adventures in airports

I arrived in South Africa this morning on the biggest plane I've ever been on. It wasn't as big as the new airbus planes, but it did have two levels & a bar on board. The 11 hour ride was greatly improved by 66 different films to choose from on my little computer screen. I went with "Dan in Real Life" & "27 Dresses". I would recommend Dan over 27.

The Jo-burg airport was probably my last taste of western life until August. It could have an airport anywhere in Europe or the States - clean, orderly, overpriced shops. I cannot adequately describe my joy in finding some soft couches in a coffee shop there. They were so incredibly fabulous. I slept there until I got on my plane to Lusaka, where I slept until the plane started bouncing around as we landed.

The Lusaka airport is half the size my hometown's airport, ie, about the size of the women's clothing section in Target. It has 2 gates, 1 baggage belt, & 1 customs official for all visitors. I didn't have enough US dollars for the upfront visa fee (apparently it had increased, but the website wasn't updated). So I talked 2 security people into letting me through everything b/c the only ATM in the airport is actually just outside of it. Of course the ATM gives you Zambian Kwacha (exchange rate: $1 = 34,000 kwacha) so then I had to get it changed into US dollars so the customs people would give me back my passport. Why they only wanted US dollars, which they would then have to change back to kwacha to use, I do not know. I was successful in convincing them to give me a visitor visa instead of a business one (much cheaper for me!). And now that I have paid my dues to the Zambian government I can come back to Zambia for free for the next 3 years.