No Arrests, No Jail or Prison Time, Just FRIENDLY PEOPLE this trip to SA

to my new, old, long time and brand new friends around the globe

6:00 am
Guesthouse at 314 Clarke Street in Brooklyn, Pretoria, South Africa

thank you for your LIKES & your COMMENTS & your friendship

Alicia Nel
Athena Vardis
Bill Barker
Jennifer E. Haggerty
Joette Field
Lelani Swart-Botha (not a Facebook friend yet)
Nico Botha
Pankaj Sharma
Shannon Joy
Sherrie Connor
Steve Williams

no arrests this trip
no jail or prison time
no fines

only friendly people, new friends, visits with many long to short time friends in SA and some from Canada, USA, France, India

even the security guards at each airport were friendly.

the Passport Checkpoint person at Tambo looked angry or bored so I just handed her my passport and stood there.

I tried to get her to smile with a joke about my passport photo

NO REACTION

so I stood there until see stamped it and I passed on.

The two agents who searched me or my bags at Gate A-11 both smiled, both laughed, both joked with me.

I asked if I could go out to use the restroom.

The man would searched me said he would take my backpack and my camera and store it so I could leave and come back in easily.

After using the men's room I bought a Coke, been drinking them all week long (glucose reading is probably through the roof).

I put it in my jacket pocket and walked in again right passed the same checkpoint people who smiled and passed me through.

then I got my bag and camera back
and processed into the final waiting area and got into line.

met a new friend who let me back into the line that I was in a few minutes before and we began talking

where are you headed?   Research Triangle
what were some things you did in SA
etc.

then two agents/guards approached me

"you can not bring drinks from the outside"

they said in firmly and professionally.

we exchanged

I was parched because my mouth and throat were dry.

the interpretations of the RULES for international air travel are practiced in many different ways around the world as I have discovered traveling to 93 countries especially all the countries I have traveled to and through since Sept 1, 2001.

They guided me back to the middle, safe area and said

you can drink it here.

After 2 or 3 more sips I through the rest of the bottle into the nearest trash container and returned to the line I had been standing in twice before.

no arrests
no jail time
no prison time
no fines

just professional warnings

I thought I took a photo of the friendly security man who frisked me but I can't seem to find it.  He was smiling and laughing.

Here is a photo of the young friendly woman from the RESEARCH TRIANGLE,....my inline mate.

my last Delta flight home

the across the aisle seatmate where I mistakenly first sat

who found my camera and gave it to the stewardesses to find whose it was....MINE!

I quickly shared about my PHOTO TAKING EXPERIENCE from 4 years ago October 21st.  He claimed he served 17 years in prison for a murder he didn't commit.

I asked him how he got through that...

THE BIBLE was his answer and we didn't continue expect for minor miscellaneous comments until we landed in Atlanta 17 hours later.

not the camera I had misplaced, left behind....the GIFT CAMERA that Rosalie and Francois Cloete gave me a gift on November 20th, 2014, which stopped working one morning in October 2017 when I bought my latest Canon digital camera

the stewardess who was making the announcement about
WHO HAS LOST THEIR CAMERA

My last meal on my return DELTA DL 200 flight to Atlanta.

3 new creativity colleagues and friends I met last week, one: Lee Kitchen I met at Mindcamp in 2009.

Each of us were up early on Sunday morning at 314 Clarke street.

They were driving a rental car to a game reserve 3 hours North of Pretoria and I was beginning my trip home.

the young counter employee for British Air who saved me the hassle of having to transporting my two bags of three

He gave me the best directions he knew....only partially correct for where I MIGHT store my two bags....

I asked 5 or 6 other people in the next 10 minutes until I found
A-Tech at B-1 or Minus 1 level near the International Arrival area in Terminal A where I paid R80 each bag to store them until later in the evening.

Here is the British Airways agent who helped me at Tambo by telling about the place/company I could store my two bags with while I needlessly flew to Cape Town and back on Sunday Morning to save money on my Delta Airlines tickets from Atlanta to Jober and back this year.

Then I returned to Terminal B to find my Gate B-11 to fly to Cape Town and back.

From when I woke up at 314 yesterday morning until I arrived at my house thanks to my first UBER driver I ordered using my brand newly downloaded UBER APP on my smart phone, RICHARD, who drove me from Groome Transportation's office on Atlanta Highway to my home 2+ miles away.