As most of you know, I like to take a big trip once a year. This year I am traveling to the continent of Africa, and visiting six countries on this amazing trip. You can follow my journey through this blog. I will do my best to update you often and try to post pictures.
Why South Africa?
I vividly remember the day that I decided I wanted to go to South Africa. It was 2000, my senior year of high school, and I was in my early 7AM economics class. Every morning we had to watch the morning news segments on the Today Show and take notes of current events as part of our daily class discussion. One particular day, the news segment was delayed, and we got to watch the section of "Where in the World is Matt Lauer?"
"Where in the World is Matt Lauer?" is a week long news segment done through the Today Show. Once a year, Matt Lauer spends a week traveling around the world and he highlights a different location every day that week. He gives the audience clues, while you try to guess his location. The location is soon revealed, and then Matt Lauer talks about where he is. The day I happened to be watching, was the day he was at Victoria Falls.
Victoria Falls is a large waterfall located between the countries of Zambia and Zimbabwae, and is the main reason I am going on this trip. Looking back, I really don't know why I thought Victoria Falls was in South Africa, but I think I must have looked for it on the old globe we had at our house ( old globe = it still had the U.S.S.R. on it), and I assumed it was on the Northern border of South Africa. From the moment I saw Matt Lauer's segment, I was determined to visit Victoria Falls at some point in my life, and fortunately the time is now.
This trip has actually been in the planning process since 2004, the year South Africa was announced as he host country for the World Cup. My friend Michelle said that she wanted to go to the World Cup in S. Africa 2010, and at this point, we planned on going together. While I have never been one to follow professional soccer, I will be attending 5 games. I love watching sports and I always root for the home team. My mom even got me an official USA World Cup jersey and scarf. I will definitely be wearing them with pride.
There has been a lot of planning going into this and our friend Mark has been amazing getting this all together. Mark and Michelle will be flying from San Diego through Europe, and I'll be flying solo through Tokyo and Singapore. After 35+ hours of flying, I will meet them at our first location, Mauritius.
I am definitely very excited for this adventure I am about to embark on! I know it is a once in a lifetime experience.
