I have just arrived after a long 15 hour flight. My body tingles in funny places, there is a slight haze in everything I think, and I dare not look at the clock set to my original time, but I am otherwise fine—having arrived safely and without incident.

I always think when I land after an overnight flight that this feeling is like being sober drunk. No matter how well you have traveled, what medical or holistic treatments you have taken, how much wine you have abstained from, and how much water you have drunken, I always feel a little discombobulated and jetlagged.

I chose a hotel next to the airport to make it easy. I suppose I should have paid attention to the option to reserve an early check-in because my room isn’t ready and I have parked myself in the restaurant until I can check in.  Luckily, I think that should be in an hour or so. I can only hope because that hour seemed insignificant when I arrived, but the closer to the hour it gets the longer the minutes stretch.

My husband will appreciate that I arrived with my phone’s battery fully discharged and no South African converter in my bag. I can only hope that the hotel has something that will work. Luckily, I it is the middle of the night back home so I have a few hours to find a solution before he notices that he can’t reach me and I haven’t called home.

Flying in over the South African countryside, I am flooded with thoughts. I can’t help but think about the history of the country, the people I know from here, and be amazed by the vast empty spaces. As we got closer to the airport, I can’t help but notice all the fences and walls around the developments.

I reflect on how South Africa was a pariah of the first world with Apartheid, then a hero with the dissolution, and has now settled into an uneven mixture of the first and third world. It defies easy explanation.  It is a bit like China and India in that way. But, it hurts to think that much and I really just want a hotel bed and a nap before I meet some work colleagues at our office in Johannesburg.