OKAY A RETHINK OF THE HEARTSONG

So my friend Matt who is currently sailing on a yacht somewhere in the Caribbean pre-empted this post with his comment. He's quite right, how exactly can you have only one song for your entire life? Happy Feet is seemingly one dimensional but then again how many different issues and obstacles does the average penguin have to overcome in his or her lifetime? Not too many, therefore being the multi-dimensional souls we are, different songs would speak to us at various times in our lives depending on the trials or tribulations or pure joy we face at any given moment. So with that in mind how about I try this Heartsong thing again. If you have any time and feel like commenting on my blog let me know what song at this time in your life speaks to you...maybe just maybe someone will oblige this time.

In other news I think everyone knows that I didn't crack the nod for Clinical Psych Masters for next year, minor let down really I'll just keep trying until they see my brilliance or they just get sick of my constant nagging and accept me. Anyway yesterday I received a letter from WITS University accepting me into a Psych Masters course for 2007. Not for Clinical but for another psych vein, the surprising thing is is that I never applied for the course. So I'm guessing that when you don't get accepted into one course they pass your application around until someone wants you. Anyway it's bizarre and I declined the wonderful invitation because I already have plans for next year unfortunately for them I am after all, one in a million! (I don't hear anyone else blowing my trumpet).

HMMM...

So you're not really a great bunch for responding to requests are you? Unless of course there's no music in you at all, now wouldn't that be sad? Okay so moving forward because there's nothing worse than harping on about something no one is interested in, only problem is there's nothing I actually feel like sharing at this point in time so it's a pretty useless post, I really just wanted to see if heartsongs existed in the people reading this blog.

WHAT'S YOUR HEARTSONG?

That's what I want to know, so if you have time, and I know a lot of you do, and really even if you have no time at all post a comment and tell me what your heartsong is? If you don't know what a heartsong is then you don't have one yet, and one day when you do you'll know immediately and maybe you'll even let me know.

Anyway I've decided a week at the beach is good for the soul AND if you go with the right people to the right place you learn to do a whole bunch of new things. For those of you who know anything about me you know I'm scared of the sea, if I can't stand I either need someone big and strong to hang onto else I need to get out. But this past week I did a few things I thought I would never do. I learnt to body surf, I learnt to body board and I caught my first wave. I learnt all the steps to follow to surf but I have trouble standing up, I learnt how to avoid being dunked by a wave and, (and this deserves capitals) I SWAM TO BACKLINE. Now really you can laugh and make jokes about the Durban girl who's wary of the sea but a slim few of you will be able to smile with me because you know about me and the sea.

There were of course loads of other things to do and I learnt a hell of a lot in 1 week and met fantastic people even if they made me feel very old but that's all I need to write here. So now tell me what your heartsong is, I'm waiting in anticipation.

Just because...

"When the Himalayan peasant meets the he-bear in his pride, he shouts to scare the monster, who will often turn aside. But the she-bear thus accosted rends the peasant tooth and nail. For the female of the species is more deadly than the male", (Rudyard Kipling).

I BRUISE EASILY...

When I get shot at paintball!!!! How cool, last night we went paintballing. I was so nervous but that all goes away as soon as you've been pummelled in the head by some Dumbass on the other team who doesn't understand that when you put your gun over your head you're not a target. Once that happens you get angry, well only after you've sat down and you can see again because the stars have gone away. Getting shot in the head is really not fun. So now I have bruises on my arm, shoulder, fingers, back and thighs and an "egg" on my head-war wounds! haha. It was such fun and we went for dinner afterwards, a much better Friday night plan than Casablanca that's for sure. The next question is, what's our next big Friday night adventure? As soon as I know, so will you.

GOD SPEAKS TO MOST PEOPLE-WATERSHED SPEAKS TO ME!

I love Watershed. On Monday night the four of us, Eric, Tim, Markus and I went to Primi for supper and then to the Barnyard theatre to watch Watershed in concert. I stood on my chair the entire concert and sang along to ALL the songs...much to Markus and Tim's dismay, Eric couldn't hear me. Oh well, some people have rude things to say about Watershed but they have no idea now do they. I loved it. They jazzed up Indigo girl and jammed for over 2 hours, brilliant. Do you know that when I was in England I smsed East Coast Radio and asked them to play Indigo Girl for me, while I listened on streaming audio (hi-tech hey) and they did! So understand I went just slightly nuts, ever so slightly, on Monday night when he started playing it on the piano. Album no. 4 is out next year then I can annoy all of you with more profundities from Watershed (Tim, Eric, Markus...you know what I mean) but in the meantime I'll just harp on about the concert! EXCELLENT. My hands were pink from clapping too hard. Anyway, here we are the clever people who know when something is good.

I'd like to thank Tim for the title of this blog... you make me laugh because it's just so true.

