As a former cartographer, it surprises me how easily people are fooled by map projections.
Discussion
It’s not easy to understand when you haven’t travelled to the southern hemisphere! When you take over 8 hours from Johannesburg to the Mediterranean and you start comparing to the 3/4 hours you take to reach almost any country in eastern Europe from Lisbon you get a better understanding of this effect.
yeah, and we're at the bottom - an edge of the world destination. For me to go anywhere, I have to add 8 hours to travel up the entire continent. I think it's 10 hours to London from Cape Town direct