can we pretend that airplanes in the night sky are like shooting stars?

We made it to South Africa!! First, of course, we had a 22 hour layover in Amsterdam which is where this picture is from. As soon as we hopped off the train into the city we rented a couple of bikes and pedaled around the city for a bit, checking out the canals, shops, etc. Then we made our way over to the Van Gogh Museum which was absolutely fantastic... what an amazing artist... we found the pictures coming alive and engulfing us- a rad experience. Then we somehow managed to find our way back to the bike shop- Amsterdam is one confusing city, let me tell you. We wandered around for a while longer, checked out the Red Light District, had some coffee, went dancing, and then exhaustedly made our way back to the train and the airport and tried to sleep for the next few hours before our flight to Johannesburg.

After the 10.5 hour flight down to South Africa, we spend the night in a cute little bed and breakfast right next to the airport so that we could catch our flight from Johannesburg to Port Elizabeth early the next morning. That flight was only about 1.5 hours and we sat next to a Jo-burg native who was very excited about his city and told us all about it. In PE, we were met by Liz who runs the lab for the penguin center. She took us grocery shopping and drove us to our apartment in Cape St. Francis- which is absolutely adorable by the way- the picture of the two of us above is off the balcony of our place... facing the ocean!!
We've spent the past couple days learning about the penguins, exploring the town, getting to know the locals and spending some quality time on the beach enjoying the Indian Ocean.
More to come!!