The problem with marrying a foreign gal

At 10:40 this morning, Louise's flight took off for South Africa. Check-in went smoothly. So did the security line. And the pat-down was, as always, thorough. For Louise, too. Onboard she'll eat surprisingly decent food while crammed into a small seat at the rear of the aircraft. With any luck, this flight won't include a vomit-spewing neighbor, like her last trip across the ocean. And if it does, perhaps the flight crew will at least clean it before the smell overwhelms every man, woman and child within 25 feet.

I can track the flight online and watch a crudely rendered plane as it goes over a blue screen for hours and hours and hours. She'll arrive tomorrow, after nearly 24 hours of travel. She'll remain there for several weeks, basking in the African sun while I eat frozen pizzas and bowls of beef stew she made before her departure, meals she prepared with the discipline of a survivalist stocking up on canned goods in the underground shelter.

Getting married to a foreigner has had its benefits. For instance, Louise always brings back exotic spices that liven up every meal, especially dishes involving potatoes. Then there's the accent. And thanks to her I've enjoyed some world travels, twice venturing to Cape Town, one of the most beautiful cities in the word in one of the most fascinating countries in the world. Without her, I'd still consider a 1999 trip to Tijuana to be the highlight of my international travel experience. Being around her opens my eyes to other cultures and lands. I get to see America through someone else's eyes, someone who came to this country with no money but a lot of courage. I get to teach her about American history, the good and the bad, while she teaches me about South African history - the bad and the good. Marrying a foreigner: I recommend it to everyone, and not just those involved in green card scams.

But there's a downside. I'm forever grateful that Louise is now my family. But I'll always regret that our two families - the Fury clan of Minnesota and the Farias of Cape Town - are strangers to each other. My folks met Louise's mom at our wedding but none of the other family members on either side have ever mingled. Her brothers have never met my sister, her father-in-law has never met my dad. Louise gets to see my family once or twice a year, but I only get to see hers once every two years. If either of us disliked our in-laws, this might not be a bad thing. Unfortunately - er, fortunately - we do like our in-laws. We love them. If I had a brother, I couldn't imagine having any more fun with him than I do with Louise's brothers, Anthony and Daniel. In many ways they're complete opposites, but when it came to welcoming me into their family, they were exactly alike. They taught me about cricket, and rugby and showed me that I'm incapable of keeping up with them on the golf course or in a pub. Yet it's been a year since I visited them and will be another 15 months before I see them again. My liver is grateful, but I'm not.

My nephews and niece love when Louise visits with her magical nanny bag and she loves visiting Minnesota, even though she doesn't really function too well if the temperature there isn't between 66 and 68 degrees. She can sit for hours at the dining room table, talking with my mom about anything and everything. Yet it's been seven months since she was in Minnesota and might be six more before she returns.

We're our own family now. Shawn and Louise. But it's still tough knowing our respective families only know each other through old pictures and new anecdotes. Marrying a foreigner means that, for several weeks each year, I have to return to the life of a bachelor while the person I cherish more than any other in the world spends time with the family that misses her more than words can describe. Marrying a foreigner means spending the holidays apart, as she celebrates Christmas half a world away and welcomes the new year six hours earlier. I'm happy she gets to spend this time with her mom, stepdad, siblings, nieces, grandma and aunts and uncles. And I'm happy that I'll get to spend Christmas with my parents, sister, niece, nephews and aunts and uncles. But it's always difficult when being with our families means being apart from each other.

Marrying a foreigner has its benefits. It's just a bit more difficult to appreciate them when she's in her native land and I'm in mine.

We should have taken a boat

We first noticed the man in gray shorts when he released a lionesque roar at the completion of an over-the-top yawn. He stretched his arms and shook his head when finished, like a boxer shaking off a sharp jab to the nose. Thirtyish with broad shoulders and a patch of poorly conceived stubble, he stood in the last row of our departing plane, lording over his seat and the two empty ones next to him. He seemed bemused as the plane filled with fellow passengers.

It was about 8:15 on Sunday night, moments before our plane from Johannesburg to New York was scheduled to leave. Our pleas to the South African Airways ticket agent for a seat in the emergency exit row were greeted by grunts and weary refusals, as we were apparently not the first people to ask for a reprieve from the tiny, torturous seats that awaited us on the 20-hour flight.

We had two seats at the back of the plane, with only an aisle separating us from the guy who had sole custody of the middle seats.

As the plane took off into the South Africa night, I took a second to glance to my right. About a minute after the plane lifted off, the man next to me reached for one of the rectangular pillows with a brown covering. He lifted it to his mouth. Without hesitation, he vomited for about five seconds, filling half of the pillowcase with his wretched deposit. The stench hit me before I even fully appreciated what had happened. He stuck the pillow into the sleeve on the seat in front of him, giving it a home next to a South African travel magazine and an unused and unappreciated barf bag.

Wiping his lips with his hand, he leaned back in his seat and started snoring. Two minutes later, he woke up, ready for round 2. This time he didn't get everything into his puke pillow, hitting the floor and the seat next to him. By now the entire rear of the plane smelled like a fraternity bathroom on New Year's Eve.

We frantically pushed the call button for the flight attendant. After about five minutes one arrived, blissfully unaware of how his life was about to change. Although we figured the ogre was simply drunk, there was also the chance he was suffering from a serious illness. Louise said, "This man is extremely sick and you should check to see if he's okay. He vomited all over the pillow and it's on his seat and the floor."

The attendant stared at the disgusting scene that had sullied his workplace. Another flight attendant soon arrived as we dove into our books, trying to ignore the vomit-covered man next to us. Soon after, the first attendant leaned close and told us, "It's okay, he just took too many sleeping pills and alcohol."

Oh.

That might have been the first time the phrase "it's okay" was ever uttered before the words "took too many sleeping pills and alcohol." How many people have been hospitalized because of that combination? How many have died, whether intentionally or accidentally, after ingesting that deadly cocktail? But now it's okay that this guy apparently had too much of both, just moments into a flight that would last an entire day?

The puke pillow remained in its place, emitting its foul stench. The floor and seat? Still soiled. And all the while the guy responsible for the atrocity slept peacefully. I'd say slept like a baby but a pair of infants on the flight spent much of the trip screaming, so I don't think this is the time for that particular cliche.

We finally asked an attendant if they planned on cleaning up the mess. It wasn't their fault it was there, but it seemed like it'd be their responsibility to get rid of it.

"We're going to make him sleep in it," the attendant replied. "That will be his punishment."

