1-6-13

Slept pretty great for being in a new place last night. But let me back up just a bit. Since we sold all of our possessions in the garage sales Tyrone and I busted our butts at work to save as much money as possible to come to Langebaan South Africa. We worked and worked and I put in my notice about a month before our departure. I gave my boss  1 month notice just in case so she had plenty of time to replace me and it turned out she was able to find someone about 2 ½ weeks later! Tyrone and I quit pretty much the same day so we were able to spend a couple weeks with family and friends which was much needed. We had a blast spending time with everyone and saying our good byes. It was really hard to say good bye but we had to keep reminding ourselves it is not good bye, it’s see yam later. After many tears we said our final “see you soon” January 3^rd and left Houston on our Emirates flight to Dubai.

This plane is the only way to go when you have to be in the air for 14 hours! Lol it was amazing! It was a 380 and we were not in first class or anything but it was pretty spacious and we had chargers built into the private screen on the seat in front of you. I watched about 4 movies in a row before I finally forced myself to go to bed. The chairs recline quite a bit but the coolest thing was the camera on the front of the plane so you can watch the takeoff and the landing. I did record that when we landed in Dubai because of course Dubai had the runway lit up like a Christmas tree. They served us a couple of meals that weren’t too shabby and the selection of movies was huge! So that was a really nice flight and it did not feel like we were on a plane for 14 hours.

When we got to Dubai we tried to find a united club since we had passes to go in and get freshened up a bit but guess what, they don’t have one!!! L So we checked out the airport for a bit and found a Wi-Fi spot and emailed and checked in with everyone via Facebook. Facebook is becoming really convenient by the way. I never really posted much in the past but I probably posted 16 times between the 3^rd and now. It is just easy to let everyone we know what’s going on because everyone has it and lets just admit it we are all obsessed with it. Lol …We had our first international meal at McD’s since we were too chicken to try anything that might embarrass us on our next flight. We took a couple of naps, we had a beer to celebrate Ty’s birthdayJ my honey is 35 now. 8 hours later we were on a plane to Cape Town!

This plane…a 340..was like flying United but you had a screen that played a few random movies but it did not tell you what you were watching or when it started and you could not restart the movie. It was like flipping TV channels. Ugh…it was so cramped and the 9 ½ hour flight could not be over soon enough. The good thing was that the whole family of people surrounding us slept the whole way so we didn’t have the kids kicking our seats or anything like that so at least that was a good thing. They served a couple of meals but I wasn’t that hungry. I would say in that 2 day period I probably slept a total of 8 hours so we have been super sleep deprived but when we landed we got our excitement back so we were able to stay up and go to bed in Cape Town time and get on track easily.

We landed in Cape Town and it was so easy to get into the country. We went straight to passport check ins and showed our passports, the guy said one American woman and one American man, stamped our passports and sent us on our way. Yeah that easy. We grabbed our luggage and met the shuttle driver who was holding up a sign with our name on it. He drove us 2 hours up the coast to Mykonos club and here we are. There was a little confusion on where to go but the class, the flats, and the marina are all in one area and within walking distance. We borrowed his phone to call the school manager Tracey and she said she was going to have us stay in the flat for the night. Thank you Jesus! We were able to have a room with a bed and a hot shower as soon as we got in. The airport did not have Wi-Fi like in Dubai and our phones were dead because this plane did not have charger plug ins like the first one. We have a little mall where the school is located called the Pic and Pack and were able to find a Wi-Fi spot and log on just long enough to let everyone know we made it safely.

We came back and showered after buying a few supplies at the pic and pack and Tracey showed up with our roommate Christo. He is a nice kid all of 19 today. He is doing what we are doing pretty much but he is taking the class one step further and getting his ocean certification. We are stopping at offshore certification. We all have to meet at the school today at noon to go through orientation and move onto our boat. We are sharing a boat with 3 other people it turns out…lol…we will see how that goes…could be fun! So we decided to go down to the marina and have a nice little sit down dinner, have a few beers, and watch the sunset. We changed and put on some pants because it is FREEZING at night! Was not expecting it to be that cold but geeeez. Luckily the pick and pack has something similar to our Old Navy and I can pick up some yoga pants and another pair of linen pants or something. The price was about $20 U.S I think for the linen pants. We walked down and they have a few spots at the marina where you can eat and listen to music so we plopped down and dove right into the menu. Ty had the lamb skewers which were pretty good! I don’t normally like lamb but it’s not like the lamb at the Greek festival. Yeah we were hoping to have more South African food to choose from but this Mykonos Resort marina that we are staying at is of course Greek so they have a Greek menu and a pizzeria. I did go out of my comfort zone and try the prawn curry and oh ma gah it was so good! I can’t wait to try more new things! We did notice the crowd of captains all being loud and joking and drinking in the bar. You can tell they were out all day and are having a few drinks before heading home. I did notice that they did not eat there and I’m wondering where they go to eat around here. I would definitely like to try all the different places there are but I think we are sort of limited to the marina. The club Mykonos is a gated resort here so MOM that should make you feel better. We are staying in a gated resort with security and you have to have an access card to actually go down to the marina which is right off the bar deck where we had dinner.

We woke up at the crack of dawn to the rooster just up the road (that has still not stopped and the sun has been up for quite a while). The birds here are hilarious! They don’t sound like ca-caw seagulls back home. They sound like the game Angry Birds! They sound like chimps at the zoo actually…lol. Ok well time to get up get ready to go to orientation.