There's a first time for everything

My first glimpse of South Africa was not as I imagined. Flying in from London Heathrow at 6:30 AM, I imagined the sun casting brilliant rays of light over my former home. Instead, most of Gauteng was shrouded in a fog as thick as pea soup and we were swallowed up by the dense cloud cover, as we touched down at the airport. After a sleepless 11 hour flight, my mind was reeling. I was home. Home. I couldn't believe I was finally in South Africa. I dragged my tired body through customs, baggage collection, and out into Arrivals and the waiting arms of my aunt.
It was an overwhelming first couple hours. I was so exhausted I could hardly speak, and I had family members beaming at me like a litter of cheshire cats. At once, everything was so intimately familiar and utterly foreign. Memories came flooding into my head and I began to wonder if I had made the right choice in coming here. In a moment of desperation, I went to the washroom in attempt to find a little peace in which to sort out my muddled thoughts.
The washroom is really a WC, a tiny little room housing nothing more than the toilet and toilet roll dispenser. I went in, shut the door and took a couple minutes to regain my composure. But when I made to open the door, I realized I had accidentally locked it. The key was in the door, so I turned it one way and then the other. Neither worked on the lock. I tried again and again, and then, in defeat, I leaned my head against the door. "I have been in South Africa less than five hours and I go and get myself locked in the WC. Fantastic."
The humiliating part wasn't getting locked in--it was calling for someone to get me out. When my grandparents and Maria, the maid, realized what happened, they all packed up laughing. Grandpa attempted to get the door unlocked, whilst my gran stood behind him sending a text message to my uncle in the UK. After a while, a locksmith was called and my grandpa slid a section of the newspaper under the door for me to read.
The locksmith did show up fairly quickly, and got the door unjammed. It seems the lock had caught in the doorjamb and would've needed a locksmith to fix it sooner or later. The man, a strange mixture of South African and Parisian, was incredibly kind to my grandparents and even gave them a senior's discount.

Five hours in a different country. That has got to be a new record (or low) for me.

Forever Daisied,
Confused and
Wary of going to the WC,
Karen

P.S. It was a high of 21 degrees celsius today and I counted about 30 people wearing knee high boots and sweaters. I wore capris and sandals.