Yeah, that'll show him! This guy obviously cares so much about hygiene and is concerned about what his fellow passengers might think of him resting in a pile of his own vomit. Make him roll around in it, that should impart a life lesson, the type of thing you can't pick up in an after-school special.

But what about us, we wondered. Are we going to be cursed with the unholy smell for the rest of the flight?

Outraged, Louise pulled out our camera. She took several shots. Here's the least-offensive one, showing a portion of the contaminated seat.


She kept clicking, causing me to panic slightly. People kept looking to the back of the plane whenever the flash went off, trying to figure out if someone was lighting something up. I pictured security yanking us off the plane after an emergency landing, leaving John Bonham's protege resting comfortably in the rear of the plane while we faced felony charges in a foreign country with a hostile attitude toward Americans.

The flight staff eventually woke the man and forced him to go to the bathroom, where vomiting sounds could be heard over the roar of the engines. He returned with a pair of towels and cleaned up the mess, seemingly unembarrassed by the offending deed or the ensuing chore.

After completing his half-hearted janitorial duties, the guy lifted the armrests on the seats in his row. Pulling the blanket over his weary body, he sprawled out, claiming every seat as his own, with his head in the seat nearest to me. He slept with his mouth open. Every once in awhile I'd smell some more vomit, which made my own stomach turn. Over the next 18 hours he woke up twice: once during an hour stop in Dakar, and again upon our landing at JFK. In Dakar, a new crew takes over the plane, while a cleaning staff prepares the plane for the rest of its journey. As a cleaner approached the back of the plane, a flight attendant warned the man to "put your gloves on when you pick up that pillow," a helpful and healthy hint, though it should have been followed by a plea for a mask. Finally, after nearly 10 hours, the puke pillow made its way off the plane.

The guy sobered up as the trip progressed, judging by the way he stopped sweating and snorting in his sleep. Instead he settled into a comfortable slumber while everyone else on the plane twisted themselves into economy-class seats. By the time he walked off the plane at 8 a.m. on Monday morning, I'm not sure if he even knew what he'd done nearly 24 hours earlier.

Aside from that? Great flight.

One more dispatch with a Cape Town dateline

I'm writing this on Saturday night, though it won't post until Sunday. In less than 24 hours we'll hopefully be up in the air, a few hours into our flight back to the snowstorms of the United States. By the time we land, Washington, D.C., might have been wiped out by snow, panic and bad drivers, but there will be a new Super Bowl champion. Barring a passenger breaking the no BlackBerry rule on SAA, I won't know if that's the Saints or Colts until I pick up a paper at JFK.

I'm not sure when I'll be back to Cape Town. Hopefully, it's sometime within the next 18 months. Some final observations from South Africa.

* Last night I experienced what it's like to ride in a true South African jalopy, which is the word they use here to describe a clunker or a lemon or any other type of car that falls into the "piece of crap" category. I thought my first car, an old Mercury Zephyr that didn't run if the temperature went above 70 degrees or below 30, was the worst car to ever wobble off an assembly line, but I have to reconsider that notion. Louise's cousin and her boyfriend took us out for drinks. We piled into the backseat through the one door that works. Mysteriously, her cousin didn't get into the passenger seat in the front. Instead, she stayed outside and moved to the back of the car, where - with the help of a couple of neighbors - she pushed the vehicle while her boyfriend started the car. This wasn't a one-time thing. Every time they get into the car, this is the complicated procedure they complete. Both members of this cute couple are good sports and have an affectionate feeling toward the car, an attitude they maintained even as the not-so-mighty beast wheezed and whined its way down the street.

They originally planned on taking us to a place that would involve a trip up and over a bridge. Unfortunately, the car sputtered to a stop on two occasions, denting their confidence in the vehicle. While they push it each time they start the car, it usually runs once it gets going. Having the car die every minute was a new tragedy, an unexpected one. So we stayed close to home. On the way back, Louise joined Crystal in the back as they acted like a pit crew shoving off a racecar on the final lap of action. We made it back home, though if the house had been three minutes away instead of two, that might not have happened.

* I'm not going to miss drinking milk from a bag. I trust a container more than a bag. It seems colder when it comes in a plastic carton. The carton seems sturdier than a plastic bag, though both will pollute the environment for the next 200 years. This is a sentence on Wikipedia about milk bags:

"Milk bags are common in several countries and regions of the world, including Argentina, Nicaragua, Eastern Canada, China, Colombia, Hungary, India, Israel, Montenegro, Poland, South Africa, Uruguay and Wisconsin."

One of those doesn't belong on the list. But I don't know if Wisoncsin's inclusion is the result of a Wikipedia prankster - or, perhaps, an inebriated Wisconsinite who gained access to a keyboard - or is really true. A lot of strange things have come out of Wisconsin, from Jeffrey Dahmer to women who take revenge by gluing men's genitalia. Milk bags might be the oddest.

EDIT: I've seen a note online that says "some parts of Minnesota" sell milk in bags. A vague geographical description. I don't know what parts of Minnesota that could be. Probably northern. Strange parts.

* During my short time here, a man died after being shoved down by a baboon, a tourist got blown off of Chapman's Peak by strong winds and plummeted to his death, and a shark ate someone. These aren't normal occurrences. For visitors thinking of coming to Cape Town, those incidents shouldn't dissuade them. But as Louise always says, they should also treat nature with respect. And don't go too deep into the ocean.

* Cricket, for the most part, still baffles me. Whenever I think I've picked up a rudimentary understanding of the game, an announcer or a relative will say a term or describe a play in a way that leaves me slack-jawed and confused. Yet I enjoy watching it on TV, because while I don't understand the intricacies of the game, I do know a great catch when I see one and appreciate when a hitter - er, batsman - takes a pitcher (bowler) deep.

* I earlier wrote about how expensive books are, but for visitors from America, movies are incredibly cheap. We went to Invictus and paid 18 rand each, or a little more than two dollars apeice. The respective prices for each form of entertainment mean that very few South Africans know when a book is much better than the movie version.

* As difficult as it is for me to leave my in-laws, it pales in comparison to how tough it is for Louise to leave her family behind as we return to her adopted city, New York. She returns more than I do; while it'd been three years since my last trip here, she came for five weeks in the summer of 2008 and we're hoping she can return in December. But she goes a year and sometimes more without seeing her mom, whom she worships. She might go 18 months without seeing her stepfather, who's been in the family's life for more than 20 years and is as delightful a person as anyone would ever want to meet. Living in New York means she leaves her two brothers, a pair of younger siblings who were teens when she left Cape Town but are now successful men. Life in America means leaving all her aunts and uncles and cousins and her grandma. Being in the United States means she's not around her 20-month-old niece, Madison, a little girl with a cherubic face and an adventurous spirit who gave Louise 17 heart attacks with her advanced climbing skills. We're in New York and not South Africa and that means Louise has left behind her hometown of Cape Town. She went to school here, attended university, made friends, had boyfriends. She lost her father blocks from the family home. Twenty-one years of history, left behind.

