FISH HOEK and CAPE TOWN, South Africa and headed to the U.S.A, October 10, 2005 — Airports, flying. How I hate it. But, oh well. It could be worse. I have a business class ticket until Atlanta. I have everything packed up. Mags suggests I take a walk until time to go. I can't decide whether to do that or save my strength. I decide on the latter.

The trip to the airport is kind of a performance. We go to Beattie's so she can drive us. We decide on the beach road. You know...a final look. Unfortunately we come up on a detour. Only they don't really tell you how to get back where you were going and we are out somewhere in the Cape

Flats. Beattie figures it out though. Then we are almostly totally stopped in traffic with just a few K to the airport. There was an accident. That took twenty minutes. Good thing I decided to get to the airport deadly early even though this flight is just to Johannesburg.

Beattie lets us off and goes to park even with me insisting that we can all walk from parking, there's plenty of time. I find a premium check-in and we wait around for Beattie. I've got pretty heavy hand luggage. My carryon has a bottle of wine and a bottle of chutney and a large bottle of water. I get the latter out and swallow the first of many decongestants that allow me to fly without pain. Beattie finds us after a while and there is still lots of time so we go to this burger joint called Spur. They are all over. They have an American Indian in a headress as a logo. We all get burgers. Beattie gets one with monkey gland sauce. That sounds cool to be but since I'm flying...

Too soon it's time to hug goodbye and go through security. I'll miss these ladies. I get through security quickly. I find the gate and the bathroom. When I come out of the bathroom, the gate has changed and there is a long line to board the buses for the jet way. No matter.

Before I know it, I'm off to Johannesburg. I change terminals there and it all looks a little confusing. First there are moving slanted sidewalks that lift you out of the bowels of the domestic terminal where it appears you've arrived. Then, in the International terminal, there are confusing crowds. I have a boarding card but I can't see how to get to the gates. Finally someone waves me toward a small opening behind the check-in counters and there a person points me in the opposite way a sign would have indicated and I find a security place that isn't very crowded. I'm then in a vast bunch of shops and eating places. My gate is nearby this area. I find a seat in a lounge and buy a beer as big as a horse's leg for about three bucks. They have a display of the flights in case mine changes gates.

I go to the gate at what I believe is a pretty early time. There is a big crowd with a group pinned up behind the (unopened) glass doors to a downward ramp and a sort of line stretching out behind. There are a nubmer of ample ladies with religious sayings on their T-Shirts and a group of people who are broad-shouldered and some of whom have weight-lifting verbiage on their T-Shirts. They've come from a weight-lifting competition. Now is the time to have a business class seat if ever there be one! And I do. I sit down, determined not to even bother with the line to board until things calm down.

I eat, drink, flatten the seat and sleep under the duvet, take the food and drink and all the little bottles of water they offer. I drink up my giant bottle mostly. We stop at Sal again. I don't wander through the other cabin. Ample church ladies and large weight lifters on a sixteen hour flight is an idea best not realized with real visuals. I sort through the on demand movies, I read, I work crosswords. Sixteen hours is a long time.

And somewhere along the way it becomes tomorrow where we are.