BIANCA and CLIFF'S WEDDING

There they are, the happy couple. B and Cliff got married in September. It was a lovely ceremony and as you can see she looked beautiful and Cliff looked equally dashing. I just thought I'd upload some photos to share. After the ceremony we had dinner and partied the night away celebrating with them. So they were the first couple of our friends to get hitched...tongues are wagging in anticipation of who's next!

Marc and I posing for a pic as the guests mill around outside. Wedding photos take forever.

We all had to blow bubbles as they cut their cake...so with left over bubbles we made pretty pictures of our own

B, megs and I

After a lot of dancing, we still look pretty respectable don't you think?

On our way home after the wedding weekend we took a slow drive stopping along the way whenever we felt like, oh and whenever we were hungry...almost a premanent feature quite a surprise actually because I had just finished feeding the masses. Cooking a breakfast for 12 after a big party, I deserve points.

TRIBUTE TO THE WONDERFUL MODES OF COMMUNICATON AT OUR DISPOSAL

So today was a pretty cool day with regard to keeping in touch!!!! I spoke to my brother in Cape Town on a cell and landline...normal more or less. Then I chatted to Robs in PMB, Hails in Wandsworth, England and Leon in Wimbledon using gmail chat another wonderful invention and then to top it all off my dear friend Matthew skyped me from Washington DC. I mean really what a day. So guys we're all over the world and too far away to meet up for a drink or dinner when ever we fancy but we sure as hell don't have an excuse to not keep in touch, yay for comms.

THE NIGHT BEFORE I FLEW HOME - 11 AUGUST 2006

The night before I flew back to South Africa a group of us went out to dinner in Wimbledon. We went to Jim Thompson's Flaming Wok and had the most fantastic food. I had the best night with the most fantastic group of people. Eventually we were kicked out because Roald started a fire, a small one with the candles, but a fire nonetheless. We then went next door and danced until the early hours of the morning and we had to wait on the pavement for an hour for a taxi because the buses had stopped for the night! It was so much fun and it wouldn't have been the same without my pretty damn gorgeous friends.

Hails and I

Se, Me and Leigh Leigh

Roald, me (obviously) and Fergs. How long is my hair?

Fergs again, remembering the good times from 2004

These boys are just silly

Roald and Fergs

See this is how it all started, next thing we were kicked out... it was hysterical.

Leigh and Roald

Hails and Mich

Scott and Terri

Se and Leigh

Our tribute to the 80's - we're proud to be 80's babies

A little bit of Rhodes

?

Doug and I

Thanks dudes, it was such fun. Now come back to SA so we can have another cool night here.

I'm back! Blogger's on form today...jeepers. I've been trying for days to upload photos and today is apparently the day, so if I have the inclination I'll be back later and do another post.

Anyway, this is one of my favourite photos. It was 2 weeks before I left England and Sarah and I had spent the day with Nikki and Lindsey, from Texas, who we met in Greece (complicated I know-now Lindsey is in Swaziland and I will hopefully get to see her very soon). Anyway we were in Leicester Sq when this cab pulled up at the traffic lights and snapper happy me got a pic...and it just made me grin! Who's with me and PROUDLY SOUTH AFRICAN?

The weekend before we met Linds and Nikki in London Sarah andI caught a train to see where Lindsey lived. She took us to Shere, a little village where scenes from the movie Wedding Date with Debra Messing and Durmot Mulroney were filmed, it's just been on mnet. If you've seen it you'll recognise the church below.





Here we are. There's a movie with Cameron Diaz and Jude Law coming out called Holiday, and scenes from that movie were also shot in this tiny little village, and I mean tiny...there are 3 roads, that's it.

FINAL GREECE INSTALLMENT

So, I'm sick of Blogger and it's inconsistency most of the time but today it was very helpful and I managed to upload all of these photos. They're not in an order they're just to look at and to stop everyone whinging about the lack of attention I've paid my blog lately.

Sarah and I on the steps of the Acropolis in Athens after our cruise.

Me at the Parthenon, Athens, Greece.

At the modern day Olympic stadium, couldn't you guess?

On the fourth night of our cruise it was the captains ball, and things got a little out of hand. I stayed up with most of the Contikiers until the wee hours of the morning dancing like a maniac. I made friends with the ship's receptionist, who dances like something out of a movie and makes you look good when he dances with you and the following night, he came to find me and we danced some more!!!!

I never knew I could dance the way I danced with him.

Then again, when he wasn't dancing like a pro, he did have some special moves.

Contikiers

I haven't written anything about Santorini on the blog and I'm not planning to. It's a beautiful island, one I'd have liked to spend a lot more time on BUT it was our last stop and we were herded around like cattle and it just didn't do it for me. However to get down from the top of the island back to the ship you catch cable cars that hold max 6 people. I took this photo of people ascending as we were whizzing past them on our descent as the sun was setting.

