Thurdsay 5/15/2008- Friday 5/16/2008
We are back on our ‘free’ flight kick from Katie’s Continental miles—and we are very happy to be on a brand new Boeing 777-300ER plane. This thing is incredible, with each seat having its own entertainment system, plugs to charge camera/laptop/blow dryer (if you wanted to?!), as well as a USB plug to listen to your own music! They have a button to access your email, but its not live just yet. The roof of the plane has little lights, so it looks like stars…it was one of the fastest 9+ hour flights ever—and three movies and two meals later, we were landing in Jo’Burg.
After collecting our luggage, we made a local call to Gemini Backpackers for our ‘free’ lift to our hostel. With the two hour time change, and just being exhausted from all of the games and movies we watched on the plane, we zonked out in about 15 minutes after arriving to the hostel.
After sleeping almost 13 hours, we were fully rested and ready to take on Africa. We used the free Internet to secure our accommodations for the night in Uganda. The tasty continental breakfast was served by the cutest South African lady, who reminded Katie of her 1st grade teacher, Ms. Davidson.
We packed up and shipped out back to the airport. Our ride kindly stopped at the cell phone store, so we could pick up a local SIM card and be ready for our next two visitors to join our trip—Julie and Andrew at the end of May!
Thanks to United’s status matching, Dermot and Katie checked into our South African Flight with almost no line. The Jo’Burg Int’l Airport was very new and high-tech, with tons of stores and eateries. We soon realized that we could use the United Gold Flyer card at South African’s “Baobab Premium Lounge”- so off we went to enjoy free drinks, food and Internet access.