Hello South Africa!

Well, after a very long trip I made it to Johannesburg. My trip started with a 3.5 hour drive from Wausau, WI to the Minneapolis/St. Paul Airport. I then flew from MSP to New York. I spent an entire day in NYC. I had a blast and met some really cool people. I was in NYC on the same day as the MTV Video Music Awards. I saw their outdoor stage/red carpet and I saw a lot of the stars driving in. The amount of people gathering in that area was crazy! I am disappointed to say that I barely missed Taylor Swift's Subway performance. I got on the train just a bit before she did. Bummer.

From NYC I flew to Dubai. It was a 12 hour flight. Can I just say that Emirates Airlines is FABULOUS! Everyone has their own TV screen with hundreds of movies, TV shows (entire series) and music available electronically. They had hundreds of artist's CD's to choose from, they also had video games. Since I was distracted by how great the entertainment system was I did not sleep as much as I had hoped (only about an hour.) The food was really yummy and the flight staff were very nice and welcoming. I have never had such a great all-around flight experience. I will most definitely continue to fly on Emirates.

I was hoping to spend some time checking out the city of Dubai. But when I arrived I was exhausted. I ended up getting a hotel room and crashing for about 6 hours. The hotel that I stayed in had a shuttle from the airport. I have never been so scared riding in a car in my life. There are no apparent traffic laws, so the roads are a free-for-all. The driver was practically connected the bumper of the car in front of us. There were cars everywhere.

It is currently Ramadan so restaurants are not open until after 6:30pm at night, and stores are not allowed to sell any food or drinks. No one is allowed to serve alcohol and clubs are not allowed to play music. Also, people are not allowed to be seen eating, drinking, or chewing gum in public. I found this out while reading a brochure with a piece of gum in my mouth. Whoops! When I finally did venture out of my hotel room I was starving. It was odd looking at what was around the hotel, I was completely surrounded by American restaurants. There was a Pizza Hut that looked like a 4-star restaurant. I went to a mall and wandered around aimlessly for a while waiting for the restaurants to open. I was too hungry to be adventurous with my food, and instead of tasting local cuisine I ended up eating at a Chilis (lame, I know.)

Hopefully I can come back to Dubai one day and spend some more time actually seeing what UAE has to offer.

I flew from Dubai to Johannesburg (an 8 hour flight). My flight left at 4:40am, so I left my hotel around 2:45am. I slept most of this flight, which was good. I am now sitting in Johannesburg with Ezlyn. She has some fun things in store for us. Next weekend we are going to Durban for a mini-vacation. She has a friend that lives there whom we will meet up with. I am excited to go to the beach!

The Barends are very nice for taking me into their home, they are making me feel very welcome. For those of you who are worried, I am staying in a very safe neighborhood.

I apologize for such a long entry, but I had a lot to talk about after my trip. I am off to get some much needed rest. Later skaters.