Bubba, we're not in North Carolina anymore...

Charlotte Douglas Airport--4 am in the morning...we look a tad bit tired, huh?

I felt like I had landed on Mars.  Jokes, not really, but South Africa felt foreign, all right.  My mom's idea of packing all my books into my carry-on backpack sounded like a superb plan at first (you know, to avoid losing all the school books in case my luggage got lost) but after 17 hours of lugging the 30lb bag on my back through security, baggage claim, and boarding three flights, all I wanted to do was chuck my backpack down the toilet in the airplane.  My back ached, my head pounded, my eyelids threatened to collapse shut, and I REALLY WANTED TO TAKE A SHOWER.  But when Mary Lauren, my American co-exchange student and travel companion, and I walked into the Durban Airport, nothing else mattered besides a greatly important fact: We were in South Africa.  We were thousands of miles, three flights, and many phone calls away from home.