Joburg and Friends

Hello from Johannesburg, South Africa!! AT and I set out on our one-month journey around southern Africa and so far so lovely! We had a lengthy trip here that went something like this:

Wednesday, 10am in Atlanta boarding our flight for Cairo*

Thursday, 4pm in Cairo on our 12-hour layover, enjoying some museums

Friday, 4pm in Johannesburg, finally arriving at our hotel**

But we are here now, so it's fine! We've loved touring around Johannesburg and taking in the sights. We had a walking tour of downtown that started us down South Africa's history, including monuments to the mining history, Nelson Mandela, and the women's rights movement.

Oh, and also wildlife, architecture, and ATs.

We've also had the chance to visit some of the museums reflecting on South Africa's history of apartheid. They were heavy*** but refreshing to see how the country has embraced changing such a horrible past and how they are optimistic looking forward. The pictures below are from the Apartheid Museum and from Constitution Hill. Constitution Hill is the site of a former prison, the current Supreme Court, and a fort.****

The symbolism in the Constitutional Court is to the extreme. It reflects where South Africa has been with testaments to their now-inclusive constitution. Some of my favorite details were:

• the windows along the brick wall show only the feet of people walking by- it is impossible to tell the race, gender, sexuality, religion, etc., just from someone's feet. 
• the public may sit in on any session of the court and sits at a higher level than the justices, with the highest level reserved for the press
• there are eleven members of the court, as are there eleven official languages of South Africa. The court can precede in any of the eleven languages.

We've capped off our time in Johannesburg with day trips to Swaziland and Lesotho.***** Lesotho is completely within South Africa and Swaziland borders South Africa and Mozambique. We didn't have much time in either place but we managed to see some scenery and eat a lovely lunch.******

First up was Swaziland, or as you might know it, Eswatini.******* AT is pictured pre-pizza and I am pictured with my new favorite plant that was everywhere.

Next was Lesotho. We had lunch at a hotel/convention center/restaurant/football field that uses #sport as an entry for troubled youths and also provides them education and training opportunities. We were super into it. The last picture is the best I could do to give you a scenic overview mountain shot.******** 

Tomorrow we are off to the deserts of Namibia! More to come!

-KT

*Ah, how young and fresh we once were.

**Statistically, flying is still more on-time than when I drive places.
***And my brother.
****Because of course.
*****Points, #duh
******"Give me liberty lunch or give me death" -Me
*******Kudos to you if you did but we're all betting you didn't.
********I apologize because it's from the plane window and I hate when people post plane window pictures. Sorrynotsorry, if that's you and you've bothered to scroll this far. At least plane window photos aren't as bad as fireworks photos. Ugh. They're the worst. I avoid social media on July 5th for this exact reason. If you're a person who posts plane window and fireworks photos, I understand that our friendship is over. It was time anyway.*********
*********But thanks for reading! You were always the better friend. Even I, a monster, can appreciate that.

A hop, skip, and a lunch

There were more points to be had in 2018 and we got them! It was purely a point mission with enough time to get lunch in each place, begging the question, "how far will this family go for lunch?"

We first went to Dominica. Dominica was hit hard by Hurricane Maria and is still recovering but is very much open to tourists and visitors. At the bed and breakfast where we had lunch, the owners had been off island when the hurricane hit and upon return had to walk two days to get to their property. They suffered minimal damage compared to the rest of the island. Our brief stay overlooked the mountains and curvy mountain roads of the island. Rain storms moved quickly in and out and it was super windy.

From Dominica, we flew back to Barbados via Antigua. We were only in the airport but saw as many sights as possible.* First stop, obviously, a fort.

 Next, the coast to see the waves come crashing in.

 We took a break and waited for Dad's ship to come in.

 Then relaxed some more on the beach.

When we finally returned to the airport, Dad continued his quest for the perfect magnet and I continued my passion to try on hats.**

Our next day trip was to Grenada. As we learned at our lunch locale, Grenada's latitude is 12 degrees north. That was about all we learned, to be honest. The fish and chips were delicious and the bay was beautiful and wikipedia attempted to explain to us the 1983 US invasion.***

Dad did take a brief foray into body building, like ya do.

We had a slight delay on the way home but if there are two people equipped to hang out in an airport for an extra 45 minutes, it's these two.

This ends the country counting for 2018 bringing Dad to a total of 90 and me to 142. 

Since it's the new year and you, devoted reader, have come this far, we'll end the year with a few quotes from Dad.

(Unprompted) "I don't think I could have been a sailor back in the 1700s."

"Do you know what 'Liat'**** spells backwards?"

And finally, "maybe they'll have a big tree we can take our picture in front of!"*****

I hope you all have a wonderful new year and safe travels into 2019!
-KT

*Never before has there been as good a sport as Dad who was photo directed all over the airport.

**Sadly, AT had already headed home and was unavailable to try on hats. Oh, but she did put this one on in Barbados the other day . . .

***You can google it. This isn't that kind of blog.

****We are not sponsored by Liat but they did fly us everywhere. And if anyone from Liat is reading this, we are very open to being sponsored by Liat. We are also open to being sponsored by just about anyone that wants to fly us around the world. In a totally non-creepy way, obvs.

*****I never knew he was so passionate about Christmas trees before this trip.