The End

This will be my last blog on our homepage, since I will be leaving South Africa on Wednesday. Martin has already left on Friday, because he had to go back to the army. On Thursday we spent out last day together in George, we drove through the town again and went to the Garden Rout Mall where we enjoyed a last tasty vegetarian Steers burger. We packed Martins things all afternoon, considering his return to South Africa in 6 weeks time. Since he is keeping the car here, he is going to leave a lot of stuff in it which makes it a lot easier. On Friday morning after checking in we watched the airplanes land and take off over a cup of lovely hot chocolate in the restaurant in the airport. After kissing Martin good-bye I stayed there, watched him board his plane and saw him take off. I then went back to the apartment in Mosselbay. That afternoon I took a walk on the beach. I sat down on a bench and looked out onto the sea and experienced something amazing. A whale was playing in the water jumping out of it time after time, showing off his tale. It was so beautiful. While walking back I realised that it wasn’t only one… There were a few of them. I ran back up the road to get my camera. I got back and they were still there. I waited on a sand dune for them to jump out of the water again. But they wouldn’t do it again; Murphy’s Law, I guess. Maybe they didn’t do it again, because of the front that was passing. Martin had forecasted the warm front that was going to come and here it was. It brought rain and a beautiful rainbow!
Now I am very busy packing and cleaning the apartment. It is quite difficult to give up a household but luckily we got the place furnished, which makes matters a lot easier.
Well, this is it then. I really hope that you liked our homepage and we kept you up to date about what was going on in our lives. Life goes on now, which means for Martin army, some more flying and then studying economics at the University of St.Gallen and for me work at the Kinderspital Luzern and then studying to become a nurse at the University of Zurich.

My Birthday

My Birthday
On Friday I woke up to Martin’s voice singing Happy Birthday. When he called me into the living room a short while later he surprised me with a delicious chocolate cake covered in a creamy ganache with golden candles. I blew them and enjoyed it before unwrapping a pink fluffy morning gown. The bell rang and I received a huge, colourful and stunning flower bunch from Christine and Stefanie! We then got dressed and drove away in our car, I had no idea where to… When we stopped at the Gourits River Bridge my heart started pounding. I knew what it meant to be here and got very excited. This bridge is famous for its 65 metres bungy jump! We walked down to the bridge to watch a couple do the thing we were about to do and ten minutes later it was our turn to stand on the edge, hear the countdown and jump!!! It was so amazing. The two of us tied together just dropped into the valley and then swung under the bridge. After a long scream I recovered from the adrenalin rush and loved that experience.
The next surprise was that Martin took me to my favourite outdoor café; the Redberry Farm. I always love going there. It is so peaceful. The sun was shining while we enjoyed a delicious cheese platter with pickled figs and apples and I sipped a refreshing strawberry drink.
Martin had planned a good and a bad weather version of the day and since it was still so early we got to do both. Which meant that we drove to the mall and watched “Indiana Jones”. It was the first one for me and I loved the movie. It is very adventurous, but not frightening, involved some history, some comedy and was so interesting to follow.
Later that evening Martin invited me to an Italian restaurant that I’ve always been wanting to go to. It is called Piatto. It’s a double story place. The top is a bar and lounge and the bottom is where one eats in little round sofas. We were take to one of them by a very friendly waitress and handed cocktail menus. It was good luck that we happened to get there during happy hour. We each got an amazing looking drink, colourfully decorated. With it we enjoyed a thin based garlic focachia. Later on Martin got a traditional Spaghetti al Arrabiata, while I got a great vegetarian platter. On it were three bars of haloomi cheese, a spanakopita, a baked potato with creamy cheese sauce, ginger vegetables, feta served on a fried mushroom, olives fresh cucumber. It was every vegetarians dream and extremely nicely presented on an oval plate!!!
We didn’t ride straight home after that, but instead headed to town to a club called Carouse, where we first enjoyed a drink in a quiet cosy corner and then danced!
It was a great day and I will always have my 22nd birthday in good memory thanks to Martin! Many people also thought of me via sms, gave me phone calls and sent me presents, which I truly appreciated.

