And The Adventure Begins

20 November, Saturday; Seatac Airport, Seattle. It’s finally here. After all of the planning, we can finally enjoy our trip. Some of our last-minute planning involved each of us doing multiple rounds of cutting down our packing list. End result – a total of 105 pounds of checked and carry on bags.

Can you guess which is Ben’s?

If you know Ben, then you instantly know which bags are his and which are mine. To set everyone at ease, Ben has since tailored my carry-on to meet his neatness requirements such as no loose hanging straps. Our seemingly ingenious plan to get to the airport early and start our honeymoon off with a nice dinner was foiled by Jet Blue’s checkin schedule which left us sitting at the checkin counter for nearly an hour, but we did sit down and relax later with some nice wine at Vino Volo. After an overnight flight to JFK, we had a short layover, then boarded a South African Airways flight for a long 14 hours+ direct flight to Johannesburg. I was very thankful for Ben’s status that got us into the lounge in JNB where we were able to take a shower after two overnight flights. The 2 hour flight to Cape Town seemed like a piece of cake after all that flying.

Travelling as Mrs. Vincent for
the first time.

I always find international travel a great opportunity to meet all kinds of interesting people. Among one of them was the woman seated in front of me on the plane that thought it would be appropriate to drape her coat over the back of her seat and to put her big bag underneath her seat (i.e. my foot space). Another fascinating part of international travel is learning all of the different rules and policies in other countries and on other airlines. For example, SAA has a no-iPhone/Smartphone policy during flights. Yep, even with the Airplane mode turned on – not allowed! Given the new trends towards combining devices, I expect this leaves some people mighty pissed off, especially the guy next to me with an iPhone and a Blackberry.