Day 1 (March 17, 2016)  
So. This is it. No more sleeps. I have my carry-on bag and my computer knapsack packed to the brim, and they are ready to head out the door for the big trip to South Africa. My bags are ready, but I'm not sure that I am. My stomach feels like one big knot, and I feel nervous but I am not sure why. I am very excited, so perhaps it is nervous excitement. I am not sure what there is to be nervous about; it must be the shy, introverted worrier that hides inside me and comes out every once in a while. I am determined to try to relax, so the knot will ease, but that is easier said than done.
It was hard to say goodbye today to my husband and my dog, but I know the time will fly by quick enough, and I will be back. After a good long hug at the airport drop-off, Steve helped me load my heavy knapsack on my, and away I went, into the Ottawa Airport.
I had checked in for the flight online the night before, and so I went to the self-service kiosk with confidence that all I had to do was insert my passport into the scanner and out would come my boarding pass. Wrong! (Insert a loud noise from an air horn here for special effect.) The screen at the kiosk asked for the first three letters of the destination airport. Well, okay, that's not so bad. It's Washington, so I type WAS and touch the Continue button. Next question asked: Which one? I was presented with two Washingtons. What do you mean there are two Washingtons? This is where my ignorance of geography comes in. Hmmm. So it's a 50/50 chance I get this right without hauling out my paper work from the bursting knapsack where it was. I chose the one that said 'Nat'l' in it. Wrong. That annoying air horn noise sounded in my head again. Okay, I don't want the attendant to have to come over (there are 5 sitting in the distance, and they all look very comfortable swinging in there spinning chairs and chatting). I touch the Exit button, ready to redeem myself, as I now know the right answer... it must be the other Washington!
I repeat the passport scan, the WAS three-letter question, and at the 50/50 question, I press option number 1 without the 'Nat'l'. Wrong! <Darn air horn sound in my head yet again! The screen filled with a message that the attendant would have to come help me. I glanced up from the kiosk over to the 5 attendants... none of them even noticed that they should come to help me, so I touched the Exit button again, gathered my load (bags, hat, and slippery down filled jacket), and headed over to one of the attendants.
As I approached, she barely moved from her slouched relaxed position, but that was okay, as she was helping me. I handed her my passport, and mentioned that the kiosk wouldn't let me get my boarding pass.
She asked me where I was going, so I shared that I was going to Washington (I didn't tell her which one, as I figured she would know), then Ghana, and then Johannesburg, South Africa.
She asked if I had been immunized for Yellow Fever. Wow. There it was. The question I had been fearing in the earlier days of knowing I was going to Africa. It was a decision I had struggled with. The thing is that going to South Africa was not requiring me to have this immunization, unless I was coming from a Yellow Fever area. And, as luck would have it, I would be landing (for fuel) in Ghana, and it IS a Yellow Fever area. When I went for immunization consultation for this trip, the travel clinic gave me the choice about getting the vaccination or not. I was told that to just land in Ghana for fuel on a connecting flight would not necessarily require immunization, and that I could get a certificate exempting me from it. I was concerned about that, but decided to go with this suggested route and to not get the needle. After all, the risk at getting Yellow Fever just being at the airport seemed to be low, and the travel clinic advised not getting it if it wasn't necessary.
Over the course of a few weeks prior to this trip, the international team that I was assigned to meet on a weekly conference call, and on the first call after my decision-making appointment at the travel clinic, during the open forum segment of the call, I asked if anyone had the same question posed to them for their travel. No one else was stopping in Ghana, however an alumni member who worked on a similar project last year said she would recommend getting the immunization so that there would be no danger of being held up at borders either going there or coming back. She said that she had the needle and it did not make her ill, and stressed that because she had the shot and the accompanying certificate, she had no problems. After thinking about it, I decided that I would get the needle after all, and that would be one less thing to worry about. I called the clinic to find out if I needed to set up a new appointment, but it turned out that I could go at the same pre-booked time as the next installment of my hepatitis shots. And so I did, although the travel clinic advised that I likely would not need it with the exemption certificate they had provided already.
The week before my flight, a good friend shared with me that she witnessed someone being turned away from a flight for not having the immunization; this helped me feel vindicated in my decision to have it.
And now, here I was at the airport, and the attendant asked me if I had been immunized for Yellow Fever. I could not help but smile, with self-satisfaction at getting the needle after all, and I was very happy that I could proudly produce my certificate of proof!
I am not sure, but perhaps this question was the reason why I could not do the kiosk self-serve. Who knows? After a few clicks of her mouse the attendant handed me my 3 boarding passes and off I went to fill in a declaration form.
I wheeled my carry-on bag over to the counter and began to go through the questions presented. One of the first ones was the airport question. Again with the airport! Didn't I just go through that at the kiosk? I shuffled through the passes I just had been given, to search for clues about the proper airport name. I had miserably failed at my attempt at the kiosk pop quiz, and I did not want to fail again. My boarding pass said Washington, nothing else. No "Nat'l", nothing. So I wrote "Washington". Next question: State? What do you mean state? I don't know what state Washington is in, I am not from the States. In Canada, there have been some TV shows about Americans being asked questions about Canada, and the comedy is in the answers that they share, based on what (little) they know about Canada (like thinking that we all live in igloos and have snow year round, which is incorrect).
Let's flip that scenario. If an American TV host was asking me questions about the US, I would be the person that the American viewers would be laughing at, especially when it comes to geography and state names, as I am apt to get it wrong.
So when faced with Washington's state, and knowing I got the kiosk 50/50 quiz wrong twice, I was stumped as to what I should put in the form. The only Washington I know of is Washington DC. But is DC a state? My American friends will likely find it incredulous that I don't know this, but I don't. So for the state, I put DC.