Flying

During the past week we did a lot of flying. Martin had to get his last few hours before he and reached all the requirements for his commercial pilots licence. We made a beautiful flight at night time inlands passing a few little villages, we flew in the sunset along the coast to Plettenberg Bay and last Saturday we took a long trip nearly to Cape Town. Flying is just magnificent! For the first time I saw dolphins and shark in the sea! South Africa is really such a beautiful country and we are sad we have to leave it so soon. Martin is working on his BMW a lot at the moment. Everything has to be perfect before we can drive it to the train museum in George to display it! After a lot of thinking whether and how to keep his 1970 BMW he saw a sign at the this museum where they have a lot of oldtimers on show on which it said that they are still looking for more cars. Martin contacted the guy and for only 35 rand a month he can exhibit his car and every year when he comes back for the renewal of his licence he can take it out and drive it around.
Friday last week was a beautiful sunny day and we decided to go to the point in Mosselbay for probably the last time. At Delfino's on the beach we enjoyed a mouthwatering nacho plate and and some South African wine while watching the surfers and feeling some of the last sun rays this season. A lot later we got seated inside this Italian restaurant for delicious pizza and pasta followed by their famous coffee and cakes. We really spoilt ourselves since this dinner was the celebration of our 3 years anniversary.
Yesterday we walked down to our beach and sat on a bench for a long while enjoying the huge waves. The temperature is getting colder every day and the sun isn't able to force his walmth through every day. Today the air was very humid and one could feel the salt in it coming from the sea.

End of Cape Town, Stefanie's Visit

On Monday I went to the University of Cape Town with Fiona. It was such a nice experience to see what life at a South African university is like. She studies marketing so I listened to a statistics lecture, followed by an economic one and to round of my morning I learned what marketing was all about in a marketing lecture, who’s lecturer really taught with enthusiasm. That evening we went to a delicious Mexican restaurant with 5 other girls. I really enjoyed seeing all of them again and we had a lot to chat about. The Tuesday morning I spent with Claudia again. We went to yoga, which I really loved. In the afternoon I met Katharine at Mug & Bean and spent the evening with her. Her mum cooked very tasty vegetarian food on a gas cooker since we had no electricity, due to load shedding. We went to watch a movie called “The other Boleyn Girl”. A cup of tea with Fiona rounded of the evening and the end of my stay in Cape Town. Early on Wednesday morning I left this beautiful city to arrive in Mosselbay where Martin expected me. It was so nice to be home again. I got cosy in our apartment while he went of to prepare himself for his Commercial Pilot’s Test.

The Thursday was a bit crazy. Don’t ask me how I did it, but when I was about to leave to pick Stefanie up from the airport I flooded the carbonator of our BMW. I tried to drive it, but lost more than 40 litres in less than 1km and had to be towed away in the end. Sitting in a road assistance truck with the BMW on the trailer we drove to the airport where Martin’s sister wasn’t sure if this was really the vehicle that was picking her up. The two of us spent the afternoon at the mall waiting for the car to be checked while poor Martin was doing his theoretical part of the commercial test with worries about his car and about us. At five o’clock they informed us that we won’t be able to take the care home and they took us to the airport to rent an opel corsa.
On Friday I took Martin to the Flight Training College. It was his big day! With a happy jet a bit nervous face he kissed me good-bye. Back home after Stefanie had woken up the two of us left for a bit of grocery shopping and a walk on Diaz Beach, where we watched funny little snails in the sand. As we were about to get into our car we heard a noise in the sky, looked up and I said to Stefanie :”This must be Martin!” My guess was right. A quarter of an hour later I got a phone call from a proud Commercial Pilot. Martin had passed his test!!! (The picture above shows the twin engine ZGO in which Martin did his test.) We rushed to pick him up and went to celebrate his success at the Panarottis in Mosselbay. Stefanie stayed until this afternoon and we did lots of nice outings with her, we took her to all our favourite places and discovered the wide white beach of Wilderness. We enjoyed sitting in the sun at the Redberry Farm, took a drive to Oudtshoorn to meet the ostriches, said hello to the dassies at the Point in Mosselbay, got into the Mexican vibe at the Coyote Cactus, went for English breakfast at Wimpy’s, we simply loved having her as a guest with us! After a meal at Steers with the widest variety of vegetarian burgers ever and the best burgers one has tried anyway…;-) Stefanie took of to fly back home.

