the plane and I thought I might melt under the sun. Next we had to go through immigration for real this time. This also took forever, which was very “typical” as Paula would say. When the first people went through they didn’t believe we were tourists who would be in their country for 2 months to hike the sand dunes, etc. But they got tired of asking, so when I came through, the lady didn’t even look at me, just stamped my passport and I was good to go! We got our luggage, met our driver and loaded the vans to drive about 40 minutes into Windhoek where our house is. When we arrived, we toured the house, began to unpack and took a much-needed shower before grocery shopping. We then went grocery shopping (which only cost about 3000 Namibian dollars—more about that experience later) and ordered pizza to eat when we got home. I have never been more excited to eat pizza in my life, especially having worked at a pizza restaurant! It was glorious to not be eating anymore British airplane food. By this time it was around 7:45 pm and we only had to wait about 1 hour to go to sleep in a real bed, thank goodness!!! We opened a bottle of wine, dipped our feet in the small pool and sat around and talked before bed. I got a great night’s sleep and only woke up at 6 am, one hour before my alarm.

I have never been so excited to walk off a plane in my life and would be happy to never see one again. And at this point, I wouldn’t mind staying here. It’s beautiful! It is about 70 degrees right now, the sun’s out and the birds are chirping out my window! Today we will go on our first tour of the city of Windhoek and the townships where we will be teaching before having some free time downtown. I am hoping to buy a purse and coin purse to have while I am here and take some Namibian dollars from the ATM.

Thank you all so much for your prayers on our journey—we are finally here and I am still in shock! I just want to share every moment with you all. I promise my posts won’t be quite so long after this. I will restrain myself from sharing every detail. Can’t wait to share more about my first impressions and pictures soon—I don’t have any yet, but will post ASAP!