The Bahblog

London

We spent our last morning in London exploring the neighborhood around our AirBnB and getting a delicious lunch at a local Turkish restaurant. Nate had lamb kebabs and I had hummus and we finished our meal with a glass of Turkish tea. Out of all of the people in the restaurant, I think we were the only ones within earshot speaking English. London was a nice reminder of just how big of a world we live in and sometimes overlook.

After lunch we went back to the AirBnB to grab our luggage and say goodbye to our wonderful host, Greg. We also grabbed the remaining beer and soda we had in the fridge (I promise this is relevant).

I had been bugging Nate since the start of our trip to figure out how to lock his suitcase as I've heard of left from luggage at OR Tambo (Johannesburg's airport) and we were checking his bag. At breakfast that morning, Nate casually told me that he was able to lock the suitcase, but now he couldn't unlock it and asked if I happened to know the code. I didn't. I frantically texted my parents hoping they knew the code (we borrowed the suitcase from them), but they had never used the lock. Thus, we spent our 1.5 hour tube ride to Heathrow drinking our remaining beer and soda and trying all 999 combinations to get the suitcase to open.

We couldn't open it. It turns out that Heathrow has a wonderful information office, where a very helpful gentleman cut the lock for us (after laughing a bit, but we were laughing too).

After that, we bought another lock, wrote down the combination, and checked the bag! Heathrow security was a bit of a nightmare (your liquids have to be in ONE BAG and the bag has to be SEALED SHUT and you are loudly shamed if you don't follow directions as I know from first-hand experience) and I found myself missing the TSA agents at American airports. Once through security, we hung out at the SkyTeam lounge until our flight to Paris. The flight to Paris was uneventful and quick (45 minutes) and we had a long connection at CDG, but it passed quickly in the Air France lounge.

In Transit

Before we knew it, we were lining up to board our A380. I'm a bit of a plane geek, so naturally I took a ton of pictures of the plane as we waited to board.

Our boarding was a bit delayed because they couldn't open the door to the upper level (seriously, nearly the entire lower level was boarded and we were standing in a mass of people waiting to board the upper level), but eventually we got to our seats and settled in.

The 11 hours passed quickly. We slept pretty comfortably, watched A Quiet Place, and ate delicious food. Before we knew it, we were making our descent into Joburg and I was listening to Toto's Africa. Thankfully the Joburg ground crew knew how to open the door to the upper level, so we were let off in a timely manner and got through customs pretty quickly (we were asked no questions - he simply opened up our passports and stamped them without looking at the picture). We collected Nate's bag and took the Gautrain into the city.

Joburg

For anyone unfamiliar with it (which I'm assuming is everyone), the Gautrain (with the G pronounced as a guttural "H") is a train that takes you from the airport to the heart of Johannesburg and surrounding suburbs. I had been hesitant to ride it but was assured by everyone that it's safe. I felt safer on the Gautrain than I have on most NYC subways. The stations are incredibly well-patrolled and I got scolded for chewing gum (chewing gum, eating, and drinking are not allowed). There is a security person going through each care of the train. It was an eventful-less ride and we got off at Rosebank.

Once at Rosebank, we walked through the Rosebank Mall to get to our AirBnB. The Rosebank Mall is filled with upscale shops and restaurants. It reminds me a bit of the Grove in LA. Our AirBnB is half a block from the mall and we felt perfectly safe walking to it. The AirBnB itself is very nice and we have the entire apartment to ourselves. For dinner, we walked back to the mall and had a nice steak dinner and split a bottle of wine. It was the best steak we've both had in a long time and we're both so happy to be here. Nate ordered his with a side of “pap and chakalaka”, a local dish of a corn meal cake (the pap) and a spicy vegetable based soup (the chakalaka), which was quite good with the steak!

A successful first evening in Rosebank, Johannesburg.