The Trip Begins!

We began our trip on the 11th of September, 2009 by flying from Boston, Massachusetts (USA) to New York, New York and staying in a hotel for the night.

The idea was to be able to get an early flight direct to Johannesburg, South Africa.

The hotel we stayed at was decent, and we did nothing but eat and then sleep that night. I did take a picture of the fountain in front of the hotel as part of a "photo journal" of the whole trip.

It was a pretty good way to get started, I think.

We arrived in Johannesburg tired and severely jet-lagged. And I was in seriously bad need of a cigarette! Fortunately the airport is well organized and we got through pretty quickly to The Outside where I could smoke.

For the first time in my life I was met at an airport by somebody with one of those signs with a name on it (booking the trip through an agency may not have been the cheapest way to go, but it sure made things easy!) We were quickly loaded onto a van to the hotel and had no need to fumble around trying to figure out where to go. Good thing as I don't think any of us were at our best.

The hotel in Johannesburg was fairly close to the airport and very nice. And I have to say that the level of service was excellent at all times. Better than I have ever seen in the US, not that I often stay in hotels quite that expensive...

I took a picture of the front of that hotel too, for consistency.

We did take a trip to the Apartheid Museum in Joburg but in truth I think we were all too jet-lagged to do the museum justice. My sister gave it a really good effort, but both my mother and I ended up fading out halfway through and met up with our tour guide/driver and talked him into going and getting us coffees and shooting the breeze for a while.

That was how the trip began and the next post will be where the really good stuff starts!