Cape Town continues...

On Tuesday morning Hanns and I drove in the morning and our first stop was town, where he had to attend a meeting, whereas I had some time to look around St. Georges Mall and Green Market Square. This is the center of Cape Town. It's a pedestrian shopping mile and has lots of shops and little stalls. When Hanns was finished he picked me up and we headed towards Stellenbosch. There we met Kirsten and explored the campus where she had been studdying for the last one and a half years. The University is huge, there are nice allies and students everywhere. There is a place with various take away shops and plenty of tables in the middle, where students were chatting, having coffee, working and we joined them with sushi and a lovely vegetable wrap. When Gail came home from work that evening Hanns proposed that we go out for supper to a Chinese place, since the power was going to be of and this restaurant had a generator.
On Wednesday morning Hanns took me to Claudia's house. (Claudia Utermark was my first hostmum in Cape Town.) I had a relaxed afternoon there, read my interesting book next to the beautiful pool huged by old trees. On Thursday Claudia woke me up early in the morning to go for a walk. We drove to Constantia and hiked up Cecilia Forest and ran down an other trail. After that walk I felt great! It is such a good way to start your day and an hours hike every morning just changes your lifestyle by so much. We rushed back, because our plans were to go to yoga, which we made just in time. It was my first time doing yoga and eventhough it is quite difficult to get the balance right and one has to be quite flexible it is so relaxing and one gets to focus on every single part of the body and on one's breath. Despite of my muscles which aren't really used to the kinds of sports I made them do and were thus complaining a bit we went hiking the next morning again. At two we went to Springfield Girls High, where I used to go to. The Matrics had a fashion show of their Matric Dance dresses. Alex had one of the beautiful girls!
The Saturday was a quiet day and towards the evening I said good-bye to the Utermarks when Bohles came to pick me up. I spent another night with them. In the morning we visited Kirsten at the toyshop where she work over the weekends and Gail and me had some coffe at a nice coffee shop. I get along so well with her. At around lunch time she droped me of at Tarryn's house. She and Rebecca, who joined us a bit later, where very close friends. It's so nice be be able to come back after so many years, where we didn't have a lot of contact, or to be precise non at all, and have so many things to talk about and be as close as if no time had passed since I last saw them. They are doing different things, know different people but they are still the same people and haven't changed a bit.
Later that afternoon I went to Fionas house. It's so nice how her parents always make me feel so welcome and confortable in their home, like part of their family. Fiona and I went to have some tea, chatted, the four of us went out for some lovely pizza at a stunning place and after that we carried on chatting. We get along so well and we could talk for hours... But now I better go to sleep. I have to get up at 6 tomorrow morning. I am going to University with Fiona from 8 till 5. I think it's gonna be quite an exciting day and I look forward to get an insight into a South African University... Good night... sleep well.

Cape Town

Since Friday I have now been in Cape Town. The night before I left we had our friends Ian and Linzi and their daughter Nicole for supper. I prepared a Greek starter, then everyone made their own little pizza with the ingredients they wished to put on and to round of the evening we had a big choccolate tart!
I was meant to leave Mosselbay by bus at one o'clock, but the bus had a lot of delay and i ended up waving Martin good-bye only at 5. At midnight Hanns Bohle, my hostdad from my exchange year, came to pick me up in town and took me home where I fell asleep in my old room, which hadn't changed at all soon after. On Saturday Gail, my hostmum, and I went for tea to a friend of hers. The drive was amazing. We took Chapmans Peak drive and had a beautiful view of Kommetjie. That's a broad white beach. In the afternoon my hostsister Kirsten came back from Stellenbosch, where she studdies and we all went for supper at a nice Italian restaurant in Hout Bay. We had a good family time. On Sunday we went for a drive the other direction. It was a sunny warm day and we drove along the coastline till Blouberg, where we enjoyed some lovely cake and tea. Their family tradition is to always see their best friends for supper every Sunday. As I was able to be with them I made some tomato bread for starter with cherry tomatoes, mozzarella and olives and I prepared an apple strudel for pudding. Hanns made a mouth-watering mushroom risotto as the main meal. We sat for quite long chatting and I felt really welcome. Today was a relaxing day. I read, enjoyed the sun and got a long phone call from my godmother Beatrix. It was so nice to talk to her.
This was now all about me and I feel a bit bad about that. I would have loved to have Martin with me on this trip, get him to meet my hostfamilies and friends and share Cape Town with him. But he is so close to his Commercial Pilots Licence now, that he doesn't want to miss any sunny day and wants to get the most out of the remaining days. Time really flies and we can't believe that we will be back in Switzerland in two month time.

