One night at dinner, I was speaking to a friend of my boyfriend, John's friend. Her name is Nicole. She's a teacher, and it hit me. That is really the direction in which I should be heading. That could be inspiring. Next thing I know I'm sitting in the office of Amy Snider at Pratt. Then before I knew it I was receiving a letter from Pratt saying that I'd been accepted and would I like to go to South Africa and teach children art as part of the program? And, it seemed insane and barely possibly that a 36 year-old office manager with a 12 year-old son, two dogs and a boyfriend could possibly do such a thing. Somehow, well, mostly thanks to the unbelievable support of my boyfriend, John, it all fell into place.
And so here I am, blogging from Cape Town, South Africa. Can you believe it? I know! It's nutty!
So anyhoo, I'll need to catch you up on the journey thus far. I'm going to backtrack a bit.
So maybe you're saying, "Hey! That doesn't look a whole lot like South Africa!" You're right. It's London. I had not planned a stop in London, but thanks to the folks at Virgin Atlantic I was delayed at JFK. We ended up taking off from Newark, and thus, I missed my connection to Cape Town. But, they paid for my room and food. So I got to see London for a day. I won't go into the drama at the airport that led to this happy accident, because it wasn't so happy. Heathrow is madness and I hate to say it but there were tears. It's not pleasant to be lost in a part of a foreign airport where they are starting to shut off the lights alone. And the whole time I kept thinking, "Crap! That's a British guy on that little golf cart over there. I'm sure the British don't cry in airports. He probably thinks I'm a nutbag!" But, like I said it's all good now. I lived.
People, I've never been anywhere outside of the US. So it was rather surreal. I would take a shower at the hotel in London and think, "Weird, I'm showering in London. This is British water."
I was also able to meet up with friends, Sarah and Daz.
This was after roaming around Trafalgar Square and going to the National Portrait Gallery. London is gorgeous. Hoping to do that again someday and see more of it. It was a great day. Thanks Sarah and Daz! This is one of they most lovely couples in the universe most likely. There are probably just a handful of truly lovely couples. There are criteria involved. I won't go into it now, but there they are right there in that group. I am lucky to know them.
Then they called our friend Yassir, who happens to work in immigration at Heathrow and he walked me through to my gate while we visited. Thanks, Yassir! So no tears at Heathrow that day.
Then it was off to Capetown. No major drama there. I was in Port Elizabeth with no real problems.
So that's how I got to Africa.
Next time I can get to a computer I'll tell more. There will be more pictures later, but it's dial up here and they take forever to load. Don't want to be late for dinner!
Stay tuned!
