My body says that I should be doing some serious REM sleep, but the clock says just the opposite.  With a nine hour time change and very little sleep over the past three nights I find it hard to stay awake here in Johannesburg.  I even dropped my e reader a few times at the London airport . . .  It took forty-four hours to travel from my house to the Smith house in Johannesburg, quite a long day actually.

I enjoyed my twelve hour layover in London yesterday taking advantage of a beautiful sunny day to go into the city.  I first went to the London Eye, the new wheel on the banks of the river Thames; 32 'cars' or 'gondolas' each holding about 20 people at a time.  The experience was unique and with a circular travel time of 30 minutes gave lots of opportunity for looking at picture perfect views.

The last time I was in London was forty-two years ago on a ten week backpacking trip around Europe with my best friend.  Things in London have remained just as I remember them for old things do not change noticeably in four decades; the lions at Trafalgar Square are still magnificent, Buckingham Palace looks the same, the Tower of London hasn't aged.  But there are also a lot of new buildings and it seemed there were construction cranes rising up all over the urban area so there are most definitely changes going on; but those didn't concern me.  There were thousands of tourists downtown; most there to see the anniversary of the coronation of Queen Elizabeth earlier that day I suppose.  All I got to see were thousands of metal barricades still up along the sides of the Mall which leads from Buckingham Palace.

I was on a jet at nine last night and we flew out of Heathrow shortly before the sun went down.  I was lucky enough to have a three-seat section to myself so was able to sprawl out a bit and managed some semi-unconscious hours somewhere over the darkness of Africa.  My first glimpse of Africa came at sunrise; it looked as though there was a globally-sized camouflage laid over the place; a patchwork of browns on browns for it is now the dry season.  It didn't matter to me; I was here, over Africa and was excited about it.

My couchsurfing hosts here in Johannesburg are the Smith family, Henti, Bronwyn and their two girls; Vicky age five and Julia age two and a half.   They have a cute dog, Blaze, and two cats so I like that as I really do miss my dog, Emma.

All for now.