Monday, October 27, 2008

Come Fly With Me! (Are We There Yet?)

Trip Itineraries and schedule details were recently distributed to the 200 folks who will be headed to South Africa Week 1 (Nov 13 - 22), and below are the exciting details:

Thursday Nov 13, 2008
Leave Cincinnati @ 10:40 a.m. on Delta 1705U
Arrive Atlanta @ 12:08 p.m.
Leave Atlanta @ 3:45 p.m. on Delta 34U
Arrive Johannesburg @ 5:15 p.m. (with a brief stop somewhere in between for refueling)

Friday November 21, 2008
Leave Johannesburg @ 7:20 p.m. on Delta 35Q (stopping again somewhere along the way)

Saturday November 22, 2008
Arrive Atlanta @ 8:30 a.m.
Leave Atlanta @ 10:00 a.m. on Delta 1702Q
Arrive Cincinnati @ 11:32 a.m.

For Week 1, there will be seven different groups of travelers flying on different airlines, out of different airports, and some with more stops, so based on our departure and arrival times, I can't complain. For the second round of 200 volunteers traveling Week 2, there will also be seven more flights leaving on the 20th, All I can say is God Bless the guy who's been planning all of the travel details for the last year. He really deserves a vacation that someone else plans!

On a super positive note, I'll be able to rack up some major Frequent Flyer miles on Delta! (I'll remind myself of that often during the long flights.) There's been lots of discussion in the trip meetings about the importance of moving around during the 18+ hour flight, and when to sleep/when not to. I've flown internationally before, but on the longest trip, where I traveled to Japan (16 hours) it wasn't so bad. The flight out of Cincy was virtually empty and I was able to commandeer an entire middle row to myself. (Sweet!) On the way back, I wasn't so lucky since the flight was completely full, but I did manage to survive, and I'm sure I'll make it through this one too.

There are lots of "DO's" and "DO NOT's" for this portion of the trip, which make sense with such a large group:

DO show up on time (3 hours before the flight) to check in with our GO Groups
DO bring your passport (Duh - but I did forget mine on the above mentioned trip to Japan and broke the sound barrier making the 1.5 hour round trip home and back to make the flight on time.)
DO NOT try to call the airline to preference your seat (window, aisle, exit, etc.). You get what you get.
DO NOT try to upgrade to First Class. We're all in steerage together. (You know somebody's going to be "that guy" and try to do this!)

And now the fun part - our schedule for the week we're in South Africa is as follows:

As you can see, there's a mix of cool touristy-type activities in addition to the work that we'll be doing. There are also some opportunities to enjoy and participate in the culture and the community, including the worship services at Charity & Faith and spending one night as a guest in the home of a local Host family. We're also going to have the unique opportunity to attend a Mamelodi Sundowns game (soccer), which is the first time this has ever been available to the Crossroads team. They're apparently a HUGE deal there, and likely could beat the Cincinnati Bengals (even though they play a different kind of "football"), so that should be really exciting! Personally, I'm really looking forward to the Apartheid Museum and the Safari, in addition to the work we'll be doing in the community. This week, I plan on purchasing a new/better digital camera and maybe even a Flip Video camera so I can capture all of the special and awesome moments and share them with you too!

In my next post, I'll share some of the Trip & Travel Secrets the Crossroads team has shared with us thus far, and at least one Trip Shocker that I wasn't aware of when I signed up to go on the trip! Stay tuned to find out just how vain I really am....
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