The Journey to South Africa

Getting to South Africa was a challenge. Not unlike getting around here, but I'll save that for another time. In moving here, after a little research, we realized that it was going to be cheaper to pay excess baggage fees and fly with all of our things rather than shipping them in a container ship. That said, we flew with eight XXXL REI duffel bags, one large rolling suitcase, and three bike boxes. Only four were free with our tickets. Add two carseats, a baby Taylor guitar, a messenger bag, and a hiking backpack as carry-on, and know that our hands were full. Dan and his dad ended up arriving ahead of the rest of us to check-in our luggage. KLM proceeded to tell Dan that he had to wait for the boys and me to arrive before checking everything in, but then got smart and decided to go ahead with the process. When we did check in we were that family with all the bags. Ah well. :)

And yet, once the bags were checked and we were all boarded, the flights were quite easy. We were really worried about being able to fly with our carseats. Any American carrier is required to allow FAA-approved carseats on airplanes for children with seats, but we flew KLM and found out that it was up to the check-in agent--meaning we had a 50/50 chance of being required to check them at $200/carseat. That's well over the value of each carseat, my friends. I looked into buying carseats in South Africa, but it turns out that they typically only have 3-point harness carseats here, not the 5-point standard in the US. After reading that we decided that our carseats were a must. It turns out we didn't have to worry at all--we just didn't ask. Dan's parents and sister were with us at O'Hare, so we just checked-in without the carseats, took them through security, and wheeled them onto the plane without asking. They fit fine on both flights and while the flight attendants gave us some quizzical looks and asked lots of questions, there was no problem. 

Although there was a different problem: there were about two to three inches max in between Eland's carseat and the seat in front of him on our second flight. At one point the wife of the man in front of him made a comment about Eland kicking, but with all the turbulence on that flight, and the fact that Eland slept for quite a bit of it, I don't think he could have been bothered for more than a half-hour of on-and-off kicking. In fact, the man's wife was really nice, along with all the other people sitting around us. Everyone was impressed with how well-behaved the boys were and were tickled pink that we had carseats on the plane. Most people had never seen that before. 

On our second flight I made friends with the woman sitting next to us and found out that she and her husband live in Stellenbosch too! We exchanged information and I look forward to meeting her for coffee sometime with the boys. She just adored watching the boys on the flight. 

Strangely enough, both of our flights arrived early. Our first flight was an entire hour early, which didn't end up being a great thing. Have you ever been to the Schiphol airport in Amsterdam? Think about the name of the airport and think about what naughty words you could sound out with it--it was that exactly. Dirty, cold, unwelcoming. It sure made me miss Home Sweet O'Hare. (Note to self: do not fly through Amsterdam on future trans-Atlantic journeys.) 

So we had an extra hour in the Schiphol, haha, and then took off for Cape Town. This flight had several hours of turbulence over "the Tropics" which I believe counts as roughly Nigeria. I will need to brush up on my African geography. The strange thing about this turbulence was that aside from a little up-and-down, it was mostly side-to-side turbulence. It didn't bother me nearly as much as the usual kind because I never felt like we were going to drop. Haha, although I certainly thought of my sister and knew she would have been tossing her cookies left and right. (Love ya, Lise. ;) 

We landed in Cape Town a little after 10pm local time and after getting through passport control, and somehow managing to corral all of our luggage through the next check-point, were warmly greeted by a fellow professor of Dan's and his wife. Billy and Huba (pronounced YOU-ba) gave us a gracious welcome and helped us lug all of our things to their two waiting cars. They drove us to our flat in Stellenbosch, about 30 minutes from the airport, and helped us get everything inside. 

Walking into our flat was an interesting experience. I'll have to take pictures soon--but that's one thing to be careful of with pay-as-you-go internet which I'll explain later: large photos. I digress. The entrance is on the second floor of the building. It opens up to a single room with stairs that lead to the third floor. Upon entering, and expecting a one-bedroom apartment as we had been told to expect, I immediately expected it to be this one room plus a loft upstairs. But we were pleasantly surprised.

Upstairs is one huge room, but it's probably the square-footage of our first house in Champaign - perhaps 1100 sq ft? It's L-shaped with the kitchen along the short let, and a dining space, living room space, and bedroom space along the long part. It has 1.5 bathrooms, and definitely feels like a "half floor" with a wood-plank-lined sloping roof ceiling. (Did that description make any sense?!!? I'm sure you get the idea.) We feel completely at home with the ceramic tile flooring, and get plenty of light through our dormer windows. Apparently typical South African houses don't have HVACs or any kind of built-in heating, so as is typical, we have a wood-burning stove to heat our flat in the winter. Not sure how that's going to work out with the kiddos, but I think being on the top floor of our building will work to our advantage. 

The Civil Engineering Department, via Billy and Huba, had stocked our pantry and fridge with milk, juice, fruit, pancake mix, bacon, and other foods, along with cleaning supplies and everything thing else that we would need immediately. We purposely tried to keep our expectations low, but this was truly a pleasant surprise. What a great way to come home to our new home.

(I forgot to mention something great while we waited at O'Hare: When our double-decker jumbo jet arrived, workers promptly unloaded two BMWs and plenty of cargo. The boys were thrilled to watch all the cargo trucks, cranes, and various unloading and reloading machinery at the airport. It was perfect!)