FED UP WITH BLOGGER

Hi

So I have just uploaded the post about Rhodes... see the date 31 August 2006, that means I have been trying since then to publish that post with photos and it hasn't worked because blogger hasn't been working. So I am now thoroughly bored of trying to upload photos of Greece when all sorts of other exciting things have been happening. I'll try and give you a brief run down of the last 2 days of the trip, then I'll post (theoretically) a bunch of photos taken on my trip and then maybe we can move on? I think so. Anyway look what you've got to look forward to after the Greece blurb is over:

Now doesn't that make you wonder?

MORE GREECE

So after Kusadasi we went to Patmos, we were only there for the afternoon and it was the smallest island we visited. We hiked up to St John's grotto which was very good for us seeing as we'd been stuffing our faces on buffets of ship food for 2 days already and done no exercise except spending cash.

Behind me is the whole island basically, I'm at the monastery on the very top of Patmos with a view of the island and beyond.

After Patmos we sailed through the night to arrive very early in the morning at Rhodes. First stop was the internet cafe but it took longer than the 30 minutes it was supposed to as Rhodes had a power failure for 2 hours so we had to hang around the area where the internet cafe was, not the most fun place, until the power came back. After that Sarah and I hot-footed it back to the old town. Rhodes has a new town and an old town, the new town is obviously the modern part of Rhodes, the old town is still fortified, has cobbled streets and ruins and is far more beautiful than the new town. We shopped for presents for the rest of the morning, and we met more Greek islanders who had family in various parts of South Africa which is always fun. For lunch we went back to the ship, dumped all the purchases, met up with some other contikiers and ate. The weather was beautiful and it would've been a disgrace to miss the sea so we spent the afternoon on the beach. Usually I'm a ninny when it comes to the sea, waves frighten me but in the Med there are no waves, you can walk out for miles and look down at your feet as you go as the water is so clear so I was fine, Durban girl or not waves are scary.

This is a photo of The Old Town. The arched entrance shows the ancient walls of the city.

Here is the photo of the theatre. Drew and Mike, two of the Contiki boys, are in the photo as well but they're not nearly as important as the theatre, it's cool hey? Sting had just had a concert there 2 weeks before our trip so it's still used today which is saying something for the sturdiness of the structure don't you think?

So this is what the room looked like after the rolling out of the carpet display, there are at least 5 layers of carpet and the salesmen just kept rolling.

It's me, surprisingly close up and drinking apple tea which looking at the photo now you actually can't even see. You can see the little bowl it came in but my ginormous hand is covering the whole glass, oh well, look at my arm then.

Oh and about the radio station, you have to select a station, obviously, so the right one to pick will be the Orange Umbrella, enjoy listening. I'll write more later, I have to have some breakfast before I do the nest bit, I think pancakes sound good.

HOW COOL AM I

Okay so thanks to Brother dearest I can now be even cooler. I have a radio station on my blog! Ha, cool hey. You will probably have to press play to start it and it will slow other things you may be doing on your computer down but now you can read my stories and listen to some tunes at the same time, fantastic! The photos weren't uploading but I'm working on it and I will get the photos of the carpet showroom and the theatre asap as well as tell you about Patmos and the rest of the Greek trip! It's all a bit disjointed but it keeps you on your toes!

KUSADASI (TURKEY)

Hello, so it's been a while but I thought I'd quickly tell you about our quick stop in Turkey. We arrived in Kusadasi (say it like this "kushaadisi") on the second day. At 8am we were at the ancient site of Ephesus one of the best preserved archeological sites. This excursion was my favourite, you could imagine people actually living and working there. The sites where shops used to be can still be seen clearly and the mosaic floor are still basically perfect. We had a very well informed Turkish guide, Errol, who being so full of beans so early in the morning got us all paying attention.

Here Errol is with a broken piece of a pediment of a building depicting the Goddess Nike, the winged one...now do Nike takkies makes sense to some of you?

After booking the excursion I was very excited because I found out that the ancient theatre is so well preserved you can actually still stand on the "stage" and speak and those in the back seats will hear you, I've wanted to do that since I did Classical Civilisations at varsity so as nerdy as it sounds I was very excited. But before we got to the theatre we wondered down the road with the shop spaces on either side of us and came to the library. What was so entertaining about the library was (remember that men were the learned ones) underneath the library there was a secret passage that tunneled under the library, under the road and ended in the basement of a brothel. Apparently men would tell their wives they were off to be scholarly for the morning and would head off to the library to come back with a greater understanding of the female anatomy.

So the library is behind us and the brothel would've been in front of us and to the left, long tunnel hey.

So after the library we headed to the theatre. We went inside and I whispered to other Contiki people from the stage and they could hear me all the way at the back. I took photos from inside but the best view is as you are leaving the entire sit. I've been trying to upload the photo of the theatre for the whole day so now I've over it and I'll upload it another day.

