Charles Apple

Goeiemere, folks, from Johannesburg!

Sharon dropped me off Tuesday at Norfolk International Airport, where I took this picture of the little puddlejumper that took me to Dulles in Washington, D.C.:

Yeah, it’s tiny. But I didn’t even have time to feel claustrophobic. The official flight was scheduled to be 55 minutes, but I think it was more like 25. We literally spent more time taxiing to and from runways than we spent in the air.

My layover in D.C. this time was much less than last: Only three hours. And those three hours passed very, very quickly thanks to the fine company I had in Dulles: Richard Curtis, who retired last December after 27 years as managing editor of graphics and photo at USA Today.

Richard is the old unemployed guy on the right. I’m the old unemployed guy on the left.

Richard, by the way, has some really cool ideas on how to ramp up the SND meetups in a way that would benefit designers and visual editors of small newspapers. If he calls you, please give him a hand. He’s got my support.

Then, it was time to climb aboard an Airbus A340 for the 17-hour-and-40-minute flight to Johannesburg.

I received a bit of a jolt when I gave the woman at the gate my boarding pass. She looked at my name, studied my face for a moment and asked: “Weren’t you on this same flight, just a few weeks ago?”

Does this mean I can consider myself a seasoned international traveler? When the gate agent recognizes me?

I found myself on the very first row of the aircraft — seat 1C. The very nice gentleman sitting next to me in 1A — Warren — works as a communication specialist on HIV/AIDS and public health issues. As is my custom on these long flights, I bored the poor guy with idle chatter.

My new iPod Touch worked very well. The sound quality is a little tinny, but I suspect that’s just the headphones. I need to find the controls that will turn down the treble and boost the bass a bit. I’m sure they’re in there somewhere.

The electronic comic books I bought were fun to read in iPod format. In a few of the panels, the text got a little small. But yeah, I could read comics like this. Not bad at all:

[Full disclosure: I boosted the brightness a bit in this picture to reflect what it really looks like to the naked eye.]

I picked up this book the other day to have something to read on the way over. Sure enough, I made it to the end of the book before we touched down in Johannesburg:

Nicholas Meyer is best known, perhaps, for directing and writing Star Trek II (the one with Khaaaaaaan!), writing Star Trek IV (the one with the whales) and directing Star Trek VI (the one with the murder mystery and the Shakespeare-quoting Klingon). He also directed Time After Time and The Day After, and wrote the post-modern Sherlock Holmes novel The Seven Percent Solution. If you enjoyed any of these, check it out.

Speaking of books, I’ve also been plowing through this one the past few days:

It’s giving me all sorts of fascinating insight into South African culture, explaining things I noticed during my last trip and putting my experiences into context.

About halfway through the book, I discovered it’s actually aimed at people planning to immigrate to South Africa. That’s not me. But by the time I leave for home on Nov. 30, I’ll probably feel like I’ve immigrated here.

And in the spirit of ‘Coals to Newcastle,’ I brought these two books back with me:

On the left is the lushly-illustrated biography of Nelson Mandela I haven’t gotten around to reading just yet. On the right is the history of the infamous  island where Mandela was imprisoned for the better part of two decades. I started reading the latter on my return journey three weeks ago but didn’t get done with it.

I didn’t embarrass myself this time by taking a lot of photos on the plane. I wish, though, I had pictures to show you of the food. The menu in business class:

TUESDAY DINNER

Starter

Chili Garlic Shrimp
With garden salad and drizzled with sesame soy sauce

Season Salad
Offered with choice of balsamic vinaigrette or creamy dressing

Main course

Peppered Grilled Beef Tenderloin
Served with thyme roasted potatoes, grilled asparagus, garlic roasted shitake mushrooms and a sun dried tomato Madeira confit

The shrimp was terrific, but the tenderloin was… well, it was very tender and loiney. Just perfect.

