9 Days and Counting

I never dreamed that when I made the decision to attend World Cup 2010 in South Africa it would lead to so many interesting adventures. Admittedly, many of them are adventures in contemplation of the trip nevertheless they are very exciting.

I bought my first tickets in February 2009 long before qualifications were complete and more in December just after the group draws were completed. I was just about ready to start booking my flights and hotels because I had set a deadline for myself that if I hadn't heard anything from FIFA on my volunteer application by the end of January I would proceed with trip preparation. I got up on the morning of February 1 to find an invitation to interview at the South African Embassy in Washington DC. I was so excited I would hardly breathe. The time given to complete the interview was incredibly short. Notification on the morning of February 1, interview completed by end of day February 12. I didn't want to sacrifice too much vacation time traveling to Washington DC for the interview because I needed it for my trip. When I called to schedule my interview I found that they had extended the interview period for another week because of high demand and luckily I was able to schedule my interview for President's Day, February 15. I flew in to Baltimore Washington International (BWI) airport the afternoon of February 14, had my interview at 9 am on February 15 and was scheduled to fly home that evening. I fully expected to be at work on the morning of February 16 but weather was delaying flights all over the east coast. This delayed my flight leaving BWI and after a very rough flight to Kennedy Airport in New York City we sat on the tarmac for really long time which casued me to miss my connecting flight home. I spent the night at a the Comfort Inn and all the next day at JFK Airport. Throughout the day it kept snowing so I was praying REALLY hard that we would still be able to get out that night. Things worked out, sort of. The flight did leave, over five hours late and was one of the last flights to get out that night. I got home some time after 3 a.m. Interestingly, on the flight out of BWI I ended up being on a flight with a co-worker from the Portland Development Commission. It's a very small world.

The interview was great fun. It was my first time in an embassy. I'd been in a Mexican consulate in Portland, Oregon and the American consulate in Lima, Perú but never an Embassy. The interview was similar to the job interviews I been through for local government jobs. It was a panel of three staff members and they asked work-like questions. "What would you do if....", "How would you deal with...". I thrive on interviews like that so I walked out floating on air. I walked all the way down Embassy Row back to my hotel, the gorgeous Churchill Hotel. I got the call from the Embassy on March 2 that I had been selected to be a volunteer in Cape Town. At this point I was so grateful I hadn't purchased my ticket or secured accommodations because it was likely that I would have had to change them.

Before all this, back in January of this year when I was getting panicky about not having a plane ticket or hotel reservations. After a conversation and my acceptance as a volunteer a friend sent me a link to a travel blog. The writer, Matt Gross, has incredible travel information. The abiliyt to do research and travel smart has come so far since I traveled to England in 1979. Check out his May 6, 2009 block on "Research: the Traveler's Best Friend" for good information on how to research. I felt pretty smart when I'd been using his first mentioned tip for years, or at least since my decision to make the trip in 2006 - Google!

I used his frugal flight tips to get a wonderful price on my plane ticket. I used the ita software site that he talked about to find a great deal then I went directly to the airline to book it myself.

Whew, over the first hurdle.