South Africa 2010 - Day 1

Johannesburg – Day 1

After 24 hours of traveling, three dinners, two breakfasts, two bags of peanuts, three security checks, layovers in Amsterdam, Holland and Nairobi, Kenya, we made it! Powering straight through from Portland to Johannesburg in one go of it certainly had its advantages and disadvantages. The major advantage being that we got here sooner, while the major disadvantage meant 24 hours straight of traveling. By the time we arrived in Johannesburg I’d been in the air so much, on my feet so little and had my feet up approximately zero times within that span that my ankles had completely swollen. Once we arrived at our friends moms house and I was able to take my shoes and socks off, my ankles had swollen up around my socks, which resulted in my feet looking like mushrooms.

Traveling as a cripple also has its perks and setbacks. The major and quite possibly only setback, other than being a cripple, of course, is the amount of time it takes you to get through security. Other than that, it’s all perks. You get all sorts of attention, you get to board the plane first (meaning there’s always room in the overhead for all your luggage), and you approach large crowds like Moses approaches the Red Sea. Another thing you’ve got working in your favor is that you get to cut every line imaginable: security checkpoints with roughly 200 people in front of you, don’t mind us. We left those same 200 people, and quite possibly even a few more, jealous of their superior health and physical conditions jealous when we were escorted to the front of the line at immigration and passport verification once we arrived in Jo’Burg.

We certainly can’t forget the “assistance” the Dutch gave us in Amsterdam. Once we got off the plane, sporting our brilliant orange Dutch national team gear, we were immediately offered seats and asked to wait while they got us assistance to help us get to our next gate. We arrived around 9 a.m. local time, which would have made it midnight back home. Help arrived in the form of a four-seater go-kart looking vehicle with a wheelchair somehow attached to the very back. Carlos called shotgun while I hopped on the back, there wasn’t enough room for the freaks Marcos and Micah who weren’t carrying any injuries.

Our go-kart driver was a nice woman who gave us many helpful tips during our commute on the Dutch and their soccer team, and judging by the way she was hanging corners and weaving through pedestrians I’m next to positive she was on he amateur rally car circuit, if not the professional one. She told us they absolutely despise of the Germans and they are their rivals, think USA and Mexico; she even elaborated on that by trying to teach us a chant, in Dutch, about how much better the Oranje were than the Meinschaft. She then asked us who our favorite players were on the Dutch national squad to which Carlos promptly answered, “I like (Arjen) Robben.” Robben, not only being injured, is one of two players who plays in the German Bundesliga for his club team, Bayern Munich. I took the classier route and said I liked Wesley Sneijder, Inter Milan’s star midfielder who just lead his club to a Champions League victory over Bayern Munich and were crowned Kings of Europe. She then tricked us by slyly informing us it was a trick question; apparently her neighbor was Dirk Kuyt, Dutch national team and Liverpool winger. Before delivering us to our gate, where we were dropped off at the front of a 174 person long security check line and escorted straight through via some secret door, she went on to inform us that Holland has so much pride in their national squad that all of the toilet paper in the airport was oranje.

Things got progressively more exciting from that point on. We were now on a flight of 174 people, 70 of whom were continuing on to Johannesburg for the World Cup and all of whom still spoke flawless English, with the exception of some technical medical terms I suppose. The guy who checked us through security coined my new favorite word for crutches when he asked Carlos, “Can you walk without sticks?”

Unlike our flight from Portland to Amsterday, we were all split up on this leg and didn’t have our own personal TVs with a selection of on-demand movies to choose from. Mom and Dad you may want to skip this next sentence and carry on as though I’m still following the life advice you gave me as a little kid. The lack of entertainment and fact that we weren’t all sitting together meant I had to talk to strangers to keep myself amused. Well, The New Yorker I picked up before departing Portland helped as well. Strangely though, and I don’t know what it was about my appearance, everyone spoke Dutch to me. I don’t know if it was the way I looked or smelled or perhaps just the fact that I was decked out head to toe in Dutch national team gear. Whatever it was, they’d always start in Dutch then switch to English once I responded with a blank stare. My favorite rebuttal was from a stewardess who asked, “You’re an American but you’re a Dutch fan?”

“I’m a fan of beautiful football,” I responded and was treated like a King for the rest of the flight.

We got off the plane in Nairobi, Kenya to catch our final flight to Johannesburg around 7 p.m. local time. Now, I don’t know if it was the fact that we were on the equator or the fact that everyone around me on the previous flight was blasting their a/c which froze me out, but as soon as I stepped out of that plane and on to the jet way it was hotter than Africa. This is where things REALLY got kicked up a notch. I think it’s safe to say of the roughly 200 people on that flight, everyone was going to the World Cup. Of those 200 or so people there was a group of Nigerians who had no problem setting the atmosphere. If you weren’t Nigerians fans they’d give you a hard time unless you cheered for the right club team, Manchester United. We got along just fine. There was no air conditioning on that flight and it remained hotter than Africa from Nairobi to Johannesburg.

We got in just before midnight local time and had a laundry list of things to do. We went through customs, got our one checked bag full of guns, knives and grenades…or liquids and non-carry on items; Marcos (who, clearly, never was a boy scout) bought a Holland jersey, we rented our car, a Volkswagen Polo (Jetta,) exchanged fat stacks of cash, and around 1 a.m. local time headed for our friends moms house, that’s when the real adventure began. I was nominated to drive, Micah would have had to put his contacts back in and we’re the only two allowed to drive. After Carlos and I exchanged quizzical looks as to why we were both standing on the right side of the car and about to get in the front seat, he did call shotgun after all, I thought to myself, “what better time to learn how to drive a car with the steering wheel on the right side and traffic moving on the left than when I’ve only gotten about 5 hours of sleep in the last 48 hours?” Luckily it was 1 a.m. and with the exception of a quick check of how things looked on the correct side of the road, after making a right turn, everything went smoothly.