“So sit back and relax and enjoy the 14 hour 45 minute flight to Johannesburg.” So says the captain. And later the purser onboard South African Airways flight 204 from JFK.
Jesus.
Vishnu.
Tom Cruise.
That’s a long time to be up in the air.
I’m several mini bottles of wine in and it’s only been 90 minutes. There’ll be more later but as I tap this out on my iPhone, a few things to note:
There’s probably no better way to enjoy an hour of the Twin Peaks revival than trapped inside an A340-600.
And I think the warning labels at 36000 feet are way more funny than at sea level. Seriously, when the black lodge am I next gonna drive?
Mom hates the way she looks in these photos but I think she looks happy… a couple of 187ml bottles of wine later and she’s ready to hopefully drift off to sleep.
I however can’t seem to get any shut-eye despite closing my eyes. Even with a few of the aforementioned pressed grape adult beverages my hand is barely a curlin’ … this despite an early start this morn; I’m a barely a hibernating.
Hashtag – Not My Ghostbusters Soundtrack
Fourteen hours later…
Arriving in Johannesburg, a porter helped whisk mom through immigration and passport control to get us to the gate for our just shy of 3 hours flight to Madagascar.
We have arrived. And after a series of comically contrived visa queues and queries, we are officially visiting. After Tom Cruise knows how many hours since we left home, now the real adventures begin.
We’ve already been privy to three shakedowns and extortions for bribes! And that’s not counting my plane ticket fiasco or this three-text-message note from Sprint when I turned on my “free” international data roaming:
