Journey to Africa - Day One

Here we are waiting to board our South African Airways flight to Jo'berg via Dakar Senegal. Arrived at JFK this morning on a red-eye from LAX. Rested well at the Ramada. We both feel refreshed. Seat assignments apparently mean nothing when you book online, our seats are not even together in the middle. They started checking in at 1pm. At least we are only one row apart. Maybe that's even better as the flight is nearly 20 hours with only one stop. The ticket taker at the gate signaled me out of the crowd along with 3 others as having one bag too many. I had my small wheelie and a backpack--one too many. Had to gate check the wheelie. South African Airways allow only one carry-on with a 7KG limit, but intermittently enforce that rule. I saw several others with precisely the same amount that were allowed to take both onto the plane.