South Africa meets the Nagli!

Cape Town: the last trip for awhile...

2011-03-22T21:04:00.015+02:00

So for our last long weekend in SA, we decided to celebrate Will's birthday in our favorite place: Cape Town. Believe it or not, this was our first trip to Cape Town by ourselves. Every other time we've been, we've been with friends, family, or coworkers. Needless to say, it was great to get there and skip the touristy stuff. We knew we wanted to enjoy wine and relaxing times before moving back home at the end of the month. And that we did....

We'll begin with a few of my fave shots from Kalk Bay, our fave place to stay.

Our apartment is right on the water and fabulous.

Kalk Bay is a super cute fishing town -

I love the colorful boats and the awesome mountain backdrop.

View from our balcony of the fishing harbor

Opposite view from the balcony

Massive seal in the harbor...

Obligatory self-photo from the patio...

Love Kleine Zalze. We ate at Terroir with Will's parents in September 2009 and really enjoyed the food and the wine tasting. We came back to drop in and buy some vino.

We didn't buy this bad boy, but it sure did make a good photo op!

We lucked out at Kleine Zalze and purchased a few bottles that will be cellared rather than enjoyed in the next few years. Looking forward to enjoying a glass down the road!

Rust en Vrede.
Hands down: best restaurant in South Africa.

Fantastic grounds, beautiful food, and an amazing sommelier.

This was a perfect birthday meal for Will!

Blogger hates me so pardon me while we pause here and continue on to Cafe Olympia...

Cafe Olympia.

One of my all time faves.

Casual, homemade, always fresh, friendly staff.

Divine. Best bread ever.

Just look at that chalkboard menu - it changes every day!

Penne with tomato, olives, and goat cheese.

Fantastic fish.

Uber-fantastic vino, made just for Cafe Olympia.

You can't find this edition of Zandvliet ANYWHERE.

We tried. So we just drink it here.

Did I mention breakfast is awesome?

This is the place that got me to fall in love with coffee.

Love that berry parfait.

I'm not an omelette girl, but that looks pretty perfect to me!

This is my perfect breakfast: scrambled eggs on toast with a grilled mushroom and tomato plus bacon, all topped with fresh argula.

Arugula + eggs = best flavor combo EVER.

Other Cafe Olympia faves:

-- Potato and Bacon soup

-- Pea and Bacon Soup

-- Salad with salami, strawberries, and goat cheese

-- Linguine del Mar (DIVINE)

Back to Rust en Vrede....

View from the restaurant

Some of the best champagne I've ever had.

So good, I took a pic of the menu!

We did a 6 course meal with wine pairings. We started with this to-die-for foie gras soup that had sorbet and vanilla salt. Sounds grody, but it was terrific.

This is my main course: springbok loin with foie gras, beets, and yummy potatoes.

Divine fluffy heavenly cheese. This is Tete de Moine with truffles and walnut cream

(and yes, pretzels).

Deconstructed Tiramisu. Divine.

We got introduced to Creation Wine here, as well as Black Pearl.

We traveled to Hout Bay, to check out whales and wineries. We stopped here at this super cute open market. Sunshine, live music, fresh food, wine... it was perfect.

View of Hout Bay from the restaurant, Bientang's Cave

Whales!

yay whales!

Love guinea fowl

Graham Beck, one of my favorite wineries and home to the best sparkling wine in SA!

As a member, I get complimentary deluxe tastings. Yay.

On this trip, we scored two magnums from Mandela's inauguration in 1994.

What a great souvenir!

To change things up, we stayed in the winelands for a night.

We stayed at this fabulous cottage at Lindhorst Winery.

Loved it.

Completely remote and set in the winery and equipped for entertaining and cooking.

I could have stayed here for weeks.

Fantastic-o wine here too! Love their reds!

Beautiful view from the Lindhorst vineyards of Franschhoek

Allee Bleue! Fantastic winery with some of my fave white wines!

Boekhenhoutskloof, home of the famous "Chocolate Block"

One of the most beautiful wineries I've ever been to! It was surrounded on both sides by mountains. Baboons ran through the winery - crazy!

There it is.

The only thing that stinks is you can't sample previous years of Chocolate Block.

They only had 2008 there, which is what's in the stores now.

If you ever see a bottle of a previous vintage, buy it!

Definitely buy a 2008 and age it. Do not drink it now - let it age.

Well, with a view like this, should I really complain?

Gorgeous winery!

Durban!

2011-03-22T20:56:00.004+02:00

A friend of Will's offered up his place to stay in Durban for the weekend so we jumped on it. We found flights for cheap and flew down for the weekend. The condo was great in the fact that it had E!, which I happily watched as a marathon. It was far from the beach, but comfortable.

The guys went deep sea fishing and caught all types of tuna. We ate it every which-a-way - sushi (I'm terrible at making rice), fried fish, grilled fish, you name it! There's nothing as good as fresh tuna.

Incredible (rough) surf

Beautiful!