She chose to leave and I'm grateful she did, because if she had never made that extremely difficult choice, I never would have met her. So I'm glad she made that decision back in 1999. But that doesn't mean it's easy for me to leave this city and my in-laws, who make me feel like I'm as much a part of the family as anyone related by blood.

More importantly, just because she left the country a decade ago doesn't mean it will be easy heading back to New York tomorrow. It will be a long trip home. That has nothing to do with how long it will take to reach our destination, but everything to do with what we're leaving behind.

Respecting books

When Louise first visited my old apartment in Fargo, she was dismayed to see the number of books I haphazardly tossed into corners or stacked on the floor. Not even the mountain of clothes piled in the closet disgusted her that much. The month-old milk carton loitering in the fridge didn't affect her, but those books did.

Dozens of books littered the two-bedroom apartment, paperbacks sharing space with hardcovers sporting tattered cover pages. The inside pages had line after line polluted by underlined passages. She wondered why I wasn't treating the books with the respect they deserved, which confused me because I thought I'd done just that by buying them and reading every word.

"The written word's a precious thing," she said. "Books have to be handled with care." She sounded like she was talking about a 6-week-old child or a 2-month-old puppy.

I agreed with her first sentence and couldn't find much fault with the second one, though our ideas about proper care for a book differed. Burning them? No. But if a book is worn and appears well-read, with dog-eared pages, that to me indicated it was a great book, one that I enjoyed more than once. And these weren't rare used books I mishandled. It could be a standard John Grisham thriller about a plucky lawyer bucking the odds or a Stephen Ambrose book about World War II. Anything with binding, numbered pages and a cover.

She yelped when she'd see me toss a book on a couch or throw it to the floor from the bed. Eventually she revealed the reason for her obsessive behavior. Books were extremely expensive growing up in Cape Town. Rarely could she afford to buy one. When she did purchase a book, she treated it like the rare piece of art it was to her. It took her several years in America to realize that we can buy a mystery thriller for seven bucks, and a nonfiction tome for 15 or 20 dollars. Still, even today, she maintains this reverence for the actual physical product. It must be loved and cared for, a treasure that should never be taken for granted. Use a bookmark, don't just spread it out when marking the spot at the end of the day.

I thought she was crazy then for this vigilance. That opinion hadn't changed much over the years. It might be changing a bit, now that I've taken a tour of some South African bookstores.

The exchange rate right now is about 7:1. So a book that costs $20 would be about 140 rand. In America we can buy one of James Patterson's 156 paperbacks for maybe 9 bucks. Or a Greg Iles one for $7.99. But in Cape Town, those books were going for R175, sometimes R190. For a paperback mystery or a romance novel. Would anyone pay the equivalent of $25 for a book with a half-naked Fabio on the cover, aside from Fabio himself?

Nonfiction was an even more depressing story. Vincent Bugliosi's book Four Days in November, which dissects Kennedy assassination conspiracies, would cost about $20 in the States. In Cape Town, at Exclusive Books? R420. I've read Bugliosi's book. Enjoyed it. Fully endorse his arguments about the death of JFK. But I wouldn't pay the equivalent of $60 for it, even if it revealed the Cubans conspired with the CIA and the mob to knock Kennedy off, all under the evil direction of Lyndon Johnson.

The bargain book bin offered no help. Each book carrying a discounted marker seemed like the type of book you'd give as a present to a hated cousin or a blind grandmother. An intimate biography of Robbie Williams, which has nearly as many pictures as words? For R70?

Wandering through the bookstore gave me all the evidence I needed to know why Louise rarely bought a book as a kid and helped me understand her maniacal need to care and protect them. If I spent $25 for something adorned with Fabio's laughable locks and masculine looks, I would never even crack open the book. I'd stuff it in an airtight container, protecting it from elements and human hands.

And these prices are in a country where the average income is dwarfed by what the average worker in America earns. So the people make less and are expected to pay much more for the same products. In Cape Town, the median annual income is about 25,000 rand, or less than $7,000 a year. How much money do people have to spend on books?

All of this is why we pack as many books as possible for trips to South Africa. Most of them are paperbacks we read back in America. We give them to Louise's mom and stepfather, who are avid readers. They devour each offering. It seems ludicrous for them to have to spend money on books we can purchase for half the price. We're a human bookmobile, bringing Stephen King and Jonathan Kellerman to the South African masses, or at least Louise's family.

I've always thought of books as treasures. But it wasn't until I visited a South African bookstore that I realized just how valuable they can be. So respect that trashy Harlequin novel or poorly sourced sports biography. Or mail it to someone in South Africa who will really appreciate it.

A sex scandal done right

Americans like to think everything is always bigger and better in the United States. That includes our political sex scandals. Sex in the Oval Office, affairs with South American beauties, illegitimate children with campaign workers. Possibly illegal flirtations with congressional paiges. The occasional hooker, male and female. So scandalous, especially for a nation that somehow manages to be more obsessed with sex than Kinsey while also being as prudish as a born-again Sunday school teacher.

But the last few days, I've realized American politicans are often just amateurs when it comes to matters of the heart and loins. Want a sex scandal? Do a Google News search of Jacob Zuma.

The South African president is a charismatic leader. A former prisoner on the infamous Robben Island - which was where Nelson Mandela was also imprisoned - Zuma took over in 2009, despite a recent rap sheet that included charges of corruption and rape. One case involved bribery. More seriously, he faced charges in 2005 that he raped a woman who was known to be HIV positive. Zuma said the sex was consensual.

That trial led to the type of accusations and revelations that a headline writer at the New York Post fantasizes about. Here's a paragraph from Wikipedia recapping part of the events:

"The trial also generated political controversy when Zuma, who at the time headed the National AIDS Council, admitted that he had not used a condom when having sex with the woman who now accuses him of rape, despite knowing that she was HIV-positive. He stated in court that he took a shower afterwards to 'cut the risk of contracting HIV.'"

