Thursday, February 13, 2014

Gratitude in Getting to South Africa

Today my wife, my two kids and I arrived in South Africa. Exhausted after 28 hours in transit but with smiles on our faces. The trip was not as harrowing as 28 hours might seem.  We had an overnight flight on Tuesday from Newark to Munich.

We had a 10 hour lay over in Munich.  My son took on the task of organizing our day and did a phenomenal job.  We took the train into Munich, had a German Lunch of Bratwurst, Frankfurters, Sauerkraut and Mashed Potato, took a bus tour of the city and ten returned to the airport for our overnight flight to Johannesburg. 

We arrived this morning in Johannesburg took a short flight to Cape Town collected our car and then got to our apartment just off the VA Waterfront.  While we did well on the trip (I am very proud of my kids) we were all ecstatic to finally arrive at our destination.    Since we only had two showers and I can not sit still on vacation my daughter and I decided to go over to the waterfront to explore and get some snacks.  As we walked around I was feeling incredibly grateful.   Not only was I given an opportunity by IBM to do a one month service assignment in South Africa but circumstances were such that my wife and two children could come for 10 days prior to the beginning of my project so we could share what is sure to be an awesome experience.

As we traveled these past couple days it was staggering when we realized that my children at the ages of 9 and 12 had been to 4 continents.  Wow they certainly understand the world is far larger then our hometown and can appreciate the value of diversity that is a part of our Irish, Jewish Chinese family

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