First Times

Right now I’m sitting in Washington DC. I look out of my window onto a grey, cool day. It hasn’t started raining ,yet - but there’s still lots of time for that. It’s still early here, only 09:15 in the morning. My hair is wet from the shower I just recently took and I enjoy the feel and sound that the keys of my laptop make as I type away.

Even earlier this morning I accompanied Erik to the station. On my way back I walk past, in this order, the Library of Congress on my right, The Capitol Building on the other side of the street and the Supreme Court. Everything inside me wants to scream – What the fuck? How did you get here?

As clichéd as it sounds, these landmarks are not only impressive but beautiful. Really, really beautiful. I had seen these buildings before on tv shows and movies I couldn’t even recall the names of now, and I felt quite confident that I knew how they looked. To my great surprise this didn’t mean that I actually knew how they looked, or should I say, feel.

To answer my question of how I got here I have to go back to more than two weeks ago to Saturday 31 June, when I began my 36hr trip from Cape Town to DC.  I was concerned about how I would handle the long journey. I have never travelled extensively in my entire life and a 36hr journey comprising of two stops seemed a bit daunting to me.

What I didn’t fully comprehend was the fact that ignorance was truly bliss in this case. I had no other experience to compare this to. This would be the best transatlantic trip I’ve ever taken. For some reason collecting my luggage was the biggest issue for me, because my luggage was big and I am well... not. First in New York, then in DC – where I proceeded to get lost, in the airport, for an hour. I would like to place all responsibility solely on the fact that I had been travelling for an inordinate amount of time, but really even at my most coherent I am extremely scatterbrained. In the moment of moving from one elevator to another I tried to assure myself that all this was rather funny indeed. However, all I wanted to do was cry, I would laugh later but I just really felt gotten the better of in that moment.

Other than this the trip was great! As I have so often experienced in life, nothing was as bad as I thought it would be. Not the flight or the airplane food (although airline chicken is an altogether new experience, I can’t quite explain the texture?). I arrived in Dubai at one thirty in the morning. Even though I was in the airport it was surprisingly humid, already! At this point the mixture of lack of sleep and excitement had made me delirious. I walked around slightly dazed, half asleep and in such awe really. I mean I was in Dubai. I’d never been in Dubai before!

My lack of sleep was brought on by the fact that I found it impossible to sleep for any proper length of time in my seat. I also found the restriction of movement quite tedious after a while, especially on my second 13hr flight. Yes, 13hrs of trying to manoeuvre my body into a position most resembling lying down. This is not possible, at least not in Economy. Also, and in hindsight, wearing a bra for 36hrs is both stupid and unnecessary. Just don’t do it!

At around I-am-not-sure-if-I’m-asleep-or-awake o’clock this giant ball of molten orange rose in the sky. It was amazing. Yeah, I may have been sitting in an airport, threatening to fall over every time I stood up, but, wow, that sunrise. Thank you Dubai!

I don’t think I can truly convey how it feels to technically be in three new places in the space of less than two days, when for 28yrs of your life, you have lived in the same place. I can’t describe it, not right now anyway. Also, part of me knows how special it really is, and I want to hold onto that feeling for a little bit longer.

When I reached New York I think I must have thoroughly looked the part of the exhausted, first time traveller, because everyone was so incredibly kind to me. After having unlost myself in Washington Dulles I was able to see those very buildings which I walked by earlier this morning, but under the veil of a dark blue night sky. And I won’t have Table Mountain around anymore, and how I will miss it. I do however feel that for now I’ve made a good swap.