Early in the morning we headed out the door (like 5:30 I think). It was not a smooth exit, the one laptop bag was not a laptop bag and I had to repack some of that stuff and I lost my cool and my pb sandwich. Ugh off to KCI with no breakfast! We got to Shawnee, picked up Paul and headed to the airport. We got through the check in and security, laughing at the dumbfounded look on people's faces when we said our destination was Johannesburg. "South Africa?", they'd say. Long day! Unfortunately, there was no food on the other side of security so we went back out of security so we could go to Quiznos. The flight to Washington DC was uneventful except everyone's electronic devices were losing charge so fast all we wanted to do was plug in. We found some real food at Fuddruckers, a restaraunt I remember from my friend RuthAnne's Maryland days, not sure why! BUT when Alan and I returned "early" to the gate to plug our computers and ipods in I heard a staff person calling out our seat numbers in an irritated tone. Sure enough, we were supposed to be checked in and we weren't. It was an hour ahead of time, but they were boarding our flight already. We got everything unplugged, the ones still eating back to the gate and we were on the plane!
South African Airlines gave the boys coloring bags to which they did not know what to say and the stewardess said, "A thank you would be nice." Oops. Then she came by asking for our drink order and when Erin looked at her with uncertainty she said, "Do I have to list all the drinks for you?" and then asked if she spoke when spoken too because Erin was looking at her dumbfoundedly. Sigh, all we needed, a cheeky stewardess on our first international flight. That was only for the first 8 hours because we stopped in Dakar, the wait staff deplaned and a new crew took over (halleluiah!). They also sprayed the cabin with very strong disinfectant. I had mistakenly given the 2 older kids (and myself) a sleeping pill (just unisom)
Sadly, in Dakar it was in full force, but no one would let me sleep. Not good. Somehow we made it through the "night". Praise the Lord we had pancakes for breakfast and landed without incident. We were greeted by family and aside from a seemingly endless, bumpy, nauseating drive through downtown Johannesburg...we were there safe and sound!
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