Bound for Cape Town, 3 kids, 3 planes and an Ambien

Welcome to my family vacation to South Africa, Zambia and Botswana. Friday midday we picked Justin and Livvy up from school at 11:30AM in our trusty mini-van and headed for SFO. Justin was not quite ready when we arrived at school but could be seen jogging up the hill from his class toward the administration building with his enormous backpack slowing him down and bouncing violently as he sprinted ever closer. The Junior School Art teacher, Susie, saw Justin whizzing past and called out playfully, “Where you going in such a hurry Justin?” Without breaking his stride, he looked over his shoulder and called out deadpan, “Africa.” Susie’s audible “Wow!” followed by, “have fun,” brought a bright smile to Justin’s lips as he crested the hill and hopped into the van. We were on our way.

Our journey would be a long one, 36 hours including a monster layover in Frankfurt where we would meet up with my mom, Sylviane, and Chloe, who just finished exams at boarding school near Boston and was going to be with us for the full 2.5 weeks. I am not sure which I was more excited about, seeing Chloe or the African adventure itself. I had bought 6 matching vomit green and grey ultra lightweight travel duffels for our trip and as David loaded the 4 unfortunately colored duffels onto the check-in scale at Lufthansa’s Business Class kiosk, I beamed with pride at the sub-20kg weight of each bag. Boarding passes in hand, we cleared security and were soon aboard our first of 3 flights.

I have never flown Lufthansa internationally before and was somewhat surprised by the aggressively polite greeting I received on board. As I was preparing to store my carry-on in the overhead bin I had the distinct feeling I was being watched. Just as I backed into the aisle and began lifting my bag, a surprisingly tall and slightly bug-eyed uber German looking flight attendant took firm hold of the bag and ably wrestled it from my wimpish grasp with a simple, “Pleaze ha-lough me to azzizt you.” This essentially sums up service aboard Lufthansa, not quite friendly but relentless in every effort to maximize efficiency. When mid-way through the initial beverage service I inquired as to what the children’s meal was for Livvy, I received from my giraffe-like Gertrude of a flight attendant an amazingly thorough description of the 3-course meal, including specific food preparation details, however this was entirely without panache or attempt to tempt the palate. She may as well have been describing the construction of a suspension bridge. Livvy did enjoy the full size chocolate bar that came with dessert.

Safely arrived in Frankfurt we made for the Steinenberger Airport Hotel to have a nap and shower and meet up with Chloe and my Mom. Before heading back to the airport terminal for our night flight to Johannesburg, we decided, at my mother’s insistence, to dine at the hotel’s finer restaurant called the "something German Shwein Restaurant", where Wienerschnitzel is the house specialty, of course. As we entered the restaurant I could immediately spy a half dozen tables occupied by sad looking tourists nursing a variety of beverages. The absence of actual food should have tipped me off, and perhaps I could have taken notice of the fact that all the patrons were still wearing their coats, but I was jet-lagged and not on top of my game. Our bald waiter had a delightful speech impediment that caused him to spit ever so slightly with each exaggerated gesture of hospitality. Justin and Livvy were killing themselves with laughter trying to impersonate him. He damply assured us that our meal would take no more than 20 minutes to prepare if we stuck to the “houze zpe-shee-a-lee-teez”. It was at about this time that I began to notice how cold I was and asked the waiter if he might turn up the heat. He looked back at me perplexed and motioned toward a standing electric heater next to the table, "zee heat iz verking Ma-dam," he spittled. 50 minutes after ordering, my toes were frozen solid like little shwein as the first morsel of food hit the table, enough said.

We sojourned in the Lufthansa airport lounge filling our pockets with mini 85% chocolate bars and then boarded our second 11 hour flight, bound for Johannesburg. Instead of a towering hyperthyroid female flight attendant, this time I was efficiently azzizted by her gay male counterpart but with the added charm of severely tweezed eyebrows. I did not dare ask any questions at all about the food service and still attempting to digest my shwein from dinner, watched a few films before popping an Ambien and crashing out for 6 hours. Upon arrival in Jo’burg we were met by our greeter who had just enough time to escort us through the short queue to our South African Airways connecting flight to Cape Town. Aufwiederzen Deutschland, hello smiling and genuinely friendly African flight attendants.

Our driver, Andre, met us in the Arrivals Hall in Cape Town and drove us to our beautiful hotel, the Cape Grace Hotel by the marina. After a refreshing pineapple and strawberry sparkling welcome drink we were shown to our rooms by Betty who was so exuberantly happy to see us and demonstrate both the room safe and air conditioning system, that I felt sure she would cry when we take our leave in 4 days time. A solid work out to expunge the 36-hour travel food from my system, followed by a delightful shower replete with full size luxury bath products (see pics), and then it was onto dinner at a lovely spot overlooking the marina. Cape Town is breathtaking. Table Mountain towers over the marina providing a unique backdrop to the bustle of the outlandishly quaint spot. Our waiter’s name was “Quiet”, although as far as Mom was concerned it should have been “Indecipherable”, as she could not understand a word that came out of his friendly and remarkably white-toothed mouth. I translated and she order the king prawns which were delicious.
And so to bed….