Easter and a visitor

(There is something wrong with the blog webpage. This blog originally had 7 pictures, which for some reason I couldn't upload. Just send me a quick note, if you would like to get the real version and I will send it to you via e-mail.)
We had a lovely Easter in Cape Town with Fiona White's family. On Saturday we went to a mall, where I went a lot during my exchange year. It has expanded a great deal and Martin and I realized how expensive Cape Town is compared to George. This is really a metropolis. In the afternoon Martin went to town to pick up a college from the army, Ramon, who is backpacking in South Africa at the moment. Later on one of my other friends Katherine, her boyfriend and one of her friends came to Fi's house as well and all of us went to a Caribbean bar called Banana Jam to get some cocktails. Back home we started a fire for a traditional braai and prepared some salads. We had a fun time, talked till late and then chilled out watching "The Pacifier".
On Sunday Fiona, Sue (Fionas mom) and I got up very early to go to church. We listened to a nice Easter sermon, the church was filled with candles before the sun slowly rose. Back home we had some tea and went back to sleep for a while. It was starting to become very hot and Martin and I sat beside the pool, talking to Ant (Fionas dad), who was cleaning it, before I went inside to help Sue with the Easter lunch. Since early in the morning the roast, cooking in the oven, had been filling the house with the lovely scent of rosemary and marinade. Fiona had invited two friends from university for lunch and her parents had invited a couple with a daughter our age. After enjoying a divine appetiser with melba toast, several dips and pâtés, wine and gin and tonic we had a delicious Easter lunch with a lot of laughter.
On Monday Sue and Ant took Martin, Ramon and me to see the penguins in Simonstown and we drove all the way along the cost. For the first time I was able to experience the Chapman's Peak drive. (This road was closed during my exchange year.) It is really amazing! In Hout Bay we went to have the famous fish & chips at a place in the harbour. On our drive we encountered a gang of baboons making a big mess while looking for leftovers in a bin.
At around three that afternoon Martin, Ramon and I headed back home to Mosselbay.
Since then we have been doing a few outings in our area. We went to the Game Reserve in Plettenberg Bay, where we spotted a very young rhino and his mom and lots of bucks, giraffes, zebras… and the turtle with his crocodile buddies. After this wildlife experience we joined most of the tourists visiting this area of South Africa at the Plettenberg Bay Beach. It was a beautiful day and we let the hot sun shine on our skins lying in the sand.
There was a huge music festival going in on in Oudtshoorn for a whole week, which we visited and where we listened to Afrikaans singing bands sitting on straw stacks.

Cape Town

I haven't posted anything for ages and I feel it is high time I let you know what is going on down here. We are at Fiona's house in Cape Town at the moment and are spending Easter with her family. Fiona was my best friend when I was on exchange in South Africa in 2003. It is so nice to be back and spend time with her again. Yesterday she took us to the UCT (University of Cape Town) where whe studies marketing. The university is huge, we walked lots of stairs and had an absolutely amazing view of the whole city!
When we were still back in George, Martins BMW was in restoration for several days and it looks so stunning now! Martin is so proud to have such a beautiful 1970's car.
I had my last days at the playschool with an Easterhunt for the kids and lots of melted chocolate since it was such a hot day.
This was just a very brief update. I will write again soon.
We both wish you a very happy Easter!!!!

