32 Hours Later...

My journey began in San Francisco International airport, pit-stopped in Istanbul, Turkey, and ended in Cape Town, South Africa. The entire duration of my trip from start to finish to South Africa took as you can guess by my clever title was in fact, 32 hours. 

The thought that I was going to be spending the next 8 weeks in South Africa by myself was daunting to think about and in that moment, even though I was excited about this trip, my nerves were riding shotgun. For the next 8 weeks, I was going to be working at Maitland Cottage Children's Orthopaedic Hospital as a medical intern.

Guess I was in my head thinking about my trip because the drive to the airport flew by without me noticing and before I knew it, my brother and his friend, Alex were unpacking my bags from the trunk of the car and ushering me onto the sidewalk of the airport drop-off section. The time for backing out of this trip were over and gone before I gave it any real thought which in hindsight was for the best because then I wouldn’t be here writing this blog post.  

I hugged my mom, brother, Alex, and mom again and began walking towards the rotating door. I turned back one last time to see them all waving goodbye as they pulled away from the curb to leave. I walked into the airport to find the check baggage line, stood in line for 10 minutes, then started making my way towards my gate. Once I found my gate, I continued to walk around the airport because I didn’t feel like sitting down quite and decided to and find a snack instead. 

Bagel in hand, I boarded the plane, got situated and immediately began my search for movies to watch throughout my flight. I think in my mind I would be able to watch 13 hours worth of movies but as soon as the plane took off, I knocked out. The only time I was awake was when my sixth sense told me it was time to eat. 

Wow. Istanbul's airport is gorgeous. Walking around the airport felt like you were walking through an extremely modern and high end mall. The picture depicted below doesn't even begin to do this airport justice for which I am sorry to Istanbul, Turkey's airport. Most of the kiosks sold expensive clothes, perfumes, jewelry/watches, and liquor. Oh my goodness, so much liquor. 

After walking this mall of an airport about 6 times in 8 hours, I was ready to get on my next flight and get the second to last leg of my trip over and done with. I would have loved to explore Turkey while I was there considering I had a lengthy layover but with my flight leaving around 2 in the morning, my adventures would be limited by the whole lack of sunlight thing... I started making my way to my gate, waited an hour and began the boarding process one last time.

The next 11 hours felt like a drag. Pretty sure it was just my nerves itching to be done with the traveling process but the plane felt than the previous one and had narrower seats. All I knew was that I couldn't sleep, was uninterested in watching any movies or tv shows and that the flight needed to be over already.

I lucked out when buying my plane tickets because I was able to book good seats in advance. So when I finally touched down in South Africa, I was very happy that I was in the ninth row and could get off the plane immediately following the business class travelers. I booked it to customs and hopped into the international guests line before it became congested with people from my flight, got my passport book stamped and headed to baggage claim.

Normally when I fly abroad, I like to have a carry on bag but seeing as I was going to be living in South Africa for two months, checking in a huge roller bag seemed inevitable. I usually hate checking in bags because it always seems to take forever to be collected from the cargo hold and sent to the carousel but I was pleasantly surprised to see suitcases on the rotating belt by the time I walked up to baggage claim. I stood waiting at the carousel less than three minutes before spotting my suitcase which I quickly grabbed up and made my way towards the exit to find the private driver I booked to take me on the final leg of my 32 hour journey into Cape Town. Let it begin!