Rachel's post

Okay so on day one we went on a 14 hour plane ride…it was awful never doing that again ever!!!!!!!!!!! So once we arrived in jo-burg it was about 8 at and we still had to have dinner and stuff. I was exhausted so there’s a time difference of about 6 hours ahead so we arrived at 8 that means it was about 2 in the afternoon back home. We spent a couple days in jo-burg touring and we went to gold rush city and went down in a mine! Cally you would hate it it’s so claustrophobic down there!!! After that we went to Sun City we stopped at this place called a curio shop. There were all these poor people trying to sell you their stuff saying it was handmade and then you would go to the next person over and they would have the same exact thing identical to the last…ya they were REALLY annoying. My dad loved it though he loves to bargain with the natives…so I’m NEVER going back there again. Once we hit Sun City that’s when the real fun began. We went on safari after safari! I was the elephant spotter because I was the only person who could actually spot the elephants. We saw the most of wildebeest’s and impala. We also saw a lot of rhinos one of them came up to the vehicle we were so close! I freaked then! Oh and everyday we were there we saw lions which is very fortunate…the last day there was a HUGE male lion walking along the road that was cool. Oh one time on the safari we went to stop and have breakfast at a viewing point and I really had to use the bathroom…we found the bathroom but it was a brick wall with a tin roof and there were rocks and sticks blocking the entrance and there was no door…I still used it cause it was insanely clean but it was really strange. That night when we went back we were playing spud (our fav game) outside our room. We invited the people next door to come play with us. There was a 15 year old Bryce, 13 Kyle, 12 Jodi, 9 Tamika, and Ronan 8. They were from Botswana. And they were a lot of fun…we tried to meet up the next day but failed cause we went to see birds instead. Once we got to the bird aviary we tried to feed them (we would feed the “go away” birds on the porch of our room bread) I succeeded first then so did Ryan Bianca and Stefan. Then a bird flew up and landed on Leonard!!! It was cool then all the birds started landing on me it was awesome! I had birds up my arm! But that was the last bit of fun there after that we went on our drive back to jo-burg. The boys dropped me mom Illana and Bianca off at a mall and we went African shopping! It was really cool. They don’t have like Aeropostal, Abercrombie and Fitch, or Forever 21 instead they have stores with different names but identitical clothing. I went into one store that was a mix of H&M and Forever 21. That was my favorite store. Once we were done shopping the guys picked us up and we went to a steak house called spur and it was exactly like outback except outback is themed Australian and spur is themed American…it was kind of insulting cause they had native paintings on every wall and danced to country music the whole time! But on the plus side while we were there I got a balloon and my face painted!!!!! After that we went home packed and went to bed. We woke up got on the plane and that’s where I am now on my way to Cape Town! I’m going to pet a cheetah and walk with penguins on the beach! Can’t wait!!! JJJ