First Day Update from Fish....
We are trying out best to work out the internet situation here in South Africa and making sure to update the blog site as often as possible. Hopefully we will be able to post at the end of every day here (about 10pm - midnight) so look for posts around 5 - 6pm Eastern Time.... Here is the first blog from Fish on the Trip....
-McCall
Hey there,
Wow. So it is 11:05 pm on Saturday March 15 in Cape Town, South Africa and we are here safe and sound. For those keeping track at home, that means we are 6 hours ahead of Eastern Standard Time here. According to my rudimentary understanding of physics, that means we have time traveled into the future. Haha, but seriously, it has been a looonnnnggg trip, but we are all really excited to finally be here. We left F&M around noon EST, and arrived at our Best Western in Cape Town about 28 hours later. At the beginning of the trip, Coach described today as “organized chaos,” and that’s basically what it was. As it turned out, South Africa customs basically let us smuggle 30-some odd bags of soccer equipment (which we are donating to townships in the local Cape Town community) into their country without even batting an eyelash, so we really lucked out there.
The longest part of the trip was the flight from Washington DC to Johannesburg which was about 14.5 hours long. I do not know if it was the excitement of knowing what lies ahead of us over the next week-and-a-half, the fact that we were all together on the same plane and we usually don’t struggle to have a good time, or the relatively nice accommodations of the airline (especially for myself and Danny Levi who saw two open seats in the front row with extra leg room and snuck up there to take them), but I think overall that flight was not nearly as awful as we expected it to be. One cool thing occurred on the plane when it was 9:30 pm EST and we were flying somewhere over the Atlantic Ocean and the pilot announced that we should shut our window shades because we would be approaching daylight. Also, while we were at altitude, the plane said the air outside was -70 degrees Fahrenheit, which I find hard to believe, but was not willing to go outside and see for myself. Finally, apparently flying for long periods of times causes your ankles to swell, which really took the debate over whether seniors Ryan McGonigle or Chris Walters has larger kankles to a whole new level.
So I can’t really say much about Cape Town yet, because as we drove to our hotel it was night and we couldn’t see much; but, one thing I can say is it is crazy windy here tonight. During one gust, freshman Matt Krantz was almost blown out to the ocean. Also, sophomore Lane Bodian pointed out that over the next two weeks we will be experiencing all 4 seasons. While we are in South Africa it will be changing from summer to fall. When we left F&M it was still winter, and when we come back it will be spring, so that’s a pretty fun fact for you. I do not know exactly how internet works at our hotel, but hopefully we should have someone making an entry for every day. Anyway, 28 hours of traveling is no day at the beach, so I am going to go relax with my roommates, and look forward to tomorrow which is our day to hang out on the beach.
-Brian
-McCall
Hey there,
Wow. So it is 11:05 pm on Saturday March 15 in Cape Town, South Africa and we are here safe and sound. For those keeping track at home, that means we are 6 hours ahead of Eastern Standard Time here. According to my rudimentary understanding of physics, that means we have time traveled into the future. Haha, but seriously, it has been a looonnnnggg trip, but we are all really excited to finally be here. We left F&M around noon EST, and arrived at our Best Western in Cape Town about 28 hours later. At the beginning of the trip, Coach described today as “organized chaos,” and that’s basically what it was. As it turned out, South Africa customs basically let us smuggle 30-some odd bags of soccer equipment (which we are donating to townships in the local Cape Town community) into their country without even batting an eyelash, so we really lucked out there.
The longest part of the trip was the flight from Washington DC to Johannesburg which was about 14.5 hours long. I do not know if it was the excitement of knowing what lies ahead of us over the next week-and-a-half, the fact that we were all together on the same plane and we usually don’t struggle to have a good time, or the relatively nice accommodations of the airline (especially for myself and Danny Levi who saw two open seats in the front row with extra leg room and snuck up there to take them), but I think overall that flight was not nearly as awful as we expected it to be. One cool thing occurred on the plane when it was 9:30 pm EST and we were flying somewhere over the Atlantic Ocean and the pilot announced that we should shut our window shades because we would be approaching daylight. Also, while we were at altitude, the plane said the air outside was -70 degrees Fahrenheit, which I find hard to believe, but was not willing to go outside and see for myself. Finally, apparently flying for long periods of times causes your ankles to swell, which really took the debate over whether seniors Ryan McGonigle or Chris Walters has larger kankles to a whole new level.
So I can’t really say much about Cape Town yet, because as we drove to our hotel it was night and we couldn’t see much; but, one thing I can say is it is crazy windy here tonight. During one gust, freshman Matt Krantz was almost blown out to the ocean. Also, sophomore Lane Bodian pointed out that over the next two weeks we will be experiencing all 4 seasons. While we are in South Africa it will be changing from summer to fall. When we left F&M it was still winter, and when we come back it will be spring, so that’s a pretty fun fact for you. I do not know exactly how internet works at our hotel, but hopefully we should have someone making an entry for every day. Anyway, 28 hours of traveling is no day at the beach, so I am going to go relax with my roommates, and look forward to tomorrow which is our day to hang out on the beach.
-Brian
posted by Matt McCall at
6:18 PM
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