After we left Ephesus we arrived in the town of Kusadasi where our guide took us on an extra special excursion to visit a friend of his, a carpet merchant. The shop was spectacular, every inch of wall was covered in carpets on display, we had a demonstration on how these carpets are made and then were given tiny glasses of warm apple tea to sample. I don't do hot drinks but this was quite yummy, Hayles you'll appreciate that, fruit tea isn't too bad. After the info session about 15 men appeared from the sidelines and began unrolling carpets in all colours, shapes, sizes and worth on the floor at our feet, it was a magnificent thing to see. Caught up in the softness and colours we were suitably blinkered to what they were setting up, one hard sale on a grand scale! Seeing as the tiniest tray sized carpet cost about 200 euros I wasn't about to buy one much to the disappointment of the salesman who had attached himself to my hip but hey I did need to survive another 5 days around the islands and definitely didn't have that much cash to spend on a carpet too small for an adult to sit on.

After managing to politely leave the show room I headed to the Bazaar and was completely disappointed, shopping prospects were not good and not wanting to ruin the Turkish experience I headed back to the boat just in time for all aboard as we headed for Patmos.

SANIBONANI

Honey, I'm home!!!!

I have caught up on my sleep I think though today my bed is looking very inviting, stupid me packed ALL my winter clothes in a box which is currently making it's way to me very slowly on the high seas so I'm cold. Just to let anyone who is still reading know that all my photos are presently on my laptop which isn't connected to an internet connection in SA so I have to do the great photo transfer before I can do more blogging and that doesn't really grab me right now as a fun thing to do. So this is a very boring post but I really just felt like blogging...I'll get interesting again soon, promise.

I been there, done that and I ain't looking back

It's been a long long road

Feels like I never left,

that's how the story goes

It doesn't matter where you are,

it doesn't matter where you go

If it's a million miles aways or just a mile up the road

Take it in, take it with you when you go,

who says you can't go home

(Bon Jovi)

So I know I haven't finished writing about Greece and I know that I have 2 weeks in London still to write about so I have plently still to do, and you lot have plenty still to read. The "critical" risk level in London means that there is absolute chaos at Heathrow and cancelled planes and lots and lots of delays so the thought of flying out tomorrow is SLIGHTLY nervewracking. Oh and the no hand luggage thing is also getting to me... what the hell do you do on a 11 hour flight without a book to read or an ipod to listen to, there are only so many movies you can watch in a night when the screen is a ruler length away from your face and the fat man next to you is squidging into your seat... the joys of long haul flights! So ANYWAY I'm coming home but don't despair as I've said seeing as I'm so far behind with my blogging, faithful readers, the fun and photos will continue when I'm back in SA and who knows if you're good maybe you'll appear on here one day too... wouldn't that just make your day? Lots of love!

Another aeroplane

Another sunny place

I’m lucky I know

But I wanna go home

Mmmm, I’ve got to go home

(Michael Buble)

ATHENS-MYKONOS

We boarded the Sea Diamond, our vessel for the trip, early on Monday morning and headed to Mykonos. As we were sailing during the day (unusual because mostly during the day we were visiting an island and then sailing at night) we had plenty of time to get aquainted with the ship and all it had to offer(Sarah and I were on deck 2, which meant we had a window in our room as opposed to a mirror, a good thing? Maybe for most of the time except when the seas were very rough because then we were basically underwater, yikes). I have never been on a cruise before and I don't think I'm about to run at the chance to go on another one, don't get me wrong it wasn't a terrible experience it was just a bit confined. Anyway we spent the day by the pool drinking fruit cocktails made especially for Sarah and me by some waiter she found who was from Mauritiaus but used to work in Durban. We also had an emergency drill, we had to out on our life jackets and move to our desiganted spot on the 8th deck of the ship where, if anything were to have happened, we would jump into our designated life boat, in our designated life jackets and be saved!!!! It was very amusing to see everyone fumbling around in the most awkward life jackets ever, just look at me:

We reached the port of Mykonos at about 15:00 and were on the island until 21:30 when it was "all on board" and if we weren't there we would've waved goodbye to the ship and lived on mykonos for a while...hmmm maybe not a bad idea, Mykonos is beautiful. We spent our time on Mykonos wondering the tiny cobbled streets and we had a meet and greet with some resident pelicans (people got up close and personal with the birds... it seems that if people don't come from Africa and they see a "wild" thing most of them want to touch it, why? I will never understand but they did, they stroked wild pellys as the pellys had their afternoon nap).

We sat drinking cocktails by the sea and found some delicious crepes to eat for dinner. I enjoyed Mykonos, apart from Rhodes I think it was my favourite stop.

There are cats all over Greece, in Mykonos we found kittens playing, they were so sweet.