Goodbye Winter, Hello Summer

I am now in the Johannesburg airport waiting for my connecting flight to Pietermaritzburg (PMB) which is in a few hours. My last couple of days in Israel were pretty laid back, mostly spent hanging around the apartment and eating falafel. Saying goodbye to the family was not as hard this time knowing that I will be back in less than five months.

Getting to the airport was a bit of an adventure because the Nesher was running late and drove slower than usual because there was heavy rain and very heavy fog in some parts--little scary. I got to the airport with enough time, but when I went to check my baggage, I found out that El Al Airlines only allows 20kg of checked baggage total for flights not going to North America. So for my 9 hour, $1400 flight to Johannesburg they made me pay an extra $166 for 34 kg (~70 lbs) of luggage. Boy did I get ripped off. To give you an idea, a round trip flight to here from the US should be about $1700. I also now found out that I need to pay extra for the flight to PMB, but that makes sense because it's a small airplane and the flight was only $40. Moral of the story: don't fly El Al if you don't have to.

I am quite anxious to get to my final destination so that I can see where I will be living for the next 4.5 months and get settled in. I will give you an update from there as soon as I can.