Thursday, June 17 to Friday, June 18
Boston, MA USA to AMS to Johannesburg, RSA
After our beers at the Harpoon Taproom, we had a short 7 hour flight to Amsterdam. We had just enough time for cappuccinos and pastries at Schiphol before our not-so-short 11 hour flight to Johannesburg.
We were pretty bummed after our flights. The pilot notified us of the Celtics Game 7 loss on the first flight – we were so depressed we didn’t even bring it up for days. Then the pilot of the second flight notified us of the USA-Slovenia 2-2 tie (a game we had expected to win). We didn’t find out until later that the USA came back strong and that it was a pretty good game. Hearing just the final score was a big downer. We were hoping for better things for our teams while in the air.
Back on land, because we had FIFA certificates, we got through the passport line super quick. Then, because we didn’t check any bags, we beat everyone to customs where we had nothing to declare. This was all very important because we had to pick up our tickets in person at the FIFA counter, which closed just 1/2 hour after our flight landed. We just made it in time to get our tickets.
They had porters to help everyone. A porter got us to the FIFA desk (which was tucked out of the way in the airport), to the ATM, and to the proper taxis where he tried to make sure the cabbie knew where he was taking us. Unfortunately, it turned out the cabbie only knew our general neighborhood of Zoo Lake, but didn’t know our street. He was nice though. We asked if he had a map and he handed it to us, for us to find Dee Street. Then after we found it and showed him – he asked us where we were on the map right now! Once we sussed everything out, he took us right there. The next problem was that we didn’t think it looked right! It wasn’t signed (turns out that is normal — good safety practice) and it just looked like a really nice house. We didn’t think we were in the right place at all, but our cabbie just drove right up and buzzed the gate and we were in! The owner and Zoo Lake Bed & Breakfast were gorgeous! We highly recommend Sylvia and her Zoo Lake B&B to anyone staying in Jo’burg!
The Front Gate:
The Grounds in Back:
The crane drinks from the pool!:
The sitting area in the sunroom where we ate breakfast every day:
Our B&B puppy, Savannah! They also had two cats!:
This was our room for the first two nights. We changed rooms when Sylvia found out that a new round of her guests about to come were not couples (FIFA only gives one name and the number of total guests) and this room we were in could be converted to single beds. We didn’t mind at all. But our room was gorgeous!
We moved to THIS gorgeous room! The whole place is gorgeous!
