WARNING: Venturing Into the Mountain May Cause Death

Above is what I now call the mountain of death. The story goes that the tribe living in the hills around the mountains had two cousins who had a romantic relationship together. The tribe tried to keep the two apart but as hard as they tried they couldn't do it. To get away from it all the two cousins ran away into the mountains never to be seen again. Now the legend goes that anyone who enters the mountains never comes back. No one knows what happens to them. Because of that you now have to get permission from the tribal chief to climb the mountains. He then takes an ad out in the paper claiming to your impending death and he notifies your relatives as well. Now my question in all of this is why hasn't anyone looked at the whole "they were eaten by a wild animal" angle? I mean it is in the middle of know where....just a thought....

My Life on the D List

Today was our first day of the conference and there was supposed to be a big dinner for everyone at another hotel tonight. I say it was supposed to be for everyone because in the end four of us got the cut. I guess they were only taking the "top" 14 people and we just didn't have the creds to make it. It's kind of like getting down downgraded to the kids table again after sitting at the adult table for awhile. In the end I think we were the lucky ones not having to go with everyone else. Course I found out during dinner that I can't even make the D list here as I found out everyone had wine and fruit waiting for them when they checked in. Me? I got nada.

Time Flys When You're Having Fun

Well my latest TDY has taken me to Gaborone, Botswana. The travel time door-to-door was just about 24 hours when all was said and done. Compared to my past travel experiences this one was pretty smooth. It was a rocky start at Dulles....I got there with what I thought was plenty of time (just over three hours) but once again Dulles proved me wrong. I waited in line at South Africian Airways for almost two hours. Apparently they double as a department store as everyone in line had about 5 huge suitcases with huge air-tight bags filled with clothes and such. People just couldn't quite grasp the concept that they couldn't send all of that home with them. After finally getting my ticket I went to get in the security line which when I followed it back to the end was literally back at the SAA line, no joke. At one point they were sending the line downstairs to the baggage claim area so I'm not quite sure what happened to those people...maybe they had to fly in the cargo section?

At least SAA's airplane made up for the craptasticness of Dulles. The entertainment was all on-demand and the selection was great. I mean who knew that there were still people in China that practice the art of feet binding? I definitely can't complain about my heels after watching that documentary.

The flights were almost as good as you can get until we landed in Botswana and found that our luggage didn't make it. We came in late from Dulles to Johannesburg and I guess they needed a least a two hour time frame to transfer the luggage which obviously didn't happen. But I was just happy to see that my luggage made it on the first flight this morning with everything still in it. All in all the travel time went by really fast and did not feel like the 24 hours that it was. I'm hoping I can say the same thing when I come back on Saturday...