Monday, January 15, 2007

 

I'll Be Home For Christmas

Yep, I was just home for meetings at Thanksgiving, but Christmas at home was on the schedule. I think Al Gore might have something...the weather was a balmy 8 - 12 degrees the whole time i was there and in Sarnia we enjoyed a wet, brown and green Christmas. Really more like March than December. Being how much I love shorts, I took advantage of the gym shorts I had with me. I didn't get to wear the beautiful red Christmas turtleneck I brought though.

Travel is always a chore when it's that far away and this trip offered it's blessings and challenges. I decided to try World Travel Plus rather than business class. Well, won't do that again. It means two seats across rather than 3 so the seats are wider but the recline is about an inch further than regular econonomy. Totally not wortht the extra $2000. I did get lucky though because I got upgraded to business class from London to Toronto! Nice surprise. Over all it wasn't too bad. Okay...I just re-read that last paragraph and I am spoiled rotten!!!

Met Jodi and Tania for dinner at Sole in Waterloo (always great to see the girls) then off to Sarnia.

Overall very busy trip. Luckily Andrea was off the same three weeks so managed to spend a lot of time catching up and hanging out. Managed to make it to about 4 parties and even got to Indiana for a quick visit to see the American contingent. Always very glad to get there to see Sharon, Makaila, Wayne and Whitney. I met Sharon's new dog Rusty! Great little dog...I wanted to steal him and bring him back with me...and he's small enough!!






And even celebrated a big milestone...my 40th birthday...though Becky tells me that if you aren't in the country in which you reside when you turn a birthday that ends in zero, it doesn't count. So I guess I'm 39 and holding! Thanks to Becky for putting the party with the girls together and thanks for all the girls for making the effort to get to 2 Amigos for it...i appreciate it in a very hectic busy season.

And of course there were gifts. here are a couple of pictures of Jordan and Laura, my niece and nephew, opening gifts:


# posted by EdynR @ 3:42 AM 0 Comments
 

A Mall by any other name is still a mall...






okay...they are called malls or shopping centres here but the concept is exactly the same. As I said before, it really seems like being in Miami. Canal Walk in Cape Town, like the city itself, is much cooler than anything you'd find in Joburg. It's enormous and the food court is right out of America...no offense intended! It's flashy neon and larger than life. it really looks like an amusement park or Vegas. The one on the left show "Mexico Spur". Spur is a family steak house chain available only in SA I think and they have names such as Utah Spur, San Antonio etc. The most similar thing we had in Canada is Ponderosa and in the US, maybe Western Sizzlin'. On the right is the overall foodcourt view. on the right, that big splash of yellow you can see is one "leg" of the McDonald's golden arches.






# posted by EdynR @ 3:21 AM 0 Comments
 

Just Like Home



As different as the environment can be with the presence of the township shacks...which exist in Johannesburg as well as Cape Town by the way, you just can't see them from the road, things are surprisingly similar as well. I told people when I was home at Christmas that being here is very similar in feeling to being in Miami or California. The weather is like that...sunny and warm year round (it's summer here now so it's especially hot) and it is a bustling city. In Johannesburg we have several very nice malls, including Sandton City which is a pretty upscale, nice mall. There is even a McDonald's in it. Speaking of fast food, there is no Tim Horton's here, but there are McDonald's and KFC just like at home. In fact the food tastes about the same...it is true that the Mickey D's experience is the same all over the world. There is also a mall in Cape Town called Canal Walk. It's really really nice as well. I noticed a couple of things that reminded me of home.

Here are a couple:
Well, turns out South Africa is more like Canada than Canada...Bata, that great old Canadian company disappeared from Canadian malls some time ago, but they aren't dead!
And the one on the right is a bit difficult to read. It says: American Corndogs...made with Quality. Now people who know me know I love Corndogs. i didn't have one of these but will at some point. I can't get Caesar Salad or rootbeer, but I can get a corn dog!

# posted by EdynR @ 3:06 AM 0 Comments
 

Visits to Cape Town



So the dates of the next few posts will be the same, I am catching up and want to provide pictures for everyone as well.


Once I got back to South Africa after Thanksgiving, I was lucky enough to have several things to do in Cape Town...lucky because my sister lives there. Unfortunately, I don't have a good picture of her to post here but will make sure to get one.




Anyway, I managed to work it out that I could spend parts of three weeks with her. She had to work but we did see a few things. She was doing charms at a couple of Christmas markets and from that I found a new craft hobby...loom beading! I don't have pictures yet but I have made several key chains and security lanyards that I think are amazing. I am now looking to make enough of them to maybe sell at a couple of events next year. Beads are huge here.




Something else that is pretty plentiful unfortunately, in Cape Town, are informal settlements made up of mostly tin shacks. These have gotten much larger in the last few years as many people have moved into the cities for jobs..thinking there must be plenty of jobs with the end of apartheid. (there might be but not necessarily for the low skilled, uneducated workers teeming into the cities). This is a view of some shacks from the roadway.


Here is another one that you can see a bit better:




# posted by EdynR @ 2:43 AM 0 Comments

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