I touched down in South Africa after a very long (15 hours!) and disappointing flight on Delta Airlines. Now, before you ask how I could tell it was that bad, let me say I was on an Air France flight that was quite spectacular less than three weeks ago.

Delta’s flight attendants were quite rude. I’ll paraphrase a little bit of my conversation with an attendant after she offered guests seated in the last few rows a choice of water, Sprite or Diet Coke served in cups.

Me: May I have a Sprite please?
Attendant: Water?
Me: No, a Sprite.

She walked away, and five minutes later came back with a cup of water. I then noticed a male attendant making his way toward the back offering drinks. I asked for orange juice, explaining what the previous attendant had done, and he tried to force me to keep the lukewarm cup.

Hmmm…

I have to say everything and everyone has been great since we landed in South Africa. Arriving in Cape Town around 11 p.m. to a pleasant face waiting to pick up the team and our luggage was great. Twenty minutes later we arrived at our lodge. We were greeted by Christina (Wang Fen), one of the Shantou University students, waving her hand from her bedroom window.

Meeting the Chinese half of the FAMU-Shantou team has been great. There’s been no communication barrier at all. Although any hope of blending into the crowd has all but disappeared as I could feel the stares wherever we turned up. I don’t know if it’s the size of the group traveling, the odd mix of black and Asian people walking together, the presence of cameras and a tripod, or a combination of these things gave us away, but it has become quite clear we are not from here. I’m definitely looking forward to the next six weeks free of Delta Airlines customer service.

Signing out from South Africa, with love!