Sharks and Twin Engine

Last week Saturday Martin took Cobus, who is really into flying and wants to become a pilot after having finished high school, for a flight to Riversdale, Ladismith, Oudtshoorn and back to Mosselbay. From there I flew with him back to George. It was a beautiful day, the sea was clear and Martin spotted 5 huge sharks quite close to our beach in Little Brak. In George we visited the Outeniqua Expo (a fair that takes place once a year in George). People advertised their products, displayed garden arrangements, showed whirlpools, there were stunning flower arrangements, nicely decorated cakes, there were lots of take away wagons, a huge beer tent and rides. We tried one of the specialities, a chip stick and had a look around.
Since we had started to miss Panarottis we decided to pay it a visit. As always we enjoyed a mouth-watering meal with their special jalapeno bread and pizza and calzone.
After that we drove to the big cinema in the mall to watch “Good Luck Chuck”. It was quite a funny comedy and we loved it!
On Sunday we went to swim in the rock pools down at our beach. Not long ago we had discovered them and it is so refreshing to dive into that clear turquoise water, where one is save of sharks. Lots of people snorkel there, so there must be nice fish and shells as well. The sun was shining and it was a beautiful day!
Today is similar to last week and we are planning to go down to the beach again. Martin is busy preparing for his Commercial Pilots Test.
The week passed by so quickly and we are already a bit worried that the end of our year is so close… I had two parties, which were cute and especially one family made a huge effort to make a party that the children enjoyed a lot and their little girls second birthday was really celebrated!
Martin had his first flight on a twin engine! This was an amazing experience for him. He loved the power this plane has, the speed… Since this was his instructors 1000 hour another instructor took photos of them, which I will display on the blog as soon as I get them.
P.S. You really have to go and watch Charlie Wilsons War. It is an interesting and still funny movie apparently based on a true story.

A normal week...

It has been a week since Christine flew back to Switzerland. We enjoyed hers and Stefanie’s visit so much. A beautiful experience was the Plettenberg Game Reserve, where we did a long horse ride, saw giraffes, zebras, black and white impalas, rhinos and even a baby rhino. This was such an amazing experience, because the animals aren’t afraid of the horses. It was also so peaceful without the noise of an engine.
That same day Martin and Stefanie drove down to Cape Town and Christine and I stayed in Reebok, where we took a long and beautiful walk on the beach. We found lots of different shells, listened to the waves and enjoyed the broadness of the sea. In Cape Town they took the cable car up Table Mountain, visited the largest shopping centre of Africa and enjoyed this beautiful city.
When Martin was back we went to the Redberry farm, drove to Oudtshoorn again to show Christine the amazing Cango Caves, Martin and her went on the famous Choo-Choo train from Mosselbay to George and we spent lots of time on the beach. We who live here all the time had gotten used to the sea a little bit and Christine opened our eyes again to realise how beautiful and special it actually is!
Since Monday everything is back to normal again. I am spending the mornings at the playschool, where a new girl called Liezel started. The two of us get on so well and have started to become really good friends. Martin is so happy that he could fly in the simulator every day for about three hours and has made such a big progress.
On Friday we were invited to Nita and Cobus. Martin took his pilot’s gadgets along to give their son Cobus, who is very fond of flying an insight into planning a flight. This boy couldn’t get enough of it and was keen on picking everything up. He asked questions and keep wanted to know more. Martin had actually planned to take him for a flight, but the weather in George isn’t so great at the moment. We had a good time at their place and felt so honoured because Nita got us really delicious vegetarian schnitzels.
Yesterday we went to the movies in Mosselbay and on our way home a terrible storm started to build up. Just after we had parked our car safely in the garage it started to pour down. About half an hour after we had gotten home this storm cut a power line somewhere and we sat in the dark, our room was only lightened by a lightning every once in a while…