What's the most stunning part of that paragraph? At first blush you might say the shower line. Rinse, lather, repeat. Wash away that HIV. Or maybe the line about not using protection despite knowing she was HIV-positive is the most alarming. It certainly might be the most arrogant and dumbest. My choice? The fact he headed the National AIDS Council at the time. Think of someone like C. Everett Koop back in the day saying he had unprotected sex with a woman and then took a bath to cleanse himself of any possible virus.

Who would suffer an on-air coronary first: Chris Matthews or Bill O'Reilly?

Anyway, that's in the past, if not the distant past. Although, imagine an American presidential candidate who sports that resume. Think he'd make it through the New Hampshire primary?

Zuma survived those legal difficulties and ascended to the presidency. Now to the present scandal, which combines aspects of Big Love and the John Edwards fiasco. Zuma's an avowed polygamist. He currently has three wives and has been married five times. All of that's well-known.

He has 20 children. That number was thought to be 19, until this past Sunday, when The Sunday Times in Cape Town reported that Zuma had fathered a child with the daughter of Irvin Khoza, who is a South African soccer administrator (to keep with the American analogies, what would this be like? George W. Bush having a kid with Bud Selig's daughter?). The child was born last October. There are rumors he might marry the woman, which would make her the sixth Mrs. Zuma overall and the fourth active one. Not surprisingly, many were outraged. The front-pages have been filled with angry responses from incredulous opposition. But others saw it as no big deal. And considering Zuma's past and his continued march to power, it's easy to think that viewpoint might end up being the prevailing opinion in the country. If rape, corruption and about 100 other controversies haven't ended Zuma's political career, is one more child born outside his marriage(s) going to do much harm? Maybe a better question would be, should it irreprably harm him?

As someone who rolls his eyes at the outrage - real and fake - that sweeps the U.S. whenever a politican is caught with his pants down or at least unzipped, I say no. But that doesn't mean I necessarily agree with the ANC leader who said, "We are Africans and sitting here all of us, Zuma is our father so we are not qualified to talk about that." People in this country should at least be able to talk about it, and then decide if any actions should follow.

Polygamy, kids with daughter's of friends, disease. Presidents.

Doesn't all of this make Larry Craig seem a little boring?

More notes from sunny and warm Cape Town

* Tuesday is the 20th anniversary of one of the most momentous speeches of the 20th century. On February 2, 1990, in a speech to parliament, South African president F.W. de Klerk lifted the ban on the ANC, announced that Nelson Mandela would be released and declared an end to apartheid. Mandela was released on February 11, after 27 years of imprisonment. Four years later, he was elected president. The newspapers are filled with stories marking both of those anniversaries, though many of the accounts express dissatisfaction with the pace of change in the country, noting continuing problems such as a high crime rate and shocking levels of poverty. Still, the key number there is 20. It's only been 20 years. Twenty years since apartheid ended and the first small steps toward democracy began. How advanced was America's democracy in 1796? The problems are real and difficult and the country is still fighting its own history. But even in 20 more years, the story of South Africa's fledgling democracy won't be finished. It's still early.

* Seeing the poverty in Cape Town can be jolting and gut-wrenching. A big story the past few days has centered on a toilet controversy in one of the townships. The government agreed to install more toilets so residents wouldn't be forced to share. They were open-air toilets, which are exactly what they sound like and as bad as you imagine. They're in the open, sometimes on the side of the road. Most residents constructed walls themselves, but others could not afford material to build a barrier, leaving the facilities and the people exposed. The government said it would be unfair to pay for material for those people, since others did not receive such aid. This is poverty.

* Over the years I've picked up a few new words from Louise and on trips to Cape Town. Lekker is a favorite (basically means something's nice). Isit (sometimes I see it spelled izit, but basically it's just putting is and it together). Just started using this one, and might try breaking it into everyday conversation back in the States as a substitute for "really." I use really too much, as a conversation filler and extender, or when I feel like I don't have anything to add. So might as well add a new line that means the same thing.

"My mom ran a marathon yesterday."

"Izit?"

But the word I use most often isn't unique to this country, though the way it's used here is unfamiliar to Americans.

Shame. Shame as in pity, poor thing. But while we might say, "It's a shame," here it's used by itself and can be used during tragedies, humorous moments and everything in between.

"He proposed to his girlfriend using the scoreboard at Yankee Stadium. She said no, and threw a beer on his head. Then 55,000 people booed him."

"Shame."

Or, "All four of her kids are ugly, each one more hideous than the last."

"Shame, man."

* In eight days I've attended three or four braai's, with a couple more on the schedule. Braai's are basically barbecues, often outdoor but we just attended an indoor one. Ate ostrich at that braai. The men cook the meat, the women make the salads and everyone drinks. South Africans like their drink and are skilled in this ancient art. Their blood is made up of 50 percent alcohol. Cut 'em, drink the blood and watch your BAC rise to .21. I have a suspicion that some in-laws consider me a bit of a weakling in that department. It's an accurate assessment. I feel sort of bad, since I'm - in a way - representing America. I wouldn't want them to think that the Yanks are unable to handle their liquor, even if this one can't. Dozens of my friends could compete with the South Africans in any drinking competition they want and would be the last ones standing. Literally. And, damn it, we have alcoholics too. Meanwhile, I nurse my two or three beers like a frightened 10th grader attending his first kegger, giving off the impression that Americans can't imbibe with the big boys. What makes that comparison even more accurate is that I haven't had to fight off this much peer pressure since 10th grade.

"No, no, I've had enough."

"Really, wasn't that your third?"

"Yeah."

"Shame."

If any of my in-laws are able to some day travel to the States, I'll introduce them to a few of those beer-swilling friends I mentioned. Guys who in 15 years will be waiting for a liver transplant. And then we'll sit back and mock the South Africans who can't handle their liquor like real men, like real Americans. Me? I'll still be nursing those two or three beers, with a side of soda.

* Today I was told I was "quiet, for an American." I know lots of quiet Americans. And, yes, many loud ones. What can I say, I prefer to observe. But I don't think I'm any quieter than the average American. Quiet for a New Yorker...might be more accurate.

* A stunning piece of trivia: Television came to South Africa in 1976. Not color television, not cable television. Television. The paranoid, controlling apartheid government feared the effects of the device on its citizens and that had nothing to do with the evils of reality TV. The exact date has long been a point of contention with Louise. She's forever claimed that it arrived in 1977, her birth year. A friend of Louise's visited us a few years ago and claimed it arrived in 1978, his birth year. Louise seemed to get a leg up on the debate when we purchased one of those birthday books back at an antique store in Janesville. The skinny pamphlet listed notable events of the year. One of them said television came to South Africa. In the past few days, two other South Africans have said 1975. Alas, Wikipedia says 1976. And if Wikipedia's wrong...