Awesome succulent flowers

Sardine bait

Love that Will touches bait (which means I don't)...

Yay!

The guys attempting to fish in the massive surf...

Once they gave up on fishing (incredibly windy and rough surf!),

they decided to try body surfing.

Notice how tall those waves are...

This adventure ended shortly after this pic.

Amazing beach houses! Holy smokes!

Will fishing - how beauitful and remote!

A little tide pool I found on the other side of the rocky hill in the pic above...

My foot steps leading up the hill...

Shayamoya Fishing Lodge

2011-03-22T17:46:00.005+02:00

For Labor Day weekend, we decided to head southeast and go tiger fishing in Pongola. We had never been in this area of SA (which is almost in Swaziland!) and were super excited to try our hand at fishing. We've always enjoyed fishing together and while I had plenty to complain about in regards to our stay at the lodge and about our "fishing guides" (you can see my scathing review of Shayamoya Lodge on TripAdvisor), it was fantastic to be in the great outdoors with hubby. I wish we would have camped here and just rented a boat rather than going through the lodge. Oh well - it was my only negative travel experience in South Africa - I think that says a lot!

Enjoy some pics!

The mountains along the lake were incredibly beautiful. What a great sunset!

Sunrise

More sunrise and smoke on the water...

Our fishing vessel on day one

Will's tiger fish!

My only catch - a super ugly catfish.

A little offshore excursion...

More tiger fish - yay Will!

At the end of the day, how can you really complain when fishing on a beautiful river while watching a safari unfold on the shores of the river (rhino, kudu, warthog, you name it!).

Mosethla Bush Camp - Madikwe

2011-03-22T17:18:00.010+02:00

Apologies for not posting for 7 months (can't believe that). My make-up gift will be lots and lots and LOTS of pics instead! So let's start at the very beginning: our trip to Mosethla Bush Camp in Madikwe. Madikwe is only 4 hours from Pretoria (compared to the usual 6+ hour drive to Kruger). The Bush Camp was offering a winter special and we jumped on it for one of our last long weekends.

Here's what you need to know first and foremost: The Bush Camp has no electricity or running water. However, I didn't really notice that at all. Our room was comfortable and cute - a little tree house with a big comfy bed and flaps for windows. We had a little dresser, a carafe of water, towels, and a flashlight. What else do you need? There was an actual toilet - you just don't flush it. To shower, you heat up your water in a donkey boiler and then put it in a bucket overhead that has a shower attachment. Honestly, not bad at all. Meals were served over campfire and was some of the best food I've ever had in South Africa. Nights were spent around the bonfire, reading Herman Charles Bosman under that amazing sky full of stars. Bonus: we met fab new friends, Kerry and Ruth, here and had great times with them. I would totally recommend staying here as we really felt like we were "roughing it" in the African bush, but still had plenty of amenities to make us feel right at home.

But most importantly: the game. Madikwe is a private reserve. You can't just drive in. You have to be an overnight guest to come into the park. This is VERY different from Kruger, and a huge plus in my book. The rangers all work together on sightings, taking turns. This means that you are ensured to see something because everyone is helping each other out. Loved it. Below are just a few pics of some of our favorite sightings while we were there!

I love love LOVE the wild dogs. Aren't their ears so cute?

Muddy lays like this. How cute.

This is me being artsy.

Love an African sunset!

Gorgeous!

This baby elephant was checking us out and sniffing. What a cutie.

Mom with babies...

This is mom stampeding us away from her babies (yes, I kept shooting...)

Angry mom made a dust storm.

Hyena babies! Up until this point, hyenas creeped me out.

The baby hyenas changed my mind!

Look at that long neck!

Such a sweet little face

How cute are they playing? The older hyena is only a teenager. This isn't their mom.

The ranger said that the teenager is like the "babysitter" for these little cubs.

We never saw their parents.

Serious teeth.

Muddy does this too. Hi lion!

How sweet are these two male brothers?

Caught him licking!

Say cheese!!!

Dinner at Zambi's

2010-08-15T12:08:00.006+02:00

Will and I are in Maputo - woo woo!

I wanted to blog about our dinner last night as it was simply amazing and full of things I've never had before and would like to re-create!

After a delayed flight, we made it to Maputo around noon. We went to an ATM, enjoyed a light lunch (a small order of garlic prawns and Laurentina black beer), and just enjoyed the warm, beach weather after a super cold week (read: BELOW FREEZING) in South Africa.

Enjoying a Laurentina at lunch on the beach

Based on numerous great recommendations, we decided to go to dinner at Zambi's, a trendy seafood spot in Maputo. We took a cab (200 MT, about $5) and got to dinner at an odd hour of 5:30. We wanted to sit outside, but after the sun set, the wind blew in and it became quite cold.

Picture of us on the patio at Zambi's - very windy and chilly!

