SpicyGoliath

It isn’t easy to get from the West Coast to South Africa and this time the trip included a 19 hour layover in New York. I met several interesting people en route starting with a 70 year old lady at LAX. She missed her flight and was trying to call her daughter in Denver when I overheard her speaking to a gate agent. Since she didn’t have a cell phone I let her use mine but she busted into tears when she was only able to reach her daughter’s voicemail. “Don’t worry Dotty we’ll try again in a minute or two” seemed to stop the downpour but then she bombarded me with her life story for the next 2 hours. Everything from her date with Marlon Brando and James Dean to her mother being from the royal Russian gypsy bloodline and her father a descendent of the Sultan of Brunei. Needless to say I was happy to escape to the relative comfort of the plane. Then on the shuttle bus from JFK to my hotel in New York I met a fellow South African - Dolf - who is traveling to London. In order to thwart the ridiculous hotel prices we decided to share a room and swapped some stories of life in England (where I used to live for a couple of years). Monday morning on the same shuttle bus I met two aspiring Delta pilots, one who is heading to South Africa. It was too early to check in so we went for breakfast. Kyle is on a short visit to Cape Town but with the great deals they get on airline travel he is planning many more, even before he have ever set foot in Africa. Later at the gate Kyle and I had a beer with a dude from Brooklyn, nose ring and all. He pointed out the Brooklyn Brown which is a delicious dark beer brewed locally. Finally the real flying started with 7 hours to Dakar and another 8 hours to Johannesburg. It is great to be home.