* I stayed up until 2 a.m. so I could follow the Lakers-Celtics game online. Lakers won on a late Kobe jumper. Life is good in Cape Town on this night, and not just because of the weather.

* Tomorrow night we're going to dinner with Louise's Portuguese relatives. Louise's late father was Portuguese, so these will be his relatives. Louise hasn't seen much of them over the years, even before she came to America. This will be my first time seeing them. Should be fun.

The Portuguese don't like to drink, right?

Savor your high-speed Internet. Savor your dial-up

I'm typing this from my brother-in-law's Cape Town house on his computer, using his high-speed Internet connection. Anthony is as tech-savvy as Steve Jobs's assistant. He gets every new gadget, is aware of every new toy and picks apart and puts together computers.

Yet even he is held prisoner by Internet speeds that would make 1994 web users wince and whine. For those of you in the States who are at work and complain when a web site takes two seconds to load instead of one, and wonder what in the hell is wrong with your IT department, please, just today, suffer quietly. For those typing away on a bedroom computer who express disgust that your home Internet connection is so much slower than the one at work, and that it takes five seconds for a YouTube video to load instead of two, please, just today, say nothing more. For those of you listening to your dial-up connection - that noise many of us haven't heard in probably five years - who are stuck dealing with dial-up speeds, please don't complain today. And for those of you stuck playing the Oregon Trail who wish your parents would get up to speed with technology that was at least relevant in the 1990s, please, just today, keep shooting the buffalo and dying of dysentery in silence. All of you, appreciate what you have.

And appreciate what South Africans experience every day they dial in or connect to the low-speed Internet service. Each web page I click on takes nearly two minutes to load, no matter how few graphics litter the page. Loading, loading, loading, loading. That mantra lingers on the screen, tormenting and teasing. In the time it takes for a web page to finally appear, someone could use the time reading two pages of a novel, or typing two pages of their own as-yet-unpublished Great American Novel. The system teaches patience and persistence. As I tried paying our cable bill online, I waited five minutes for the log-in screen to appear. Conspiracy theorists might suspect Time Warner itself of causing the delay, hoping my frustration would make me give up, leading to a small but painful late charge. But I won the clash, remembering similar Internet battles of the past. Like the time in 1996 when I waited four minutes for ESPN's home page to appear so I could see if Shaq finally signed with the Lakers.

In Firefox I opened three windows at once, so I had a trio of pages refusing to open. At Louise's parents's house, the connection's a bit faster - the pages will load within a minute - but there's a catch: They purchased a set amount of units. When those expired, we were done for the week and have to wait until the first of the month for it to reset. The units aren't based on time. In fact, no one really knows exactly what they're based on, other than pages with videos or complicated graphics will drain more units, so avoid those pages. And if there's one thing web designers in 2010 do to help out with this problem, it's limit graphics and videos on their pages...

But all of this actually helps us disconnect from the rest of the world a bit, which is something we actually appreciate on this trip. I'm already a veteran proponent of limiting my exposure to technology, though it's not like I advocate it with a Kaczynski-like fervor or anything. I don't have a cell phone an iPod or a Facebook page, and I sometimes enjoy simply being isolated from the constant barrage of media that confronts everyone. So with our Internet options somewhat limited on this trip, we're able to focus on enjoying the scenery and the experiences and the new foods and Louise's family and the beach. Leisure time is spent with a book instead of online. I've already finished four books and could probably finish a fifth if I spent an hour surfing the Internet, waiting for the pages to load. On the other hand, this is 2010. And as a spoiled American, I can now firmly state that high-speed Internet isn't just a privilege, it should be a basic right for all people.

Some other Cape Town notes.

My limited exposure to online media has not meant a decline in my consumption of traditional media, specifically newspapers. And Cape Town remains a dream world for lovers of real ink and two-column headlines. I buy the Cape Times every day. Holding it feels like I'm clutching an archaic object. Most U.S. papers long ago switched to a narrower product, saving hundreds of thousands of dollars by using less paper. The Times remains as big and broad as ever, forcing a person to stretch their arms wide when it's finally unfurled.

The Times also ignores a decade's worth of consultants who have preached shorter stories for an audience with shortened attention spans.

No jumps! 10-inch stories! That's what papers have been told for years, though I'm not sure how these ideas have helped newspapers with relevancy or circulation. I mean, the ideas sound right; in today's world, who wants to read a 30-inch story on a city council meeting or a 100-inch human interest story? I don't know. But judging by the number of layoffs, bankruptcies and closings that have haunted the industry, no one wants to read short stories either. So maybe try writing stories with some meat?

Anyway, the Times does just that. On the op-ed page, one of the columns must have been 50 inches; it took up a quarter of a page and had nary a pull quote or graphic. I read the whole thing, but I don't know how many others did. Regardless, I was glad to see that there are still papers who let writers write. Too bad few of those papers are located in North America.

In addition to the Times, Cape Town's home to countless tabloids, siblings to the New York Post and Daily News. Here's where readers find the more tawdry tales of the city, complete with pun-laden headlines and outrage that's usually real but occasionally feigned - the type of thing tabloids have specialized in for more than a century. In one of them, the first inside page is home to a nude woman, who's just standing there, being nude. Smiling. Perhaps pouting. Promoting nothing but her assets, her body probably does little to raise circulation, though it might provide a lift to the male half of the paper's audience.

A unique feature in Cape Town - unique in that I haven't seen it in the U.S., though it might be more prevalent overseas - is that the papers promote themselves on signs throughout the city. So as we drive around, oversize front pages from every tabloid are attached to signs, announcing the day's major stories. Today I saw one that read, "DOG POUNDED TO DEATH." Grotesque, surely a horrific story. Made me want to buy the paper. Another announced the resignation of South Africa's cricket coach. Another read, "HOW TIGER WAS TRAPPED!" That one made me want to stop the car right there and find the nearest newsstand. Was the paper talking about an actual orange beast that got trapped in the wild or on a city block, or was it about Tiger Woods being ensnared in a new scandal?

For anyone who ever makes a trip to Cape Town, be sure to buy as many of the papers as possible. They're entertaining and informative. More importantly, you'll need something to do while surfing the net.

