Gregory's Travels

So this entry is gonna be rather long since I'm gonna cover traveling to Gaborone which by the way I've discovered to be pronounce with an gruff "H" sound as opposed to a "G," but I'm pretty sure that the "G" pronunciation is still acceptable outside the country. I think this will be the best way to describe the air travel and such. If you find it tedious feel free to skip to the entries since landing in Gaborone. But there are some really good short stories within a few of the time stamp entries.

Saturday, May 14th

0000 EST - Can't sleep. Too much Snapple Peach Tea. Made from the Best stuff on Earth.

0330 EST - Alarms go off. Drag myself out of bed. Shower. Dress.

0415 EST - Load. Ride.

0500 EST - Arrive at Cleveland Hopkins Int'l Airport. A very helpful man helped me get my boarding pass and baggaged checked.

0530 EST - Got through security and waited at gate. Notice a large woman holding and petting a tiny furry thing on her chest, later to be discovered to have been a rabbit. Fell asleep at gate.

0545 EST - Heard Jon Hilty and Steven Armstrong arrive and sit near me. Removed fedora draped on my head, greeted them.

0615 EST - Notice an Indian woman bound for Delhi with her two sons sit near me in the terminal. The 7-8 year old proceded to inform his younger (5-6) brother how planes work, and actually described the mechanics of lift quite accurately.

0630 EST - Board the plane. The rows are situated 1 seat-aisle-2 seats. I'm in the single. I ended up sitting behind the mother and her two boys. Across from me is a woman, presumably Russian, heading to "Mus-cohw." I had to restrain myself from trying out my Russian accent in front of her, since I spent the last couple weeks of the semester practicing it; figured it'd be rude.

0655 EST - Take off. The two boys are very fun to watch. They brought out some Legos from their packs and nostalgic visions of my childhood flooded my memory. When we were getting buckled in, the older boy insisted on helping his brother saying, "Let the Seat Belt Master show you how its done." I don't think he saw my own belt that I was wearing (For those of you who don't know, I have a belt for pants that is really an airplane seatbelt because life's a wild ride, you gotta buckle up). That boy was so smart, he said after he was done looking out the window that he was "doing some research" about the speed of the plane and the mechanics of wings. I couldn't believe he said that, now I know why so many of my Indian friends at school are all into research, they start them off young.

0830 EST - Descent. See a lot of porpoises or something in the Atlantic's waters while overhead. Land at JFK. Taxi forever, we landed on a runway on the opposite of the airport where our terminal was, and took the long way around. Accidentally unbuckled the wrong seatbelt and tried getting up. Bet that looked silly. Deplane. Find other Case students from our flight. Begin to make our way to the international terminal. 99.99% that I saw K'naan just sitting there in there in the one terminal we entered in. I was three rows back at his concert at Case last fall, so I'm pretty confident that it was him. Coincidence? Perhaps. But I did remember to put his single and the South African World Cup theme song, Wavin' Flag, on the playlist for the next plane.

1045 EST - Board plane to South Africa. So many people. Pretty packed flight. One of the flight attendants said he like my hat as I was boarding the plane from the bridge, but in the way that was "Sir, I'm gonna have to confiscate that hat. We can't allow that on the plane. What size is it?" all with a smile. Gullible me, I actually removed the fedora and was halfway to holding it out to before I realized he was complimenting me. Flight's suppose to be 15 hours long. Find out there's a girl from Case in my row. Asked the middle aged man to swap spots with me. Find out later that he is an American expatriate living near Cape Town, South African for business. The other person in our row is a South African expatriate living in Brooklyn.

11:15 EST - Take off. Quite possibly one of the more dreadful experiences of my life. Definitely am not looking forward to the trip back home. Cramped. Baby crying intermittently 2 rows up and 4 seats over. Another baby's crying was also audible. Gotta give props to the near baby though. Heard her over the jet engines and a rousing chorus of Meat Loaf's "I'd Do Anything for Love," at 75% max volume. Couldn't get more than an hour of sleep at a time, which I wanted to make sleep a priority since Johannesburg and Gaborone are both on Central African Time (CAT), 6 hours ahead of EST, and it was gonna be 0745 in Joburg when we landed. Watched two movies, Sherlock Holmes and No Strings Attached. Had two meals. One had these curious little vegetable things that were ellipsoid in shape and were squishy to the touch of my fork. Still tasty.

Sunday, May 15th

0600 CAT - Each headrest had a personal viewing screen for the person behind them. In addition of movies and displaying a rather disproportionately happy fella what simple exercises that can be done to help make it through the flight, there was video from a camera located on the tail of the plane. Now it hasn't been much use since we've been flying in the dark for the last 8 or so hours, but I flipped to the camera channel just in time for my first African sunrise. I quickly found "The Circle of Life" from The Lion King on my iPod and continued to watch the sun come up for the duration of that song.

0745 CAT - The Eagle has landed in South Africa. I look over at the Kansas native man and I swear he was txting a person named Van de Merwe. (District 9 reference).

0800 CAT - Disembark. They drive on the left side. Proceed through security to International Transfers in O. R. Tambo Int'l Airport. Get a transit stamped in my passport. Killed time doing various things in the terminal. Visited a small cafe with a view of the runway and some terminals. Ordered a chocolate milkshake. 26 Rand. That's about 6R to 1USD. The menu first started showcasing the new ways to spell familiar words. On the menu: wrappes Everything being sold was of course duty free. Saw a wicker statue of Mandela. Pretty cool. Waited. Napped. Most of the group is together now. Some got earlier flights. I had a 1415 departure.

1430 CAT - After a dreadful wait at the gate, in the shuttle to the tarmac, and on the runway we are finally airborne in a small two prop plane. 55 minute flight. Sat next to an English woman, around my parents age I would wager, since she mentioned how her daughter was my age. Talked about each of our reasons of going to Gaborone. Her first trip to Botswana but she's well traveled in Africa. She works in mobile communications. The plane ride over was so scenic. It's really flat out here. Red dirt roads all over the bush.

1530 CAT - Landed. Exited onto tarmac. Very sunny. It was like 75 degrees or as it is down here, 25 Celsius. I was wearing the same jeans and light jacket I was wearing in rainy Cleveland. Proceed inside of Sir Seretse Khama Int'l Airport.

So after 8500 miles, 27 hours and a sunrise across a sapphire sky, I was finally in Botswana.