Hooray for the 21st Century

It makes me laugh a little inside whenever I hear someone complaining about a long flight, a missed connection, or a crying baby. Can you imagine the difficulties of traveling hundreds of years ago? I’ll take any modern inconveniences that come my way. Flying through the air in a metal tube and arriving on a different continent while being served a fairly good meal is opulence, even in economy. 

This trip I get to fly on the largest passenger plane in service, the A380. 468 fellow passengers and I loaded up for the 10-hour flight to London from LAX. It was a comfortable flight, even in economy. 

After three hours at Heathrow I boarded the next flight to Johannesburg. Another A380 but this time I was on the upper level. I paid a little more for exit row seats on these flights. Exit row = Poor man’s first class — the extra leg room is so great to have on long flights. 

I arrived in Johannesburg at about 7:00am on June 5 — nine hours ahead of Pacific time. The lodge I’m staying for a couple nights picked me up. It’s just about 15 minutes from the airport. It’s not fancy. It’s laid out like a single story motel with gardens outside the rooms and about 25 fenced acres beyond that with a few different types of animals, all deer-like. 

Liesbeth, Jos, and Gerrit arrive tomorrow so I have another day here. I should be well adjusted by the time we leave on our road trip the following morning.