Somewhere over Greenland, 24 hours into a 30-hour journey from Cape Town to San Jose, is probably not the best time to start putting your mildly delusional thoughts on paper.  But with all other options exhausted, what else am I going to do?  I've slept as much as the crying babies and cramped aisles and dryer-than-desert air allowed me to.  I've read and responded to as many emails as my out-of-practice fingers could take.  I've seen all the movies, read all my magazines twice... you get the idea.

So anyway, Jimmy Eat World's song "Dizzy", which has stealthily crept into my consciousness as the unlikely soundtrack of our 4 weeks in South Africa, is playing too loudly on my life-saving Bose QC3 headphones, as I try to make sense of our trip.  And I don't mind telling you that my head is spinning a little bit from the effort (probably as much from the airplane food as anything else though).

I've just been sorting through the thousands of photos we took (I'll upload a "best of" sometime over the weekend...), and in reliving this collection of moments I know that this has been a great trip.  Most importantly, we spent a great deal of time just visiting with my parents.  That was the main purpose of the trip for me.  It's amazing how, as teenagers and even into the independent twenties, we can't wait to get out of the house and away from the authority of our parents.  And even more amazing how, now that I'm getting older, I long again for their company, for continuing to learn from their wisdom and the way they love each other.  I am glad we were able to do that.

But the trip was also different from previous visits.  Jess and I learned a lot.  About the country, ourselves, our plans for the future, and all those things you start paying attention to only when you're not in the regular routine of work-eat-sleep...  But as much as I'd like to be profound right now, I'm just a little to airplaned out to think of anything but one thing: why, oh why, if they have so many business class beds open, can't they spare a couple for Jess and I to rest our weary eyes?  Sigh...

Oh, and here's the chorus of "Dizzy" which became a metaphor for the conversation we had with Africa during our trip...

Respectfully, some honesty I'll ask you now
Do you hear the conversation we talk about?
We'll back away to the safety of a quiet house
If there's half a chance in this moment
When your eyes meet mine, we show it.

I'll post photos soon, that's a promise...