From Kansas city to Durban

Hello everyone! We have made it successfully to Durban, South africa so here goes my first blog post. So far, nothing terribly eventful, but that's probably a good thing. But here's a quick update on our journey across the Atlantic. After a painfully long four hour layover in Atlanta we boarded our monster of a plane. Most of you know that the flight was what I was most nervous about. There were definitely a few tears and a lot of deep breaths, but I calmed down a bit once I got settled. I didn't do much sleeping due to the nerves, but I did watch a whopping 5 movies! They had a better movie selection than most blockbusters. Over 100 to choose from! Bryan and I lucked out and no one sat in the seat between us. We left that tv screen on the moving map so we could track our progress. If anyone ever tells you that a 17 hour flight won't actually feel that long, they're lying. It felt like forever!! I will say we were well fed though! And those free cocktails definitely helped me relax a bit. Once we landed in Johannesburg we waited in line for a long time to go through customs. It was not a particularly exciting experience. Once we had our bags I was not pleased to find that tsa had taken my tsa-approved lock off and not done a very good job of putting my stuff back together. So much for all that careful packing! At least nothing was missing. We had a pretty long layover there as well. I have realized I am going to have to work on understanding the heavy British accents down here. Especially when the natives speak English, it is very hard to understand. Our flight over to Durban was a short one. Just an hour. The last shuttle of the night was leaving just as we got there so we hopped on for a VERY bumpy ride to our hostel. As he pulled away we realized all the lights were off and the gate was locked. After nixing the idea of climbing over when we spied the four inch metal spikes along the top we rang the buzzer until the owner came out in her nightgown. Oops! Anyways, my Internet time is running out but the place was very nice and I slept decently. Now we are off to manguzi via a 6 hour taxi ride. Could be interesting! Hopefully we will have good Internet access there and I will be able to post again soon. Ive already taken lots of pictures so I'll have to get those up too. Miss you all lots!