Johannesburg Arrival

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I celebrated New Year at 37 degrees west, 37,000 feet in the air. They served champaigne.

After a mad rush out the door on the 30th, my mom and I got on the flight to DC where we spent some time with our lovely relatives, the Blisks. The next day, I was on an airplane, winging my way across the atlantic. It's been awhile since I've been on a 15-hour flight, but they haven't changed much - you sleep a little and poorly, your bum hurts from sitting for so long, and you watch a bunch of movies, in my case Bourne Ultimatum and Stardust. The best part of the flight was the aforementioned New Year's celebration, which will go down as the most unique one I've had yet.

Anyway, I have arrived safely and soundly and am staying in a lovely hotel in Johannesburg until my program starts on the 4th of January. I've been doing quite a bit of accidental sleeping, contrary to my normally quite strict jet-lag procedure. Alas. The weather is sunny and beautiful, and I'm very very very excited to be back in South Africa. I'm even more excited about Cape Town, where we'll be spending the bulk of our time. But for now, I've got a stack of sleep to catch up on, as well as alot of reading to get done.

As all of you who were on the Russian mailing list this summer know, this will be an opt-in email list. I plan on sending periodic updates, probably more once I get to Cape Town and have reliable internet access. Please respond to this email if you want to be included on the list. I'm also in the process of setting up a blog, and I'll send out the address when it's ready. Please feel free to forward this email to friends, as I'm sure I've forgotten some people.

I hope that you're all enjoying the tail end of break!

Happy New Year,
-Lauren

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