From New York to Cape Town: a journal

SOME SCENES FROM A TRIP HALFWAY AROUND THE WORLD

* Took a Super Shuttle to the airport, scheduled pickup at 5:30 a.m. Have used Super Shuttle several times and have placed numerous visiting friends on the distinct blue vans to ferry them to the airport. Always been on time. Efficient. This time the driver didn't show up until 6 a.m. and had the look of a guy on the run from a sheriff's department. He heaved my bags into the back, then demanded to know how to find Park Terrace East. The drivers usually have great knowledge of the streets and onboard maps. This guy had the latter, but the knowledge was lacking. I directed him a block over and we picked up his final passenger, who let him know he was 45 minutes late for her pickup. So I guess I shouldn't have complained. But he did get me to the airport in plenty of time, keeping Super Shuttle's record of efficiency intact.

* Watched a 10-year-old boy with a pot haircut and a few missing teeth entertain his dad and older brother by walking the wrong way on the flat escalators in the terminal. This was high comedy for all three.

"I'm moonwalking!" the stupid child announced to his enthralled audience of pop and brother, who had the enthusiasm of the French after Lindy's landing. Finally a worker told the future hoodlum to stop. He sulked, slowly carried backward by the escalator. Thank you, JFK employee.

* Scored a seat in the emergency exit row. For a person stuck in economy class, this is as close to first class as you can get without actually breaking through to the other side of that foreboding blue curtain. All the room in the world and no one sat next to me, giving me leg freedom for 18 hours. In exchange, the flight crew simply needed to know that I could handle the door and help with passengers in the "unlikely" event of a water landing or some other crisis. I'm sure I could. But even if the worst happened and I proved I wasn't up to the task, my failure as an emergency exit row patron would be the least of anyone's worries. On the incident report, it probably wouldn't be listed until about page 485.

* South African Airways planes show entertaining safety videos, featuring a cartoon character with an enlarged head who suffers a series of indignities in the film, from being hit by falling luggage from the overhead bin to struggling with his life jacket after that unlikely water landing actually happened. Much more enlightening than the standard instructions flight crews provide.

* I didn't hear a single screaming child on the entire flight from New York to Johannesburg, breaking my string of sitting next to devil babies on about 10 consecutive flights. I did see babies onboard, but their parents either drugged them beforehand or they simply handled international flights better than their bottle-sucking brethren.

* Each seat has a TV screen and the choice of movies or programs. Watched District 9, The Informant and Wall Street. Trivia tidbit: When Louise was growing up in South Africa, she watched Wall Street and told herself that one day she'd move to New York City. She actually walked outside her home, looked up at the stars and thought, "That's the same sky that's over New York. Someday I'm going to be in New York and I'm going to be under that same sky and I'll remember this moment and realize my dreams came true." This is real (she could be a strange and ambitious child). The movie, the deals, the excitement, Charlie Sheen, it all enthralled her. I've seen the journal entries. That was in the early 90s. About eight years later she came to America and has been in the big city for a decade. Meaning, Louise might be one of the seven people who are happy that Wall Street 2 is filming and will be released this year.

* Trip was uneventful, as was the connection from Johannesburg to Cape Town. One oddity - at least for Americans visiting - is that at the Johannesburg airport, passengers take a bus from the gate, onto the tarmac and to the plane. They walk off the bus and then up outside steps to the inside of the plane. Feel like the president boarding Air Force One.

* Greeted at the airport by Louise, her brother, his wife, and their cute 18-month-old daughter. Weather: 75, sunny, no humidity. This I can handle for the next two weeks.

Alas, I will not be able to stay up for the two NFL title games, so will go to sleep now not knowing if the Brett Favre Experiment leads to a Super Bowl berth or yet more disappointment for the Vikings. I'm predicting victory for Minnesota. And if that ultimately proves wrong, I blame jet lag.

They're still hoping for a Titanic sequel

James Cameron's Avatar is now the second-highest grossing movie in history, behind his other megahit, Titanic. Many people expect it to eventually eclipse Leo, Kate and the tragic boat. I haven't seen Avatar so I can't ruin the ending for anyone.

And nearly everyone who saw Titanic during its long run in theaters surely knew the ending going in. Perhaps the only movie with a less-surprising conclusion was The Passion of The Christ. Even with that knowledge, Titanic still emotionally devastated millions of people, though much of the sadness was over DiCaprio's on-screen death and not so much the memory of the 1,500 real people who died. But how upsetting would the movie's ending had been if you didn't know the story, if you'd never heard of the Titanic? In America and elsewhere, the story's so well-known that the word Titanic now means much more than just a ship that sank. It's become a metaphor, used to describe everything from a failed energy company to a coach who refuses to resign and "goes down with the ship," like the Titanic's doomed captain.

But not everyone knows the story or is familiar with the myths or can recite the legends. Several of those people were Louise and her teenage friends, who saw the movie in Cape Town, unaware of the back story or the tragedy. The giddy girls watched in fascination as Jack sneaked onto the ship. They squealed as he charmed Rose. They mocked her cunning fiance. They wept in joy when Jack and Rose made love in a car.

Then came intermission, a real intermission where the crowd takes a break, heads to the bathroom and the concession stand and reflects on what they've seen, and speculates on what's to come. Louise and her innocent friends gathered in the bathroom, chattering nonstop about how the movie might end. How would Jack and Rose escape her mother and future husband? Where would they settle? Would they have kids? And isn't it so romantic and beautiful the way they found each other on that magnificent ship? They generally agreed that the movie up to that point was perfection, perhaps the most romantic film any of them had seen.

With intermission over and the theater lights dimming, the girls settled back into their seats. A few minutes into the second act, the Titanic struck the most famous iceberg in maritime history. Unsettled but still enjoying the show - "Ooh, they'll have to get off the ship now" - the girls continued watching in fascination. Of course the happy portion of the movie was long gone and the rest of the movie was devoted to death, the destruction of the ship and...Billy Zane running after Jack and Rose with a gun (the movie was not 100 percent historically accurate).

By the time Rose drifted off to sleep while Jack's lifeless body floated next to her, Louise and her friends had collectively broken down, sobbing and bawling and whimpering. They didn't understand how a film could be so cruel, not knowing the real story was just as devastating.

On the car ride home, Louise and her friend had to pull over to the side of the road. The shock and disarray left them unable to drive. Comforting each other, their cries lasted several more minutes. That was nearly 13 years ago. The wounds they suffered haven't healed. Today, whenever TBS or TNT breaks out an "All Titanic" weekend, Louise refuses to be in the room if the television happens to linger on the movie for a few minutes.