Greetings from the Cango Caves

Cape Town, Margate, Stefanie's Visit

It’s really high time to update our blog. There was so much happening during the last two weeks and I never really got the time to sit down quietly and write a text about it.
I will start with the 27th of January. In our rented Golf Chico we drove of to Cape Town at nine o’clock in the morning. We had this car, since Martin’s 1969 BMW was in restoration. It was a beautiful drive through vineyards, orchards, eucalyptus forests, and a huge dam just before we reached a lookout point with the most breathtaking view of Cape Town one can ever experience! And breathtaking it was also, since the wind was so strong we could hardly breathe. At around 2 we reached the Portobello Place, the B&B we were going to stay. Martin had stayed there during his exams in December already. We relaxed at the beautiful pool with the little waterfall. At around five I went to meet my host mum for a cocktail in town. We caught up on the last couple of years. Meanwhile Martin was going through his summary of the exam stuff again to be really prepared for his last exam.
The Tuesday morning started with a delicious 4 course breakfast. A huge bowl of fruits, then pan cakes with maple syrup, muesli with yogurt, an then the main course, which was egg, avocado, a potato cake, tomatoes and fried mushrooms. Along came toast, jam and butter. Strengthened Martin left for his exam, while I still sat for a while having my tea. When he cot back at around eleven we drove to the biggest mall of Africa, called Canal Walk. It is a really beautiful mall with palm trees lining the road to is, nice balconies inside, glass windows, marble floors and you could really find every shop and every food you want to. Our next stop on the way was Cape Agulhas, the southernmost point of Africa. That’s a magnificent place to be. The sea is turquoise blue, the sand white and the waves clash onto white rocks. One can really only see ocean all around.
On Saturday the weather was beautiful, so we decided to go to Diaz Beach. The sun was really hot and the sea as always breathtaking with its turquoise colour. We had seen posters of an old car show in George which we didn’t want to miss and we are glad we didn’t. On a huge school campus hundreds of oldtimers were exhibited. Martin was so excited to see a Capri. Some of the cars had their steering wheel on the left side as in Europe.
On Tuesday we painted worms at the playschool, before I left for the FTC (Flight Training College) to meet Martin and accompany him for a ferry flight to Margate. (A ferry flight is if a plane is being delivered to somebody who bought it. Which means that Martin didn’t have to pay anything and got free flying hours as he was doing them a favour.) The plane he had to fly to Margate was a Cherokee. It was so exciting to sit in this big machine. It flew so smoothly and we had a really great flight, until we saw thunderstorms building up. We stopped to refuel in Mthatha, but since thunderstorms are so dangerous, we couldn’t fly any further and had to find a place to stay in Mthatha. I phoned several hotels and B&B, but they were all fully booked. We begged the security guards to stay at the airport where we slept on the floor. Early at 5 o’clock we took of again and landed at about 7 in Margate, where we rented a car, because we thought it was the quickest way to get back to George. That day Stefanie was arriving in Cape Town and Martin had planned to drive down there, pick her up and do some sightseeing with her in this beautiful town. It got midday and we still hadn’t arrived. We asked Stefanie to take a flight to George. But when she let us know she was there, we were still on our way. The road was taking forever. The petrol slowly ran out and we had no cash money at all. And South African petrol stations usually don’t take credit cards. In Port Elisabeth Martin spotted a huge truck stop and luckily we could use the visa there and got rid of our biggest worry to be stuck because we ran out of petrol. Finally at about 11 p.m. we reached George. This is only a short version. A lot more things went wrong on this trip!
It has been so great to have Stafanie stay with us. On the first day we went to pick strawberries at the Redberry farm, before we drove to the point in Mosselbay to meet Dassies and enjoy a beautiful view over the ocean from the cliff where the lighthouse is situated. On the terrace we shared a fish bowl, which is a funny drink, served in a plastic container with plastic pipes. Because of the many ice cubes and a little red fish it looks like an aquarium. We chatted and made plans for the coming days. Finally we decided to go to our favourite Italian restaurant Panarottis. The food was as always great!
Yesterday we slept in. Our destination was the Elephant Park in Knysna. We could feed the elephants through their … but we could also put the food directly into their mouth, which was quite scary. But these huge creatures are so gentle. We could touch their skin, which is extremely hard and spiked with little hair. They have beautiful eyes with long lashes. These elephants are all orphans from National Parks, taken into care by this park. If an elephant mum dies, no other mum in the herd would look after the baby and it would be tossed away until it dies.
On our way back we stopped at the Knysna heads. The houses in this area are very upmarket and to us it looked like Italy. There are palm trees, flowering bushes and the houses are built in a Tuscan style.
At the Garden Route Mall we stopped again and paid Steers a visit. This fast food restaurant has about 5 different veggie burgers! We enjoyed our chips and each a different burger, before we checked the cinema schedule and went to see 27 Dresses. A very romantic movie that renders everyone happy.

