Hurry Boy, It's Waiting There For You

Okay, so the blog post title isn't the most creative (from Toto's 1980s hit, "Africa").  Carol and I flew 20 hours to Cape Town (Dulles to Dakar to Johannesburg to Cape Town) to do the parent's trip for Semester At Sea.  Julia has been going around the world on Semester At Sea (her blog) and we haven't seen her since early January.

Plus, we had never been to Africa.  Everyone who has been to Cape Town and on a safari has raved about both, so visiting Julia seemed like the perfect excuse to finally get to this continent.  I am a little worried about this trip -- it is my first extended trip outside the U.S. in an election year, and it is also largely out of our control.  The itinerary has some openings in it, but there are plenty of group (the SAS parents) activities and tours.

However, given the vast improvement in wireless communications, I felt like it was time to take a chance on traveling in an election year.  To reinforce that, I'm writing this after having edited a presentation and written the bottom line for it.  Alas, I was also able to follow the end of the UVA-Michigan State Sweet 16 game, which did not end well.

Anyhow, I used around 600,000 points to get Carol and I business class seats, which made the 20 hours of travel much easier to handle.  One hint -- if you land in Dakar, don't check your email and internet -- it was an expensive way to find out Senegal is not on international systems.

While we slept pretty well on the flights, it also meant we lost a full day.  We left Tuesday at 5:40pm  from Dulles, and landed in Cape Town at around 8:30pm on Wednesday.  We were a little road weary in the ride from the airport to the hotel.  We're staying at the Radisson Blu Waterfront whilst in Cape Town.