Arrival

(I will just write here about my arrival stuff and then write a new entry about actually being here-so if you want to skip this one because it may be boring, you may do so! But the bit at the end sort of introduces the people.)

Hi friends and family! Boy am I glad to FINALLY be writing. I’m in my room in my house in Bulembu at the moment. No, we don’t have wireless internet! I’m going to be writing all of my blogs and emails here and then sending them when I get to use the internet.
Let’s start with the beginning. I arrived in Joburg Friday morning after a long haul over! I flew from Dallas Wednesday afternoon at 4 and got to London the following morning at 7, only to see the LONGEST customs line I think I’ve ever seen! Lisa Mellgard, my surrogate mother, picked me up from the airport. I was sure happy to see her! She took me to the house and I got to rest and shower and repack because apparently you cannot have a normal size carry on when you go through London Heathrow airport, but only a briefcase. Of course BA flew me into Gatwick where a normal carry on was fine, but then they sent me out of Heathrow and it was up to me to suddenly shrink my baggage in order to not have to pay the ridiculous fee of 30 pds per kilogram!!! So that was a bit annoying. That evening at 7 I flew from LHR to Joburg, arriving Friday at 7 a.m. I wasn’t able to have much real sleep on the fully booked plane…just a few hours of plane sleep. So I was TIRED! Well…after going through customs I waited a while for my baggage…and I got some of it, but was missing one piece…so after a very long while there was no more luggage coming and I came to the conclusion that my last piece, my very small piece, was not there. So I went to the desk only to find out that it would be coming in on the next flight from LHR at 9:30. Unlucky! So we had to wait around a couple of hours. Well we were actually waiting for Brian anyway so we didn’t mind too much… Brian’s flight was meant to arrive at the same time as mine…but at about 8:30 we were really concerned because the only flight in from Cairo had already landed about an hour earlier. I finally got my last little piece of luggage and we decided that Brian must not have been on that flight after all….so I thought I should go check my email immediately to see what happened. To make a long story short, I had an email saying that he would hopefully be in Joburg the following morning instead. So Lee-Ann and I were able to spend the day and night in Joburg, which was great! We did a bit of shopping and eating and then went to her friend’s house, where we would stay overnight. We even got to go to the movies that evening! So the next morning we grabbed Brian and headed up to Bulembu. We arrived in Bulembu around 5:30 and went straight to a dinner party that was actually sort of a welcoming thing for these 2 American girls who had also just arrived that day. I was so excited to meet all of the young people! There are so many people around my age…I already have more friends my age than I did in England. How crazy is that! We have Julie from California/Georgia who is 23 and here for a year, Kara and Jenny from Boston who are in their early to mid 20’s and here 6 months (also brand new), Carl and Megen in their 20’s who are here for 5 years and are married with a precious little 4 year old daughter, Kathie in her early 20’s who has always lived in South Africa/Swaziland and is teaching at the school, my housemate Candace is 24 and is here through December and possibly another year (she teaches at the school as well and she’s my new best friend), another housemate called Jo who is South Korean and here another full year to teach at the preschool, Jackie who is South African and in her 20’s, Lee-Ann who is my friend and in her 30’s, Brian who is 25 and here 2 ½ months…I think that’s about it for the young and singles. As you can see, Brian is the long single male amongst a plethora of women!! I’m sure he’ll enjoy it though. So that is the run down. Now, in order to not make this entry any longer, I will do a new entry about my time here since my first day.