Arrived!

Well I've arrived in Capetown in one piece. I am at the University computer lab while Jenny is in a meeting about her community project. It looks like I might be going with her this Wednesday to help out or just observe. The flight was good; it was probably the best travelling experience I've had so far. The flight to London wasn't bad, but I didn't get much sleep. Some lady yelled at me for changing into my sweatpants in the bathroom at Trudeau airport and started banging on the stall door and screaming. Where did she expect me to change? The middle of the terminal? Rob Lowe was at the gate next to mine, but that's about teh extent of the excitement for that leg of the trip. The first flight was pretty uneventful, I didn't get a huge amount of sleep though. I got into Heathrow at about 8 am on Sunday morning, with all my bags checked all the way through to Capetown. I took the tube into meet Jerome at Picadilly Circus. It was an absolutely gorgeous day. Not a cloud in the sky and about 20 degrees. We just happened to come across the changing of the guard as it was starting and saw the whole thing, which was cool. Instead of taking a tour bus (which is ridiculously expensive like everything else in London) we decided to walk and saw pretty much all the major sights (Parliament, Big Ben, Westminster Abbey, Trafalgar Square, London Bridge, Tower of London, etc...). Jerome had a cold so he went home mid-afternoon (aftre we stopped for a pint) and I just wandered around for a while. I found this fabulous book store that I would love to just live in and also just sat down and had a coffee at this great Cafe next to a fountain. I felt oh so European! After while I started to get tired (and had a little sun stroke) so I headed back to Heathrow on the Tube. Unfortunately the showers at the airport were being repaired and I jsut ended up falling asleep on a bench at my terminal. The flight ended up being fabulous. Even though it was almost 12 hours long, it's by far the best flight I have ever been on. There were loads of extra seats (each person had about three), so I got a whole section to myself, which made it a lot easier to sleep as I could actually lie down. We all got personal entertainment systems, and the service was exceptional. We even got some nice South African wine in little personalized bottles. I woke up at about 6 am just in time to see the sun beginning to rise. It was unquestionably the most breathtakingly beautiful thing I have ever seen. The sky was still starry and the land just went on forever, but the sun is just this incredible deep orange color. It literally took my breath away. Flying into Capetown was amazing too, as we flew around the coast a bit. The beaches are just amazing. After I got in, Jenny and her friend Claudia picked me up at the airport. Driving to her place was sort of surreal. You have to drive past the Townships (shanty towns), which is a major shock. Actually seeing people living in huts made of metal pieces is sort of humbling. I went back to Jenny's for a while to get unpacked and showered. She lives in this gorgeous house that is very Dutch Colonial. We walked and took the shuttle over to her campus here as Jenny had to go to a meeting, so here I am. The walk over was really nice. There are so many different types of plants and trees. The air smells amazing. It's incredibly windy, but there's this great ocean smell. It's not like the ocean in BC, it just smells incredibly wonderful. So I'm just hanging out here for a while and thought I'd post something just to let people know I'm alive. SOrry if it's a bit long, but I'm going through enormous culture shock and everythign seems exciting right now. Let me know how everything is going with you guys!