Power Failures continue...

On Thursday we drove to Oudtshoorn for Martins "Night Rating". Oudtshoorn is only an hour away from George, but the weather is extremely different. It is much hotter und there are less clouds. When we were just a few kilometres away from the town Martins instructor called him to let him know that there is a power failure, which means they had to wait for the runway lights, thus the power to turn on again before they could take off. So we sat there, Martin did some preparations and I read magazines. Just after eight the power was back on and they left. Suddenly at half past nine everything switched off again. I got such a fright. How were they supposed to find the runway and land when it is pitch dark. They phone rang and it was another instructor who asked me whether they were back yet. A few minutes later there were about 15 people from the flight school there with me. We called them, but neither of them took their cell phone. We tried to reach them on the radio, but they didn't answer... These were long minutes with hallucinations of a green and a red light flying towards us. Suddenly we heard them on the radio. Thank god they were fine! Soon after that we saw them flying over the airstrip where we had lined up five cars to lighten up the airstrip. I was so relieved when I finally hugged Martin! Inside they had to fill in papers and while they were busy with that the lights were suddenly back. Can you believe it!

If you would like to find out more about these power failures, which Eskom (the South African electricity supplier) calls "load shedding" please visit: www.eskom.co.za/live/index.php

Power Failure

This is a topic which came up a lot during the past period. Yesterday after I came back from work, Martin surprised me with the idea to go to the cinema. So off we went wanting to get to the 17:30 show. The lady at the desk informed us that there is going to be a power failure from 6 till 8 o'clock. That's how it works in South Africa; if too much power is used it is just switched of for a whole region! We went to have woodfired pizza, because this place was practically the only one that wasen't struck by this incident. It was lovely and we sat there for a long time chatting, before we went back to the cinema. Precicely at 8 o'clock the power was on again and we sat in our confortable chairs watching the beginning of National Treasure! A great movie staring Nicolas Cage. Very interesting if you like unsolved mysteries...


Here is just a picture of some of the kids from the playschool I took during the last week... They made me laugh a few times and surpried me with their inventiveness.

Back to work

I started work at the playschool on Wednesday last week. This is actually a week before the actual school starts, wo it was optional for the kids to come and I was the only adult there. I had about 12 kids during these past 5 schooldays and enjoyed the time with them, eventhough they can get quite naughty and for some of them it was difficult at first to be away from their mum after such a long break. We played, did puzzles, had lunch... as usual.

From George to Mosselbay and back rides an old Choo-Choo-Train. Once we heared it coming and stopped at a bridge, but couldn't take a nice picture, because it was so fast. We then raced to the next place where we hoped to catch a glipse of it and as we were waiting for it the train came from the other direction.

As you know Martin and I are big fans of Pizza and Pasta and when we came back we had to go to our favourite restaurant in Mosselbay called Panarottis. They have such mouthwatering Pizzas and the staff is extremely friendly.

Pictures of our trip...

All these photographs were either taken by Martin or me. The animals you are going to have a look at live absolutely freely, without a fence and they depend on themselves, thus are not being fed by humans.
The airplane we did our trip with is a Cessna 152.
Enjoy!
A Happy New Year to all of you!

CHRISTMAS

These are two pictures from our Christmas here in South Africa. The first one is our white Christmas tree and the starter of your Christmas menu on the 24th of December. On the morning of the 24th we put together our Christmas tree, cleaned our apartment, I prepared some things for our special menu, we decorated the table. The evening was so nice. We listened to Chrismas music, unwrapped presents, ate little pizzas, olives, parmesan, "pastetli", delicious pasta with nice sauces... We had such a nice time that we completely forgot about the time and the first time we looked at the watch it was already 1:30!

The next morning I prepared a pasta salad and a desert because we were invited to Nita and Kubus for a Buure-Christmas. (The Buure are the Afrikaans-speaking South Africans.) On the second picture you can see the buffet that they usually have for Christmas. The special thing was that everyone had prepared a salad or a dish. We were 9 people together with their kids and friends of theirs. We cracked Christmas crackers, and had a nice time sharing Christmas day with them in their tradition.