Houston to Washington D.C. to Dakar to Johannesburg and finally NAMIBIA! We made it after one connecting flight, one pit stop, one night in Jo-burg and one last flight till we head home in four weeks. We’ll be bussing it around Namibia from now on. The A&M mascot Reveille gets a first class seat in my bag so you be able to see what she is up to also. I’m the official plush Reveille handler for this study abroad as deemed by the Study Abroad Programs office (I volunteered). I don’t think they know how obsessed I am with this, they only asked for 10 and I’ve already taken 18 in the first three days… they don’t even know what’s coming.
Flight Experience:
The three hour flight to Washington D.C. was pretty normal, we flew United Airlines and I decided watched Into the Woods on the plane which took most of the time. There were so many movies to choose from! We arrived to the D.C. airport with enough time to walk around and get something to eat; the time flew by so fast! We ended up getting a call from our professor saying that the plane was boarding so everyone rushed from all over the airport to get to our gate. Since our boarding passes were with United, everyone needed to get a South African Airlines pass. I was the last one in line and figured my seat would be the same as the one on the old boarding pass, right? I didn’t even look at the new pass. Much to my surprise my seat was in row 15, not on row 70-something. I walked all the way to the back where my group was, getting confused as to why my seat number was so low. Well a flight attendant told me I was in “Premium Class,” and proceeded to escort me to the front of the plane. At this point everyone hates me, luckily another girl, Janesha, had also been upgraded and took the heat with me. It was great, let me tell you… first class is the best way to take a 17 hour flight. Comfortable, reclining seats, delicious food, cool air… ok I’m done, you can look at my pictures. Anyway, I sat next to an older man from Zimbabwe who had been in Texas visiting his daughter. He talked quite a bit, but was pretty quiet so I don’t really have any other information about him. I thought the flight attendants were really nice, but some of the girls in the back mentioned they were kind of rude, it might have been the specific one assigned to their section, but there is a little review for you. They provided us with two dinners, breakfast and lunch. We had an hour-long pit stop in Dakar then proceeded to fly into Johannesburg. It was such a coincidence, I watched the movie Chappie which was set there so I thought that was cool. After staying the night in Jo-burg we boarded a plane to Windhoek, Namibia! Apparently there was lunch, but I slept the entire time. I was glad to have the very roomy emergency row window seat. I’m not sure why I got to choose my seat, but it was the last window seat available on the British Airline. I was able to convert my U.S. Dollars to the Namibian currency at the airport, their bills are so colorful! The shops in the Johannesburg airport were so cool! Some of them were very ‘African’ looking and sold zebra skins/rugs! I asked and the cheapest ones were a little under $900. I seriously want to come back to Africa one day with an empty suitcase and small carryon just so I can get all the things to decorate my home. It’s going to happen. Zebra print everything, except the woodcarvings of other wildlife. Our advisors told us we would be able to find most of the items elsewhere on our trip for less so I didn’t buy anything. They also said they like to buy from villages because you get to physically meet the person who carved, sewed or made the item, as well as supporting some of these people’s only income.
Night in Johannesburg:
As I mentioned before, we spent one night in Johannesburg, South Africa before arriving in Namibia. We stayed at the City Lodge hotel which is connected to the airport, it was so nice! At this point it didn’t really feel like we were in Africa yet, didn’t walk outside and the hotel looks like it could be a nice hotel in America. We went to our rooms to unwind for a bit then met downstairs for dinner. I had a tomato and cheese sandwich that came with salad and chips (less than $5! It would probably be about $10 at Panera for the amount of food I got) and an apple crumble dessert which was delicious, it was surrounded by this yellow liquid which looked weird, but was so good! We were able to take hot showers from a rainfall type shower head and relax before bed, its was so nice. Plus I roomed with a super nice girl in our group named, Demi. I had fun talking with her and some girls across the hall! A breakfast buffet was provided in the morning and it had so many options, I tried a little bit of everything so I wont go into detail about the food options, but the had a pot of tea on every table! We have been told we have tea times in the future on this trip and I think that is just so exciting! The only downside to this hotel was we only had one plug in the room so it was hard to charge all of our electronics. In Africa, their voltage is higher so it charges faster, but you can’t leave anything plugged in for a long time or else it could kill the battery. This means we couldn’t charge things during dinner or breakfast or during the night while we were sleeping. That was pretty minor though, I could deal without my laptop for one day until we got to our new location, but you’ll hear about that in the next post. Spoiler alert, this place has three plugs per room, but also it doesn’t like extension cords with surge protectors… Stay tuned!
Overall this trip has been so great and amazing, I’ve seen some wildlife (there were baboons like squirrels by the airport in Windhoek) and have had so much fun getting to know everyone! I’m just so thankful to finally be here since I was supposed to come last year, I can’t believe that I’m actually in Africa. We had a game tour, so you’ll see a lot of wildlife on the next post!
Follow my group by searching the hashtag #TAMUtakesNamibia15 or follow Reveille with the hashtag #RevOnTheRoad
P.S. I’m in Africa!!!? Ahhh!!