preparations

SFO -> JFK

JFK -> BCN

Barcelona

marketplace

Casablanca

Gran Canaria

In December of 1999, near the beginning of my consulting gig at Morgan Stanley Dean Witter, that I found the time and reason to make my first trip to Africa. Oma - my maternal grandmother - was feeling her age and it seemed important to give Isaac another chance to be with her (and vice versa). (It was about fifteen years ago that Opa - my maternal grandfather - became ill at the same time of the year and in the same place, the Canary Islands. We rushed to spend time with him, nursing him back from a recent heart attack. We had a great month, our last visit as it turned out; he died a few weeks later.)

I made arrangements with work, and spent time online pricing tickets and juggling schedules. There were some unexpected roadblocks. For example, Regional Air Lines, seemed to have convenient flight times but could never be booked. (Turns out they ceased operation in January of 1998, almost two years ago. Oops. You might think someone might have tweaked the central travel agent's booking database by now; you would be wrong :-) Another example, Royal Air Maroc can't be booked for some of the dates offered. (Turns out they don't travel around Christmas Day, but once again nobody tweaked the database. Doesn't anyone have this job?)

At about the same time I shopped online for a new digital camera, did some price-comparisons, found a deal that was actually in stock, purchased it, tracked the package from the warehouse to my front door, and began practicing taking pictures with my Nikon CoolPix 950 for the trip.

All this while taking care of Isaac's cold (both ears infected - Amoxicillin for ten days), entertaining during the Thanksgiving, Chanukah, and birthday seasons, cleaning the house and getting packed to go (and working at the office).

Finally the day was here, and we were finally off on our first leg of our trip: San Francisco (SFO) to John Fitzgerald Kennedy (JFK).