First pics from my trip

Here are some of the pics I have taken so far:

I know what you are thinking.  Is MJ THAT popular around the world?  Well, maybe.  I'll report back about that in a few weeks.  And no, Cape Town does not have a walk of fame.  So...upon arriving at the airport I was kindly informed that my passport had insufficient space to house the three page visa that S. Africa requires.  I was not allowed on the plane and was told to return in two days with more passport pages.  Yes, it was completely ridiculous. Getting more passport pages sounds simple, right?  Not so.  Unfortunately the San Francisco passport office was completely booked with appointments until JULY 16th, so if I wanted to see S.A. anytime soon, I had to actually FLY to LA to go to their passport office, which could squeeze me in the next day at 8am.  Now let's think about the environmental impact of me obtaining those few little pages...  

On the positive side, I did get to spend a fabulous sunny day in LA as they "processed" (peeled the backs off a few stickers and stuck the insert in) my passport.   On my tour de LA I had a chance to visit MJ's star on the walk of fame.    As to be expected it was sad and bizarre...just like Michael.  Fans and reporters were gathered from all over the world.   It was kind of like a mild, emotional mosh pit.  Everyone was pushing to get a pic with the actual star on the sidewalk and the police had to keep corralling everyone onto the sidewalk and out of traffic.  It was just a weird feeling being there because, as you can see in the picture of the note that says "I'M SORRY WE ALL LET YOU DOWN", there was a great deal of remorse in people's messages to him.  In a strange way I think that his death has made people reevaluate how we treat each other.  Maybe we are all looking at the man in the mirror. 

Well, I know what I am looking at right now and it is two hours of sleep before I have to get up to catch my flight tomorrow. This last week has been insane with all of the running around. I feel like the mother of a newborn.  I haven't had more than four hours of sleep at a time. I cannot wait to get to Cape Town and get settled.  "I'm too excited to sleep!"