My travel experience to Africa

The snow/blizzard that was happening outside the train! Thank goodness I still made it there despite the feet of snow that was piling up everywhere :)




I woke up on the morning of Feb. 2nd with my bags all packed and ready to go to only find out that the warnings about the blizzard were real! So I called my travel agent and she said that my flight that I was supposed to be catching the next day was already cancelled. So we frantically started trying to figure out how I could possibly get to DC in time to catch my 5:40 flight for the next day. My dad decided to look up Amtrak and found one of the last 2 tickets for a train that would get me into DC at 1:10 the day of my flight to Jo-burg South Africa. It was perfect (or so we thought). I got on the train to head to Chicago, said goodbye to the fam and I was on my way for the adventure of my life. It seemed like it was going to work... I got on my train to DC from Union Station with out to much of a problem. My arms hurt so bad after lugging my 70 pounds of stuff around by myself. We started moving and right after we got out of Union Station we sat for about an hour. The blizzard was intense and I was so glad I wasn't out in it. I spent the night on the train and was able to talk to my family and a friend for a while to help pass the time! 

After a pretty good nights rest I woke up to find out that the train was 5 hours behind and that I was going to have to get off the train on to a bus to hopefully be able to make it to DC before my flight left. When all of this was happening my mom had been talking to her family out there. It turns out it is a great thing to have a huge family who know people. So her one cousin (or however the relation) new a taxi driver - well one who drove a really nice suburban! And so he can to pick me up at DC Union Station after I finally arrived there after a 4.5 hour bus ride with a bunch of old people. Mike (the taxi driver) picked me and Steve (another cousin) to head to the airport. It was 3 when we left the station and I was at the airport a little before 4. So I ran inside, got my bags checked and headed to find my gate! I had made it :) ahhhhhh.. relief. It had been one crazy couple of days but I was going to be on the flight to South Africa at last!

The flight was long but it was nice after we stopped in Dakar because lots of people got off and not many got back on. So I had 3 seats to myself to stretch out on and pass out from my stressful 2 day travel experience. I felt so much better after I woke up on the plane with only a couple hours to Jo-burg.

After 20 some hours on a train, 4.5 on a bus and 20+ hours on a plane I finally had arrived in Port Elizabeth, South Africa! My new home for the next 5 months.