On my way...I am off to New York tonight to begin my adventures overseas, flying via London. It is going to be 24 hours of hell in transit until I finally get to my hotel in NYC. I then fly out the next day into Denver, then take a 4 hour bus trip on to Aspen where I will be spending the next 5 months working and travelling, and of course skiing!
My itinerary from hell:
From: Johannesburg, South Africa
Terminal: A
to Heathrow (London), United Kingdom
Terminal: 1
Depart: Mon 28 November 2005, 20:15
Arrive: Tue 29 November 2005, 05:15
From: Heathrow (London), United Kingdom
Terminal: 4
to John F Kennedy (New York), USA
Terminal: 7
Depart: Tue 29 November 2005, 08:20
Arrive: Tue 29 November 2005, 10:50
From: John F Kennedy (New York)
To: Denver International, Colorado
Depart Wednesday, 30 November 2005, 08:30
Arrive: Wednesday, 30 November 2005, 10:15
On top of all of this I have picked up a nasty bug which has made me rather ill, so not feeling by best, but hopefully it will pass soon. The last thing I need is to start this process sick. I am very excited, and looking forward to spending some time living in a different culture and meeting new people. I am a bit nervous to be going on my own, but I am sure it will all work out for the best.
I will catch you all on the other side, with some news as soon as I can get access to the net once I have arrived in the US. Keep watching this space for photos and stories from my travels.
This is why we blogMany people ask me what the value is of blogging, and whether I think this form of 'citizen journalism' is really going to make a difference i.e. are people really going to listen to what us bloggers have to say?
Well today I found an example of just how powerful bloggers with a civic conscience can be. The
Do Not Fly Air France saga continues, with more and more examples of shocking customer service by the airline, including another of Colin's colleagues in Tunis at WSIS who had her luggage lost as well. Read some horror stories
here.
So some angry people got together to launch a
googlebombing attack on Air France. Googlebombing is an attempt to influence the ranking of a given page in results returned by the Google search engine. You can check the results
here,
here and
here. So now the first thing that anyone searching for the airline will see is how shocking they really are through blog postings and other articles by some reliable sources and first-hand accounts, that they would never have had access to otherwise.
So to all my skeptics out there, appreciate the subtle power that pissed-off net savvy bloggers have against corporate giants that are getting too big for their boots. And DON'T FLY AIR FRANCE!
Pimp my charp new ride an' all... Durban Style
DON'T TRAVEL AIR FRANCEColin, as I said in my previous post is in Tunisia attending the second phase of the WSIS conference. Unfortunately he has been having a pretty tough time with the airline that got him there in one piece, but not his luggage.
You need to read his
blog posting about his experience, as well as
this e-mail which he wrote to the airline. It's absolutely shocking that an important airline serving not only Europe but many Francophone countries could treat their customers like this.
Be enlightened, and choose your airline carefully.
WSIS kicks off in TunisiaThe second phase of the
World Summit on the Information Society (WSIS) began today in Tunisia. Colin Daniels is there for the
Highway Africa News Agency (HANA), so
take a look at his photo's if you are interested. The summit has included a panel discussions and presentation with Dan Gilmor on open-source "citzen" journalism so far, and the
Creative Commons crew is there too.
WSIS is a United Nations initiative which provides a platform for discussion about the "digital revolution" i.e. the new ways of creating knowledge, educating people and disseminating information, driven by the Internet, new media and information and communication technologies (ICT's). It also seeks to address problems of the digital divide, which leaves much of the underdeveloped world out of this "revolution", and find ways of drawing the periphery into this massive, speedy surge into the digital future. The first phase summit was held in Geneva in 2003.
The Tunis summit has a live webcast on their website which you can tune into if you want to listen to the plenaries. Hopefully some good ideas for the development of ICT's in Africa will come out of this, especially in terms of restructuring the way the world conducts economic and business practices, runs governments and engages politically with the continent.
To all the woman who have been lied to by their men...I found this cruising around on the Web. Yes I was procrastinating. The ladies are taking matters into their own hands, check out
Don't Date Him Girl!. It's a database of cheaters, so if you think your man is being naughty just plug his name in there. I was amused, what will people think of next... The mind boggles. Their
blog has some intriguing stuff on it too..
Surviving the US Consular General and getting a visaSo I went to get my J1 non-immigrant work visa yesterday at the US consukate in Durban. The process went surprisingly well actually and was more painless than I expected. I had to wait for an extra 2 hours after my appointment to be interviewed to actually get the interview. Even then all I had to do was walk up to a cubicle and go through a couple of questions mostly about what I am studying and where I plan to work etc. He let me go pretty quickly with a jolly old "Enjoy your stay in the USA, hope you have fun!"
I have heard horror stories about them being sticky so I reckon I had a few good things on my side:
1. My name is not Mohammed al Qatar or anything similar
2. I was not wearing a head scarf
3. I have not participated in any human rights violations for the Nazi government of Germany (they actually asked me this)
4. I am not Russian
5. I am not from Cuba
6. I have not participated in mass street-bound genocide (they asked me this too)
7. I do not have any communicable diseases of public health significance
8. I have a good white English name of royal significance
9. I am really really ridiculously goooooooood loooooooking :-)
10. I didn't write this before I went to the interview
11. I paid them $100 for the application and $35 for their "big brother" tracking system that allows them to pinpoint me and what I am doing at any time in the USA
It's a turning pointI am sitting in NML on my own on a rainy Saturday afternoon, this is the last time I will set foot in this building and it's a sad moment for me. It's become a home away from home filled with a lot of very special people and I am going to miss it a lot. It feels very strange actually, I feel quite displaced and disoriented.
Anyway, its onwards to see more exciting places and meet more cool people. I am leaving Grahamstown on Monday morning, after I have my car window replaced AGAIN, because they broke into my car this weekend AGAIN! Let this be a warning to all those that park in New Street... Bastards.
So here's to getting a degree and leaving university! It feels pretty cool...
The weekend in reviewI spent the weekend in Cape Town with my cousins, just chilling and looking around the place which was awesome! I haven't been there in a long time and it was really good to be back. I would love to move there when I get back to SA, it is so beautiful and there are so many places to go and things to do. It was good to go on holiday somewhere with nothing hanging over my shoulders as well. I did have to say goodbye to Lyle and Jenna though, as I won't be seeing them for a long time, which was really sad.
Friday:
1. Arrive in CT: windy and cold
2. Braai at the digs: meet a whole pile of medic students in the middle of exams
3. Frozen yoghurt at Marcel's in Rondebosch: can't believe it's still there, the best in the country
Saturday:
1. Witness an old man get hit by a car: saw my medic cousin in action, kind of
2. Have breakfast at The Greek: really good
3. Hit Clifton Beach: damn there are a lot of good looking people in Cape Town
4. Watch the cricket: yay we won!
5. Cocktails at the V&A Waterfront
6. Watch a movie: soppy chick flick, vomit
Sunday:
1. Drive around Chapman's Peak: wow its stunning
2. Lunch in Hout Bay
3. Check out Llundudno and Sandy Bay: a lot of naked people I hear
4. Tea in Camps Bay
5. Fell asleep in front of the TV while the boys worked
7. Cappucino and baklava in Greenpoint
Monday
1. Breakfast in Obs: i love it there
2. Fly back to PE: sucks
