June 1st- arrive to Cape Town

We had better seats on the way to Cape Town. I had my preferred window seat, Mitchell sat next to me and then some random girl next to him who declined all the food and drinks they offered. This was almost a 12 hour flight.. she had to have been hungry.

After watching 2 movies I decide to try to sleep. They gave us eye masks on this plane which really helped. American Airlines did not give us eye masks... so British Airways is already a better airline. So I put the mask on, set up my pillow and I fall asleep pretty quickly. Mitch says I slept for a long time and it was very much needed. I think I woke up around 6am. I dozed in and out until they gave us breakfast which was... interesting.

I took some pictures from my window seat as Southern Africa is a bit hilly. We arrive to Cape Town at 9:45 am and go through customs which did not even require a customs form. We are, by the way, 6 hours ahead of Eastern time. We pick up our luggage, go through more security check and finally get out to where everyone is waiting. We meet Melissa who is from Notre Dame and helped set everything up and she drives us to our apartments.

Our apartment is a 20 story building on top of a shopping mall and 2 grocery stores.

We literally never need to leave the building to buy what we need. After getting settled in Mitch and I opt out of going to Wine Country (although it sounded really fun) and decided to take a much needed nap. We sleep from 11-4:30/5pm. After that we shower, go to the grocery store to get things for breakfast, and then we all go out to eat. There are 4 students total for this internship. 2 flew out Saturday (1 day before us) and they are from Venezuela and Romania and the other guy flew in today about 1 hour ago with his wife. I have not met them yet.

Monday the 3 (Mitch, Alex and Margo) go to their internship site and I stick around here. I have not received a volunteer assignment yet although they are working on it and looking into me helping out possibly at a nearby hospital. I sleep in, shower, and decided to hit the mall. It's a decent size mall although there are not many stores that I am very interested in. I first buy things we need; dish soap, kleenex, an adapter for our appliances, and then some other items like lotion, chips, a nail file since i left mine at home. I spend a good 2 1/2- 3 hours just walking around, trying to kill time. I also bought minutes for my phone- every one of us received a little nokia phone (circa 2003) that are pay as you go.

If I have not mentioned before I shall now- things are either comparable to the US or much cheaper. I bought 75 minutes for 60 rand. At first I thought.. that sounds expensive but then I remember the conversion. Basically divide everything by 10 and that is the approximate equivalent. So 75 minutes for $6. I don't plan on using it much so it wasn't that big of a deal. When we went out to dinner the first night I got a cheeseburger, fries and a fanta, mitch got some kind of pasta dish and i split an appetizer with Alex. Our portion of the bill came out to I think 164R, so we just gave 180R otherwise $18.

And as far as temperature goes... it hasn't been too cold outside just yet but there is no heat in the apartment so I am currently lying in bed under the covers. We have a nice view of the mountain from our apartment although it has been cloudy every day so you can't really see it. But whenever it does finally clear up I'll post a picture for you all to see.

London Pictures

Here are the pictures as promised from our 12 hour layover in London.

London Thus Far

Yesterday we started day one of our trip. It started with being picked up at noon by United Cab (don't use them) and it was a little sketchy and here is why.
1) The driver wore no shoes
2) There was a girl riding with him.. unknown if it was his daughter, sister or what.
3) They had their seats reclined all the way back so much that we could barely get in.
4) In the back seat there were rims just laying on the floor.
5) He was texting/ calling people while driving.
6) He ran a red light and it wasn't even close.. he clearly should have stopped.
7) He almost hit a car in front of us.. unrelated to running the red light.

We arrive to the South Bend airport and hop on the South Shore to Chicago. This is the most cost saving way to get to Chicago. It is $11.75 to the train station where we walk a block and transfer to the metra line, which then takes us to the Chicago O'Hare airport. This takes us up until 4:30pm and so at this point we have already been traveling for 5 hours 30 minutes and we haven't even gotten on the plane yet. Mitch and I eat a quick meal at the airport and finally board the plane.

I got the middle middle seat. Yes, I put middle in there purposely because this is how we sat. K-for Kate, M-Mitch.

XX    XXKMX   XX

Not the best arrangement and hard to sleep.

We arrive to London Heathrow Airport just after 9am. We have to go through customs because 1)We wanted to go out and explore some and 2) Our connecting flight is British Airlines and so we don't have our boarding passes or seat assignments. So after customs we inquire where we can check in, and find out that we need to go to another terminal by train to do so. So long story short, by the time we get all this done, we are finally on the train to downtown London by 10:45am. We don't get into the city until Noon! This was taking forever.

We get off the train and once we get outside you hear Big Ben striking twelve. Very cool to hear. We walk around for a few hours, looking at the London Eye, Big Ben, Westminster Abbey and Buckingham Palace. Sometimes we stopped inbetween to take a lil snoozer on the lawns. We are so dang tired. We finally head back to the airport around 4pm, arrive at 5, eat a light dinner (because everything is so frickin expensive) and now Mitchell and I are waiting to board our next plane to Cape Town. We should be able to in about 30-40 minutes.

I will post pictures later- we have a limited internet connection.

Leaving soon for Cape Town

Mitchell and I leave for Cape Town, South Africa May 30th. But first we will have a 12 hour layover in London, England. We will actually do some sight seeing while there and try to take in as much as we can during this one day. Then we leave again that night (May 31st) for Cape Town and will arrive the morning of June 1st.
I hope to post information about what we are doing down there. Mitchell will be doing an internship through Notre Dame and I am hoping to do some volunteer work.