When Louise tells this story, people are often incredulous, unable to believe that her group of friends didn't know the true story behind the movie. "Everyone's" heard of the Titanic, but maybe just everyone in America, not necessarily the rest of the world. We'd probably have the same reaction - perhaps with less hysterics - if we went to a movie based on an event few have ever heard of, even if everyone in another part of the world is well aware of the story. How many people have heard of the Dona Paz, a Philippine ferry that sank in 1987, killing more than 4,300 people? Imagine going into a movie not knowing the history of the doomed vessel. The first 90 minutes of the movie are devoted to romance and derring-do on the ferry. Look, it's a love story for the ages. By the end, after thousands have died, the reaction in the theater would probably be similar to the reaction in the Cape Town theater after people watched Titanic.

Louise is now in Cape Town. I'll join her in a week and a half. We've talked about seeing Avatar there. Maybe even in the same theater that played Titanic all those years ago. I don't know how Avatar ends, whether it's tragic, uplifting or deflating. But no matter how it concludes, Louise will be all right. Because if watching Titanic without knowing how it ended didn't crush her, nothing in James Cameron's make-believe world will be a problem.

Why I'm suddeny a rugby - and cricket - fan

The movie I'm most looking forward to seeing this month opens up Friday. It's getting Oscar buzz, primarily because of the participants and the theme. Hopefully, the actual product lives up to the hype.

Invictus stars Morgan Freeman as Nelson Mandela, while Matt Damon portrays a rugby superstar. Clint Eastwood directed the film. The movie tells the story of South Africa's victory in the 1995 rugby World Cup (um, spoiler alert).

I've previously heard stories of that particular championship from Louise's family, especially her brothers and stepfather, avid sportsmen. Even Louise remembers the event, a remarkable achievement for a woman who rarely participates in any sport and never watches them on television. She does enjoy attending an occasional Yankees game, but that's primarily because of the Cracker Jacks. And she had a good time at a Knicks game we attended, although that was because she had a pair of binoculars and two hours free for celebrity watching. Even South Africa's favorite sports such as cricket, soccer and rugby hold little interest to her. But she remembers that 1995 World Cup.

The unexpected title brought the country together just after apartheid had ended and Mandela became president. It's sort of like if the 1980 Miracle on Ice team had won gold around the time of the Civil War.

I'm looking forward to it even though I still only have a vague understanding of the rules of rugby. I've watched it in this country and in South Africa. My brother-in-law was a star player himself. My old editor played in college and continued to roll around on the - pitch? - well into his adult years. I know rugby players like to drink. I know they take a hell of a beating, and that I never could have made it as a player, even in my younger days. But understanding strategy and rules and nuances and history and what the players in short-shorts are doing in the odd-looking groupings? No.

When we travel to Cape Town in January, I'd love to watch the movie with a South African audience, an experience that would probably be similar - though a hundred times more uplifting - to the time we watched Blood Diamond in Cape Town in 2007. South Africans are not afraid to express their happiness in a public setting. When our plane landed - successfully - on our previous trip, the passengers erupted in applause. If they knew something I didn't about the airline, I wanted to know before the return trip to America.

"Are they surprised we made it alive?" I asked Louise.

"No, they're just so happy to be back in their homeland and they cheer when they're happy."

So I can imagine the applause in the theater when the South Africans win the World Cup.

Pretty much all of South Africa's favorite sports are...foreign to me, as I fulfill my role as the American who hasn't yet learned enough about another culture. But I have tried. Jesus, I've tried.

During our six-week stay in Cape Town three years ago, I must have watched a dozen hours of televised cricket, which many people might think is about as interesting as listening to crickets for 12 hours. With the help of Louise's family, I started picking up some of the basics of the game and actually got caught up in some of the more exciting moments, even if I occasionally had to be told when an exciting moment was taking place. Once I started to understand a little bit about the game, I found myself actively rooting for the home team. I almost instinctively began disliking the squads from India, Pakistan and England, though I'd previously had little reason to feel anything about those countries' sporting teams.

Louise went to school with one of South Africa's star players, providing a celebrity gossip angle to the proceedings, something I require with my sports, like other American fans (see Woods, Tiger).

Thanks to one of Louise's brothers, I even attended a match, complete with an alcohol-and-food-laden suite. Unfortunately, my stomach's continuing struggle with adapting to the country's food meant I spent half the day wondering if I'd make it back to my in-laws' home alive, and the other half wishing for death. But even in that physical condition, I appreciated the athleticism of the players and the intensity of the event, the types of things fans of any sport understand, no matter the country.

By the end of our time in Cape Town I'd become a cricket fan, although not a knowledgeable one. I look forward to watching more of it, on television and in person, this January.

And I'm looking forward to Invictus this Friday. I'm certainly not the world's biggest rugby fan, but I am a fan of the story the history, and, most importantly, the country.

Now, all I need is for someone to tell me what is going on in this video.

Integrating my immigrant wife

A few weeks ago some German papers wrote about a proposal in Berlin that would create "integration contracts" for immigrants, which would help them become "contributing members of the country's society." It would detail what Germany expected from immigrants. It included this quote from someone holding the actual title of integration commissioner, which sounds more like a job given to someone's idiot nephew than a real position.

"All who want to live and work here for the long run must say yes to our country. To this belongs proficiency in the German language, but also a readiness to take part in society."

The story's here.

I never would have seen this story except someone on a journalism board I visit posted it, along with the thought that it'd be a good thing for America, too, because what's good for Germany is...good for America? The person thought a signed contract affirming the immigrant's belief in the country's "core values" would be a very good thing. Values like knowing what the death penalty rules are in every state(?), agreeing that putting the hand on a Bible in a courtroom is a great thing, agreeing to speak English. Some of the old standbys, with a few twists - seriously, learning death penalty law in every state?

The poster agreed that immigrants to America should say yes to the country. Germany's immigration policies are of no concern to me and I don't know enough about the country's dynamics and demographics to have much of an opinion. But the poster's line about wanting something similar for the United States did make me think. And stew.

Immigrants who become American citizens already have to pass a naturalization test. They answer questions - "Who's the Chief Justice of the Supreme Court?" "In what year was the U.S. Constitution written?" - that would flummox probably half of all adult Americans, regardless of how many civics classes they slept through in school. But for some, like the person who advocated importing the German contract plan, that's not enough. We need a contract. Binding, I suppose.

I'm trying to picture Louise signing this contract, perhaps while stomping on her South African passport.

