The Flight

My morning began very early. I was at the Wichita airport a little before 5:30 in the morning, to begin my more than 24 hour trek across the world to South Africa.

My flight was not until 7:30, and Wichita is not a very busy airport even at its most congested, but I am one not to take chances when it comes to flying. I would rather be there early and wait a few hours, than to spend every grueling second in anxiety-ridden panic wondering if the security line will move fast enough for me to actually make it to the gate.

I flew from Wichita to Chicago, where I had a few hours to wait until I made my next flight to Washington-Dulles. As I made the journey from one side of the Chicago airport to the other, I came across a statue of Abraham Lincoln just sitting there out in the open. I took a picture just because.

President Lincoln bids me a fond farewell.

With still a few hours to wait, I bought lunch at a food court nearby, a personal-sized pepperoni pizza. It was the worst pizza I ever had. The crust was like cardboard, the sauce was like ketchup, and the cheese was like soft plastic. America, I thought, was not doing a good job of making me want to stay.

From Washington DC, I would board the plane to Johannesburg, and almost as soon as I reached the gate for my flight, the boarding process had begun. I quickly pulled out the couple books I wanted to be stuck with for the next eighteen hours or so, and boarded the plane.

I had a window seat with an almost perfect view of the wing of the airplane. Only a tiny triangle of something other than plane in the upper left-hand corner of the window was visible.

My view of the plane from my seat.

I sat next to a woman, Tiffany, who I found to be a very interesting person. She was a law student from Baltimore who was going to be interning for several months at a law firm in Cape Town. As far as "18 hour airplane buddies" go, Tiffany was a good companion to have.

As the flight began, and the normal safety spiel was recited, a warning about turbulence was given. "Do not be disturbed by the occasional turbulence we will get," the head steward said, "Turbulence is not dangerous. It's much like visiting your in-laws for the first time: Really uncomfortable."

The flight from DC to Johannesburg was broken up in the middle by a layover in Dakar, Senegal. The stop in Dakar was a revelatory moment for me. I was on the African continent. This trip finally felt real. I was really doing this. It wasn't some elaborate fanciful dream that my mind had been deceiving me with for several months.

We spent about an hour at Dakar. There, passengers headed to Dakar disembarked, and a new flight crew replaced the first one. It was around six in the morning Dakar-time as we left Senegal, and through my tiny slit of viewable space, I spied an interesting statue in Dakar that I tried my best to take a picture of as we were taking off down the runway.

Dakar, Senegal taken as the plane was taking off.

Finally, we reached Johannesburg. It was a little after six in the evening on Tuesday South African-time when I got through customs. I had finally made it.