Day 1

After waking up at 6am to say goodbye to pop, and 730am to say goodbye to ma, I went back to sleep until 9am only to be woken up by the chasan pup cosmo. I slowly awoke, took my morning shower, and finished my packing. The siblings got up one at time, and as I drank my coffee and gave coz one of his last ear rubs for a while, I bid my Mercer Island home (which has housed me for 15 years) adu. We all packed my two enormous bags and one little guy into the car...my little sister Mia made sure I didnt forget my pillow, my ukelele, and of course the blanket she had created by hand (which is enscribed with "Mia <3's Jo") and given to me as a going away gift. I stopped by the bank to activate my debit card, making sure to give plenty of shit to the manager (Spurs supporter) for United's three nil drubbing of Tottenham. We departed to the airport after making a small stop at Sammy's house so I could see it off (he's moving out soon), and I found myself staring at the city I love for the last time for at least 3 months. Ill miss you, 206.

We get to the aiport, I give Cozzymodo one final ear rub, and teach Mia how to do so in a way that will make him fall in love with her. We check my bags (there was a bit of an odd moment at the check in desk...the person checking me in and the employee next to her claimed to be soon-to-be man and wife, so they asked Quinny to play a love song on the ukelele, only when he started to play, the employee said to us "no we just seperated last week, he's a jerk".....I'm still not sure about what really went down over there, it was really awkward....), but the one with the soccer balls and shoes (thanks to the Bensters and Jane!) is oversized, so we had to bring it somewhere else. We slowly stroll over to security, and after some teary goodbyes, I wave off my older brobro's and my lil sis for the last time. Before I know it I'm boarding my plane. My mother had stayed on hold for an hour earlier this morning to get me a "window seat", thanks ma, but when I sit down, Im stuck in a spot in between two windows ...looking out of the window is my favorite part of plane rides!!! Common!!! Why call it a window seat if it doesnt in fact have any damn window!!! I'd rather just have a shitty aisle seat! Anyways all is well...two mates walk up, and one sits down next to me, while the other continues down the aisle. Two minutes later the mate who continued down the aisle reappears next to our seat and asks me to trade with him so he can sit next to his buddy. I gladly trade seats with him. I get settled into my new home for the next 12 hours, luckily its in the aisle. The dude sitting next to me is a Polish fella named Pawel, pronounced Pavel, and he's a real homie. He has been living in seattle for the last 5 years, after living in Poland for his whole life where he acquired a computer science degree. He was offered a job my none other than our very own microsoft, but he has since quit to join a smaller company. He lives in Capitol Hill, and he is on his way to Italy to party with some ladies he had met in Greece back in May ;) ;)    So after grabbing some shut eye, talking to Pawel, talking to the women next to Pawel who were "very impressed with our conversation, not that were eavesdropping" and grabbing some more shut eye, we find ourselves in Amsterdam. We say our goodbyes, or rather they were quite mental goodbyes, I kind of lost Pawel...so after saying goodbye to Pawel in my head, I slip on thru to my next flight, direct to Cape Town, and after a half hour we are boarding. This flight I literally slept for like 9 hours. We land, we depart, and bam, there I am setting foot on South African soil for the first time in my life. Swweeeeetttt brooooooo. I get through customs, but not before hearing the PA system above tell "passenger chasan" to do something that I couldnt quite understand. Anyways I'm admitted thru customs by the hair on my chain, and after claiming one bag from baggage retrieval (the oversized bag was left in Amsterdam, it will be delivered to my house tomorrow), I head out to meet up with my ride to my new home. There he is, William himself, holding his gap year South Africa sign as promised. Theres also a nice blonde girl named Lonnecke (pronounced Lahnika, shes dutch, dont worry I already told her her name is misspelled) who is doing the HIV prevention program of GYSA. The drive to Fish Hoek, my new hometown, is beautiful. William, a native Afrikaaner (grew up in CT), is an astonishing man. He played professional cricket for a bit before joining a NGO based on decreasing HIV/AIDS in South Africa (in the village that Ill be coaching football every morning, 1/3 persons carries HIV...) and created GYSA 6 years ago. He truly is an amazing man, as he is fulltime in the business of saving lives.

We pull into the driveway of our new home, unpack the car, and walk thru the front door, but before we can even put our bags on the floor, a kid named Andrew rushes up to Will: "William we have a problem." Apparently there are supposed to be 9 of us in the house (Jenny, Chana, Lonnecke, Tim, Neal, Alex, Sam, Andrew, and myself), but we are missing Alex. The fellas all went to the pub while Will was picking Lonnecke and me up from the airport. Everyone made it back except Alex...and young Sammyboy has gladly shared his dinner with us all over the guys bedroom floor. So Will, Andrew and I hop in the car, drive around looking for Alex, and find him back in the pub they had visited earlier. At this point I'm laughing my ass off thanking god I wasnt in Alex's or Sam's shoes, as Will is a little cross at the boys. We return home, and after walking around in a state of pure surprise, William says goodnight and heads to his home.

I think this night is over, but oh no. Sam has locked himself in the bathroom and will not respond to our knocks or shouts. I give up on him and turn on some footy on the telly (they have like 6 channels for 6 different countries of football!!!) after whippin myself up some spaghetti. Soon enough, even though I was sure Andrew and I were the only ones awake, the three girls come out asking us to fix a window cuz its banging. We realize the window thats banging is the one thats in the bathroom that Sam has decided to lock himself into. We sneak around the outside of the house and close the window that way, but in the process see a naked-drunken Sam getting into the shower, which brings quite a giggle out of the girls. We go back inside, make ourselves some tea, and continue watching the football game. After 45 minutes, Sam is still in the shower, and still wont respond to us. We have woken up the sleeping Tim and Neal, so at this point were all just futsin around getting to know eachother. 30 more minutes go by, Sam finally comes out, but the shower remains on...he has somehow figured out a way to break the shower. We sit him down, a couple guys try to fix the shower while Neal and I watch the footy, and it doesnt work. 30 more minutes go by, its 1am, Im tired, I decide to do what I do best...take action! Wahoo! I find a mop, and clean up all the throw up in the guys room, only to have alex wake up and throw up all over the newly cleaned up floor. I ask Lonnecke to help me out with the new batch of throw up, she does, and I find myself helping Alex to the toilet....or actually he couldnt make it that far, he got to the bathtub. So pause for a sec and just picture this scenario: 115am in a foreign country, 8 out of 9 people are up (Jenny said fuck it and went to bed), one drunk kid stumblin around laughing, one room covered in throw up, one hallway covered in throw up, one bath tub filled with throw up, the other kid wrapped around the toilet, and one shower that wont turn off. I dont even take a look at the shower yet, as Im busy with cleaning up all the damn yak everywhere. 10 minutes later I check to see if Alex is doing alright, and I see Neal working on the shower. He discovered a little metal bit on the ground that Sam mustve broken off. After a few minutes Neal and I reconnect the metal bit and twist the handle, and wallah, water off. Catastrophe avoided. I make one last swipe with the mop, and plead with the two drunks not to throw up anymore. Its 145, the girls are tired, the guys are tired, and so one by one we head to bed. Welcome to South Africa, eh??? A first night for the ages.

Ma and Pa's quote of the day: My love for you is like throw up, just when you think its all gone, theres more!!!