Here were the three entrees I passed up in favor of the tenderloin:

Berry Infused Grilled Chicken Breast
Accompanied by paella rice, blistered cherry tomatoes and fig demi glaze

Harissa Gratinated Halibut
Served with parmesan risotto and pomodoro braised broccoli and olives

Mascarpone and Sun Dried Tomato Ravioli
With mint cream sauce and peppers with peas

Cheese plate
A selection of fine continental cheeses and crackers, served with South African Port wine
Emmenthaler, Comte, Roquefort

Dessert
Four Berry Cake

—

WEDNESDAY BREAKFAST

Selected Fruit Juices
Slices Fresh Fruit
Natural or Fruit Flavored Yoghurt

Cereal
Muesli or cornflakes

Gruyere Cheese Omelette
Served with oven roasted fingerling potatoes, sautéed shitake mushrooms and cherry tomato

Or

Cranberry Apple Tart
With strawberry rhubarb chutney and chicken cilantro sausage

I was tempted to go for the tart. But the omelette has been just perfect every time.  They serve this meal right after we resume from Dakar.

Bread Basket
Filled with an assortment of breads and pastries, served with butter and preserves

—

WEDNESDAY LUNCH

Starter

Smoked Salmon and Marinated Prawn Tails
Served with vegetable salad, garnished with lemon and chopped dill

Main course

Grilled Chicken Breast
Accompanied by couscous, mixed vegetables and provencale sauce

I’m not crazy about salmon, but the smoked salmon appetizer was terrific. The chicken: Not so much.

Fresh Salmon Fillet
Served with steamed potatoes, snow peas, turned carrots with matre d’ butter

Tri-Colour Penne Pasta
With mixed vegetables and béchamel sauce

Cheese plate
A selection of fine continental cheeses and crackers, served with South African Port wine
Emmenthaler, Comte, Roquefort

Dessert
Honey and nougat gateau
With honey sauce

Tired but well-fed, I disembarked in Johannesburg Wednesday afternoon, breezed through passport control and came to a screeching halt at baggage claim. Where we all had to wait a very long time for our luggage.

And that’s when my bad travel luck finally struck.

I was chatting to very young, very cute young lady standing next to me, who waiting for her own bags. A recent graduate of Stanford, she was on her way to Mozambique to work in health-care.

Suddenly, her suitcase appeared, but it was way too heavy for her to lift off the carousel. Gallantly, I snatched it up for her.

When I put it onto her luggage cart, though, one of the rolling wheels snagged my front pocket and ripped my shirt:

You can probably see it better here:

Easily fixable… for Sharon, 8,000 miles away. This is one Hawaiian shirt out of service for now.

Ah, well. At least she was cute.

My clients have rented me a car for the 15 days I’ll be in Johannesburg. I was awfully worried about having to learn how to drive on the left side of the road, suddenly, during the evening rush hour.

So Tarina — a business designer at the paper where I’ll be working — and her husband met me at the airport and took me to dinner. Their kindness was a load off my mind last night.

They also have someone fetching the car for me today and dropping it off here at the hotel. I’ll be able to practice driving along the relatively quiet city street that runs between here and the paper, rather than being tossed onto the freeway. Plus, there are a number of small shopping centers around. I should have no problem meeting my needs over the next two weeks.

Because I’m in the country for so long this time, I suggested less, um, ornate accommodations. My room here at the Garden Court Milpark is comparable to rooms I’ve been in many, many times in the U.S.:

I freaked a bit, though, when I found I can’t buy straight-up, unlimited internet access here. You can pay for what’s supposed to be 24 hours of service. But in fact, they place a 200 mb limit on the bandwidth you can use over those 24 hours.

Because I do so much blogging and I call Sharon via iChat, I was afraid I’d use up my quota. But despite downloading a ton of files last night and chatting with Sharon for several minutes, they never cut me off. So I guess it will be OK after all.

I was also pleasantly surprised to discover I can access Facebook this time. I had problems with that in Cape Town.

Well, it’s time to head off for Day One. I’ll keep you posted…

This entry was posted on Thursday, October 1st, 2009 at 2:15 am and is filed under Charles Apple, Travelogue, Trip to South Africa. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. Both comments and pings are currently closed.