Her penmanship on the document would be superb, befitting someone who didn't grow up in this country. But then how does she become integrated into core American values? For one, she has to at least pick up the rudimentary rules in the Big Three Sports: Football, baseball and basketball. She doesn't have to necessarily disavow rugby and cricket in a public forum, but it'd be a start. No longer will it be acceptable to ask, as she recently did during a basketball game, "It's a good thing when the ball goes through the net, right?" She'll be tested, on the length of a football field, the amount of time on an NBA shot clock, and who the all-time RBI leader is in Major League Baseball. Failure on any of the answers? I don't know, deportation? We're talking core American values here.

And the accent has to go. If she's going to say "yes" to this country, then it's time to say no to pronouncing the t's in butter. She'll drop the South African/British sound for one more befitting her integration into this country. Midwestern is fine and close to my heart, ya know. Stereotypical Brooklynite would be acceptable and a little humorous. Texas-style? Sure. Hell, Valley Girl would even be better, anything that's American. Because if there's one thing this country values, it's sameness. Everyone should sound the same, think the same, speak the same. That's what makes a good country great. Immigrants should embrace that.

Louise already knows how to make a great apple pie, but maybe a contract will force her to understand why the dessert is so crucial to this country (note: why is it?).

What else will the contract have? For those who become citizens, will it require them to vote? A noble commitment, even if millions of eligible voters who have forever been Americans never do it, yet still spend countless hours complaining about elected officials. Taxation-and-whining-without-voting-for-representation is a core American value, one immigrants should have no trouble picking up.

The immigration process also cries out for more paperwork, so a 50-page contract - minimum - would be a welcome feature. In our overstuffed filing cabinet, we have about four folders overflowing with hundreds of pages, the result of the multi-year legal process we went through as Louise became a permanent resident. Birth records, immigration papers, passports, proof of income, proof of residence, proof of life, proof of love, lawyer's office documents...what's one more document - no matter how vague and ludicrous - going to hurt, beside the manila folder?

Thankfully, of course, no one in any position of power has suggested having an integration contract in this country, even if nameless message board folk think it's a swell idea. And I understand that when many people rail about "immigration," they're not talking about countries such as South Africa or England or Spain, but that just makes the idea even more offensive (or are they advocating different contracts for Europeans and those who come from, oh, I don't know, Mexico?).

The guy who wants immigrants to this country to say yes to America is missing the point: those people already said yes to the United States. They said it when they left their homelands, their families and everything they've known for a new land. Maybe they did it for adventure, for a job, for studies or for love. Regardless, they gave up what they knew for the great unknown. And when they arrived here, most of them became valued members of whatever community they now call home. They work just as hard, contribute just as much and often have a deeper appreciation of all this country offers than those who have been here all their lives. Perhaps they speak funny or make strange foods or have disagreements with the American government. All that means is that they've already integrated themselves perfectly.

Making them sign a contract? Maybe it'll work in Germany. Maybe it's needed there, for whatever reason. But in this country, it wouldn't be worth the imported paper it was printed on.

Booked to Cape Town

After scouring online for weeks, searching the most popular - and unpopular - travel sites for the best deal, we finally bought our tickets for a January trip to Louise's home city of Cape Town.

The tickets cost a bit north of $1,500 each, which provided a jolt when we hit the purchase now button. But considering a two-hour flight for the two of us can easily cost $600, paying $3,000 for a trip that takes nearly an entire day doesn't seem too bad. It will take 19 hours to get to Cape Town, while the return flight will stretch for an excruciating 23 hours and change.

Louise actually leaves two weeks before me and will spend a month back home, while I'll be there for two weeks. We travel apart but come home together. For now, our seats on the return trip are a row apart, something we hope to rectify before the flight. In an emergency and assuming Sully's not onboard, we want to be able to just lean over and cling to each other in panic. Having to reach way back or lean forward while strangers crowd next to us just seems like such a hassle.

By the time my weary body arrives in Cape Town in January, it will have been three years since I've been there (Louise made it home in 2008 for a month). In 2006 we spent six weeks in the city. The thirty-six months away from Cape Town is at least 30 too many, but the cost and distance serve as dual challenges that make it difficult to make routine and regular trips.

And it's too bad, because Cape Town is one of the most beautiful cities in the world and is also a world apart from the United States, not just 20 hours away. Nestled against the famed Table Mountain and not one but two oceans, the city is a photographer's dream and a beachgoer's paradise. The weather is San Diego-like, which is just another way of saying nearly perfect. We were always within 15 minutes of a beach and had our choice of the warm waters of the Indian Ocean or the cool waters of the Atlantic.


Table Mountain overlooks the city and it's flanked by the breathtaking and cool-sounding Devil's Peak and Lion's Head.


One of the main tourist attractions is Robben Island, where countless political prisoners, including Nelson Mandela, were once imprisoned. A visit to the island showcases the depressing conditions the prisoners had to live in, which surely broke countless people. The fact it didn't break the spirit of many more - including the future president Mandela - is a testament to the human spirit.

On our last trip I visited many of the main attractions of the city, including Boulders Beach, where penguins frolic and even swim with people.

But as great as the sightseeing and tours and history of the city were for a wide-eyed newbie like myself, the best reason for visiting has nothing to do with oceans, mountains, wildlife or weather. No, the main reason for going - and the main reason it's so tough being so far away - is nearly all of Louise's family still lives in Cape Town.

From her mom and stepdad to her brothers, niece, grandma and aunts and uncles, they're all in the city, a big family that's been missing a big part of it for 10 years now: Louise. We go for a month or more so she can spend as much time as possible with those she left when she came to America in 1999. I'm forever grateful she made that choice, but it doesn't make her any less lonely for her home and her family.

And they're of course my family now, too. For some people, having their in-laws stuck on the other side of the world would be a dream, but not for me. Trips to Cape Town serve as a reminder of how much I'm missing by being 24 hours away from these people. Louise's mom, Patricia, was the only member of her family who was able to make it to New York for our wedding, so we had been married nearly three years before much of her family saw me.

I can imagine their thoughts when they saw us finally stepping off the plane.

"So this is the guy who took our daughter/sister/granddaughter away from us. Kill him!"

But any awkwardness disappeared a half hour after we met each other. Now my relationship with Louise's siblings Daniel and Anthony has become a cliche, one I embrace: they're the brothers I never had. Her stepdad, affectionately known as Uncle Mike, is in his 70s but seemingly has more energy than this 34-year-old. January will be my first chance to see Anthony's 17-month-old daughter Madison. Two weeks won't be enough time there, but I'll squeeze every possible second out of those 14 days.

When most Americans think about South Africa the first word that comes to mind is probably still apartheid. For me, even though I'm not from there and even though I don't live there, the first word I think of now is, home.