My South African Life #CapeTown2014 by Dominique Jacobs

Chapter 1: “The Big Welcome-Family Reunion”
Hello all! It’s your girl Dominique here again, so you left me at Pearson airport about to leave for Amsterdam and after a long, incredibly grueling journey, (we left on Fri Dec. 27th) and we finally arrived in Cape Town on Sun Dec 29th-yes it took almost two days to get there. The best part about the trip was the first leg; the flight to Amsterdam! My sister and I met a really cool (very good-looking) guy from Finland who kept us thoroughly entertained the whole time. We had a blast together; chatting, watching movies and causing such a ruckus with our laughter that we were told that “that people were complaining and to keep it down” by the flight attendants … but it was such fun! We stopped in for at Amsterdam airport for two hours and had time for breakfast…well…a liquid breakfast, don’t judge: It was 2am Toronto time and with an 8 hour flight under our belt and facing another 13 hour one, it was well deserved!

On landing at Cape Town International airport we had the distinct need to freshen up, because we just knew that there would be a HUGE crowd up our arrival…and we weren’t wrong! This is just a handful of our cousins that came to meet us; we were also greeted by our aunties and our Dad-who had flown down ahead. They had painted a sign; if you look closely it has Table Mountain on it (Cape Town’s most famous land mark) and hand drawn a South Africa flag…how cute is this?!

When we got back to our aunties’ house there was a massive reception meal, it was just after midnight on Sunday morning but the buzz of excitement in the air was palpable and contagious! Everyone couldn’t have been happier to see us. Thank goodness we freshened up! After 18 years of not seeing them, and meeting some for the first time, the initial impression was pretty important.

Here we are enjoying a delicious bite after the long flight. We were totally exhausted but had such fun reconnecting with everyone for a few hours. The very next day they had a BIG Family reunion planned! And that was something to see…60 or so members of the family all together to ‘Welcome us Home’, we felt like celebrities…jet-lagged and all.

So in the morning we awoke to a fury of activity and the next thing we knew there was a massive BBQ with most of our family from our Dad’s side…what a fun day! We were completely overwhelmed simply by the sheer numbers of family that we have, as we have grown up in North America with only our immediate 3 (after my mom died)…so it was quite the experience. This photo is of some of the cousins, (as not all of them jumped in) my sister and dad (in the white hat). We were all so happy!