Angola: Day (Actually Evening) 1

Twenty hours all told, from Newark to Brussels to Luanda.

Arrived to a clean, new-ish airport with tight security. Took me a long time to get through customs, but a nice fellow named Joseph, an employee of the Nations Cup Organizing Committee, provided some nice chit-chat as they went through all my paperwork.

My theme for this trip is going to be about seeing how good people can be.

Honestly, my existence here is spartan. My room is the size of a closet (though I do get a bunch of English language TV stations and high-speed internet). It's not going to be safe to wander outside the hotel (really, it's a "guest house") grounds after dark. (Here's my home for the next 11 nights.) And I am guessing the food is going to be atrocious (I packed a lot of meal replacement bars...and some Swedish Fish too). And it's going to be lonely.

But so far, from Joseph to Alves and Ricardo (my "fixers") and Farah (the Iranian woman who runs the guest house...and who lived in LA for a long time), it does seem like there are a lot of good people here who will make sure I'm safe and can get my work done. I have faith that the people here are going to make this positive.

The blogging will be personal because I don't think my bosses would be too happy if I wrote my magazine story on Jeff-Bradley.com, but hopefully they'll keep my friends entertained.