I worked my way through the other questions, then collected my load and headed to the next security person. I had to add an annotation that I was only in transit through the US, and I forgot to put the date. Oy.
Happily, I was directed to the next checkpoint; Security. Time to load everything into white trays and take off my shoes. From my knapsack, I pulled out my electronics, I took off my shoes, and then I proceeded through the scanners to greet my belongings on the other side.
As I stood waiting for my stuff, the lady at the scanner seemed to be reviewing my bag pretty closely and rescanning it. She pulled the bad off the main conveyer, and put it on a secondary one, and before I knew it, a guy came along saying it looked like I had liquids in my bag. Liquids?! What does he mean? I was so careful to put all liquids into a separate plastic bag and d'oh! He pulled the very bad I was thinking of from deep within my knapsack. What a dummy I was! Sure I had packed it in a plastic zip bag, as I should, but in my rush to take off my shoes and get everything in the trays, I totally forgot to pull out my liquids bag for inspection! Some days, as hard as I try to be organized, I just can't seem to nail the execution of pulling it off.
Drats! The security guy pulled out the offending bag and opened it, informing me that I must present my liquids, and also did I know that some items were too big. Sigh. My insect spray had to go. In my defense, I did try to get a travel-sized version but did not succeed. I gladly turned over my oversized spray bottle in order to comply and proceed. Not sure how I will repel those mosquitoes in Africa, but hopefully I will find something at my destination.
Keeping an eye on the time, once I finally made it past all security, I decided I should eat some lunch despite that annoying knot still lingering. I grabbed a quick salad with grilled chicken, and had enough time that I could stop at the currency exchange to get some South African Rand (ZAR). I asked for a couple of hundred CDN dollars to be exchanged for ZAR. She performed the transaction on my debit card and proceeded to count out 170 ZAR. I paused and looked at her. That was not right. I said I had really expected more than that, based on the rates I had seen, I thought it was about 11 (and a bit) ZAR per CDN dollar. She looked at the transaction again and realized that she had exchanged to a US $ rate but gave me ZAR bills. Oy. I may have failed 2 pop quizzes at the kiosk and the declaration point but there was no way I should be getting fewer bills than I gave her when converting to ZAR. She reversed the charge (well hopefully... I will find out when I get back), and then she took what seemed to be a number of attempts at the calculating the ZAR. In the end, I got 1,980 ZAR... a far cry from the 170 she initially gave me! Can you imagine if I had just walked away not questioning the first offer?! I am not convinced I got what I should have, but at least it was close enough, and much better than a meagre 170. I think that lady is not necessarily in the right job for her. Lesson: do your research and always count back what you get when changing money.
From there it was a quick trip to the washroom and then I was called to board right away. Apparently, while engaged in my currency exchange endeavour, my plane had started boarding and I didn't even know it.
I proceeded to the desk as she called out my name on the loudspeaker (oy) and I presented my papers. As I took them back, I turned and lost my balance with the extra heavy backpack I was not used to wearing. BAM! Down I went, backwards to the floor, and was flailing helplessly on my back like an overturned tortoise on its shell. I had to take the pack off to get up with the help of the very sweet attendant. How embarrassing! It would have been funny to see the video (if someone had taken one, that is; perhaps the security staff reviewing airport videos would find humour in it). Sometimes I have to laugh at my misfortunes, as it won't help to cry about it. What is ironic is that over lunch, I called my Mum-in-law to say goodbye, and I told her to not fall while I was away. And yet, 20 minutes after saying that, there I was, falling myself. Oy.
I managed to make it on the plane and we took off shortly thereafter. That was plane Number 1.
While I sat there looking out the window, I noticed a puzzling conundrum. Between the window panes were 2 dead bugs. One was a very small gnat sized bug, but the other was a rather large ominous looking yellowish dead fly-type bug. But airplane windows don't open, and although there is a tiny pinhole in one pane, I am perplexed at how this larger bug could end up between the sealed (?) panes. Once of my first mysteries of this journey, I guess.
 
The flight was pretty good with just a little turbulence and I was delighted to catch a glimpse of about 20 pink cherry blossom trees in full bloom as I flew into Washington. (By the way, they announced the airport as Washington Dulles... is Dulles a state? What is that, Dulles? Oy.)













After a quick re-issue of my boarding passes (2 for 1), not sure why but that's what the attendant seemed to require, I boarded onto a very nice South Africa Airways plane. I have an aisle seat in the middle bank of seats and am quite comfortable as I write. There is a camera mounted on the plane's tail, and I can watch this 'camera channel' on my personal monitor mounted on the back of the seat in front of me. That was very cool to watch the takeoff, especially because I am not at a window seat.
So far, since we levelled out after takeoff, I have been served water, a lovely mango orange juice blend, and a very nice supper: meatballs and penne, fresh bun, Monterey Jack cheese, crackers, a Greek salad, a square of dark chocolate, a piece of white cake with coconut icing, and a wonderful cup of coffee. It has been a long time since having a meal like that provided on a plane (without having to pull out the credit card). There was even metal cutlery. I am really liking this airline!
They have turned the lights out at 8:30 pm, provided a full blanket, an eye mask, and a pillow to let us passengers cozy up and get some sleep.
My first day of my journey started by feeling like I would never get on the plane, but now I am fed and comfortable and my stomach knot has disappeared.
It has been a strange day of quizzes, failed liquids declaration, suspicious currency exchange, falling like a turtle on my back, and running through the airport, like in the movies, to catch my plane. Odd, but now, all is calm and peaceful on this very smooth and quiet flight. On this positive note, I shall put down my pen, don my mask and blanket, and look forward to tomorrow's adventures. What a lovely way to end my hectic day. Good night.