Its a looooooong way from home

Anyone who has traveled from the Southern tip of Africa to North America knows ... this is not a short trip!!!!

I can't believe that there are thousands of people taking this trip everyday ... in economy!
I'm more of a 10-hour-flight-kinda-gal. I have a well rehearsed flight routine; take off, settle in, order drinks (usually gin and tonic), choose a movie, eat dinner with at least 2 bottles of wine, watch movie, order post dinner drink (usually a Baileys's cream), start second movie, fall asleep, wake up feeling very dry, order water, take unfortunate but unavoidable trip to the airplane toilet, apply moisturiser, drink more water, begin descent, land!
On this trip from O.R. Tambo to J.F.K. on 10th August 2009 I executed my normal routine but at the point of 'waking up feeling dry' I discovered that we were about to descend into Dakar to refuel and I still needed to stay on that Airbus, in that tiny seat, for 2 hours on the ground plus another 8 hours in the air before arriving in New York. This is not a good experience for someone who is already feeling dry...

Nonetheless, after18 hours, we arrived safely in the United States of America, our home for the next few years. Actually we have arrived in New York City which is still many miles (who knows how far a mile is) from our final destination of State College, Pennsylvania. Add to this our 76-plus kilograms (who knows how many pounds that is) of luggage; 3 large bags of clothes, 1 deceptively heavy hand bag and an Ardmore vase (thank-you to all who contributed to our beautiful wedding gift) packed in a specially-made, awkward-to-carry, wooden box.

State College is known for being located equally inconveniently from every major city in the North East. We thus begin the second leg of the journey. First up is getting from the airport to China Town, in downtown Manhattan. We took a shuttle bus which is surprisingly similar to our mini-bus taxis. Although I have never taken a taxi in Jozi, I recognised many similarities; the driver had his arm hanging outside the window and raised it when pushing in front of other cars, he changed lanes more than necessary, drove at a faster speed than required, nearly caused numerous accidents and stopped where he thought appropriate.

We got a really quick overview of NYC as we dropped passengers all over town; near Broadway, 5th Avenue, Avenue of the Americas and finally, we were dropped in front of a derelict and condemned building with cabbage crates piled on the pavement in a not too classy part of China Town. Here we were to take the infamous China Town bus direct to State College. The china town bus is the cheapest way to travel between New York and State College and if you can handle the slight aroma of tuna fish, the non-English speaking driver and the fact that the bus is so old that trucks were overtaking us on the highway, it's rather effective.

It dropped us on South Atherton street from which we took a yellow taxi - (so American) to our new apartment on Farmstead Lane.

Total travel time from Westcliff, Johannesburg to Green Leaf Manor, State College: 32 hours!!!!!
Its a looooooong way from home.

Stay tuned for scenes from our next episode......

So after 32 hours of 'journey' (whoever said 'life's a journey, not a destination' obviously never traveled 32 hours straight!), we're in a new town, in an empty apartment, no food, one roll of toilet paper and a blow up mattress ...