From Cape Town. Today was, without question, the most memorable day of my life...so far! First, though, I should back-up to last night:

My pending encounter with Nobel Peace Prize Laureate Archbishop Desmond Tutu was just hours away. I decided to greet and thank him in his native language, isiXhosa. Although I was getting pretty good at basic conversation in Xhosa, I was terribly nervous about forgetting how to pronounce something during tomorrow’s crucial moments. So, I wrote down everything I wanted to say and kept repeating aloud for about 3 hours.

It wasn’t until this morning that my teammate, Jenny, informed me that I had continued repeating my chosen words all night. I was practicing in my sleep!

I was too nervous to eat breakfast and regretted that choice by the time we arrived at the Archbishop’s offices in Cape Town. Upon our arrival, we were informed that he and his staff pause to enjoy a tea break together every day at 11:00am. A new tradition for the office and, lucky for us, the precise the time of our scheduled appointment. We were asked to join them, which was the ideal way to break the ice pre-interview -- it’s hard to be nervous over a plate of tea cookies!

After tea, I was able to relax a bit. More comfortable with the reality of the situation -- interviewing one of the most famous and respected men in the world -- I was brave enough to ask him about his love of cricket. I was surprised to learn that Archbishop Tutu is a huge sports fan! Then followed a great conversation about voting for the first time, as you will see in the first video. In my opinion, it was a perfect meeting and an enormous benchmark for me as a young journalist.

As if my day could not get any better, we left the Archbishop’s offices, and headed straight to an interview with the Oprah Winfrey magazine, O South Africa. It was my first experience being interviewed for a magazine, let alone such a famous publication! I felt a bit like a celebrity.

On our way to the Cape Town airport for our flight back to Johannesburg, the reality of the day’s events finally hit me. Events so monumental do not always allow you time for processing. As I sat quietly, I finally allowed the fragments of Archbishop Tutu’s words to saturate my mind.

At the end of the day, and our journey to Cape Town, I was profoundly happy, proud, and very hungry.

Part I: Voting for the first time	Part II: What is Ubuntu?	Part III: Global Citizenship

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