Getting Here

After an incredibly restful 4 months back home (so much more could be said here to fill in the 4 month blank, but I'll leave it at that), I took off from LAX the evening of Jan 10th to start the journey back to Cape Town. I had an uneventful flight to London, then on to Cairo for a 24 hr extended layover.

I got in to Cairo around midnight on the 12th, and left around midnight on the 13th. Khaled the driver (for those of you who visited me in Egypt know Khaled well) picked me up so I was met by a smiling familiar face. I got dropped off at my friends Jen and Emily's apartment and crashed hard. I woke up early to the call to prayer from the mosque across the street, had a nice day of going to the gym, my favorite coffee shop, a massage from the Moroccan hammam, my favorite fruit stand, a yoga class, and practicing my arabic and and chatting it up with some of the familiar faces at all of the aforementioned places! I got to meet up with some friends that I taught with later that evening at the ACE club and left from the airport from there. That's where things got a little more interesting!

I was saying my goodbyes at the ACE when my phone rang. It was Khaled. I started apologizing for being late getting out to the front of the ACE, but he interrupted me and said, "No! I'm not there! There's riots on the Autostraud and I can't get there to pick you up!" So, that meant I had to grab a cab from the street, convince him to take me to the airport, and use the meter, and take the Ring Road instead of the Autostraud. It took some frantic arguing with none less than 4 cabs before I was on my way with a driver who was not sure how to get to the airport. Eventually we got there, a bit later than planned, but I made the flight and all was well for flight #3.

My flight from Cairo left a bit late, and landed a bit late in Johannesburg. I picked up my luggage and went through customs. I then had to re-check my luggage (a very large, heavy and awkwardly packed backpack) quickly and get my next boarding pass before my next plane left for Cape Town about 40 min later. I made it through the process and went to my gate. There were very few people waiting there, which should have concerned me. I then heard a final boarding call for my flight and looked again at the empty gate and my boarding pass. I was at the right gate, but...what? the time was wrong, and the NAME was wrong. I am not nor will I ever be Mr. Cotton.

I ran to the gate where my flight was supposed to leave from and explained my situation. The first question they asked was, "Well, who checked you in?" Uh... Their solution was to have my bag taken off of the Mr. Cotton's flight (which I ended up on) and for me to pick it up and re-check it with the same person who checked me in to begin with (retrace my steps from my 20 min sprint through the airport earlier - with a busted Achilles, mind you...), and have him re-check me for the next flight (Mr. Cotton's flight) if I could take care of all that business before the flight actually took off. To spare the boring details, I retraced all the steps and not one went smoothly. The man at the baggage said he would just cancel the order to take the bag off, so pretend I was Mr. Cotton, and the lady at the check in desk (clearly not the man who had checked me in) was having her own issues that day. But, I made it on the Cotton flight and made it to Cape Town! My luggage didn't, but I wasn't surprised. I really was just happy to be where I was supposed to be.

The luggage did get there later that evening - perfect timing when we went back to the airport to pick up another teacher.

Phew!