Well, here I am...approximately 30 hours and 37 minutes til I hop my plane to JFK where I will wait 7 hours and enjoy my body's cool built-in walking feature before I sit down to an endless journey from JFK to Johannesburg and then to Cape Town. For those of you who have ever travelled, you are probably aware of the stale air that begins to accumulate in airplanes after fours hours or so. Well, imagine that multiplied by four and you will get an idea of what a 19 hour plane ride might be like. I leave New York at 5:55p on 8 July 2005 and arrive in Cape Town at 9:10p on 9 July 2005. Figure those hours and then subtract 7, which is how many hours South Africa is ahead of Minnesotan time and you have yourself a long journey. I am arming myself with a good book or two, a journal, and a cross-stitch in hopes that I will keep busy. I am quite fond of flying, so I am looking forward to the journey. What will happen when I get off the plane in Cape Town is my current worry, for I am without a place to stay for the first week. Not to worry, for something WILL come up, but not knowing is giving me just a bit of a scare. My current mantra is "Challenge creates growth." I hope the growth is not the stunted kind. But nonetheless I'm in fairly good spirits. It's been hard saying so many goodbyes over the last week, but it's also been fun to have several parties. It started first with a dessert party with the Heegaard's, the wonderful family I've been living with for the past year. Cheesecake and stories filled our tummies and spurred our laughter and thoughts. Then came 6/30th, the party at the Birkland's with Nadjla cooking up some delicious Persian rice and the most flavorful chicken I've ever tasted. Following that was a gut-busting party with Kim and family at Bucca de Beppo. Kim is my "non-boss" at Macalester college relations. We pretty much laughed the whole evening, bringing it to an end with the Star Spangled Banner, which I sung with her mom. Then my long weekend home with the girls (the "Roommate-a-Thon" as I called it) for the 4th of July brought my closes with my family. We all had a wonderful time going to church, driving to Itasca-the headwaters of the Mississippi, climbing a 100-ft. tower, playing Khaos, tubing down the river, picking strawberries, and having a race down the "Wadena Road," which Koby won of course. Finally the rest of the goodbyes will take place tomorrow evening at the goodbye party for friends around St. Paul. I'm definitely going out with a bang. Before I start going into details about the Jell-o with strawberries I'll be serving, I better log off for now and get some rest for what will be the almost last night in my bed.