View of the street in front of Zambi's - the streets of Maputo are lined with tall palms

I tried Zambi's cocktail, which was a blend of mango juice and who knows what else. Sweet, but refreshing after a warm day. We looked at the menu and were simply overwhelmed by the amount of seafood. Every dish on the menu was seafood or meat - there were only 3 vegetarian options! Once we realized this, we knew we were in a fantastic place to eat as our friend Heidi, a strict vegetarian, had just raved and raved about Zambi's - and if she only had 3 things to pick from, its gotta be good.

Inside of Zambi's - crazy art and really neat booths!

I absolutely adore seafood. In the US, Will and I regularly grilled up fish and shrimp for dinner. Here, its rare to get fresh seafood in Pretoria so we don't eat it often at all. It also makes finding good sushi practically impossible (I've learned to enjoy salmon rolls as the salmon always seems to be fresher than the tuna, which is usually a dark purple color - gross!). When I get seafood, I usually get it at Ritrovo, which serves up killer Prawns Diablo (the picture is the first one after scrolling down). It is absolutely impossible to find crab or scallops in South Africa and I miss them terribly. I can't wait to come home and have seared scallops, she-crab soup, and more.

All of this is to say - once we started looking at the menu, we were absolutely overwhelmed by the seafood choices and wanted to order everything! The fish of the day was Red Snapper, an absolute fave of mine, but at the end of the day, Mozambique is known for its prawns and we knew we had to have them!

We settled on the seafood ravioli and garlic bread appetizers (combined total: about $5). The seafood ravioli were absolute HEAVEN. I adore crab and its impossible to find in South Africa. In fact, I haven't had crab since our holiday in Ireland when I had amazing crab claws with Erin in Dingle (so good, we ordered a second helping). Needless to say, I was so shocked when I took a bite of ravioli and was presented with the rich taste of fresh crab. The raviolis were very delicate and I really couldn't say that there was more filling in the ravioli than straight-up crab (maybe garlic?). The sauce was a bechamel sauce that was a golden color - it tasted like it had sherry and nutmeg in it. Very light, very tasty, and resulted in me feeling like I was in absolute heaven.

The garlic bread turned up to be fresh Portuguese bread that was baked on the top and bottom. Our waiter cut it for us at the table, revealing that the inside had been cooked with butter, garlic, and fresh parsley. Honestly - what's better than homemade bread?

Fresh garlic bread - yum!

After the apps, Will and I ordered a bottle of Vinho Verde, one of our favorite wines. Its made in Portugal and translates to "Green Wine" except that its actually a white wine with a slight sparkle to it. Its absolutely perfect with seafood.

We ordered the grilled seafood platter to share and were so pleased with the results. I wish I had taken a picture and if we go back there before we leave, I will take a pic.

The platter was huge - grilled calamari rings, massive prawns, langoustines, and spiny lobster. The seafood was grilled and seasoned with lemon, garlic, butter, and green chiles. I've never had seafood grilled with green chiles before and it lended such a fantastic flavor to the food that I will definitely try it again. Surprisingly, it wasn't spicy at all - just flavorful!

I wish I had taken more pics of the food, but as people started filling the restaurant, I felt a little awkward as the flash was so bright and I couldn't turn it off (we're borrowing Adam & Beth's camera while mine is being repaired).

After a wonderful al fresco breakfast, we're now headed to the Maputo Fish Market, where we can pick out our fresh seafood as it comes off the boat and have it prepared to our liking. Kind of a crazy opportunity and I can't wait!

View from our table at breakfast - infinity pool, the ocean, and palm trees!

Will enjoying a cup of cafe at breakfast - yum!

Two more months and change...

2010-08-05T14:01:00.005+02:00

We have two+ months left in lovely South Africa! I can't believe I've officially been here for over two years and haven't been back in my homeland since Obama became President.

Our friend Alex with his Obama fan pre-USA vs. Algeria!

World Cup was an amazing adventure and I apologize for my complete lack of blogging about how much fun we had. It was fantastic to see South Africa become this vibrant, friendly city with everyone cheering everyone else on. I soon found myself loving the sound of the vuvuzela and even learned to play it myself. Will and I were lucky enough to cheer on USA at multiple games, and essentially had a front row seat to Donovan's game winning goal against Algeria. We were truly plagued with World Cup fever!
Meeting up with some New Yorkers prior to the USA vs. England game - fun!

Right after the winning goal at the USA vs. Algeria game! YAY!!!

July was spent saying goodbye to a bunch of our friends. I've been told to say, "So long for now..." but believe me - its hard. I really miss all the great friends we made here. There's something to be said for having folks to commiserate about the life we've happened to share in SA. The only bonus in saying goodbye is that now I have friends posted all over the world that I can go visit! Ha!

Will and I have mega travel plans over the next two weeks. I want to take advantage of our remaining time here as much as possible, which for me means one word: SAFARI. We're headed to a rustic bush camp this weekend (no electricity! no running water!) and to be honest, I'm really looking forward to the experience. Fingers crossed for lots of game sightings!

The following week I'm headed back to Mozambique for work and Will is coming with me. Its actually the most under-planned trip I've ever had. We have no idea what we'll be doing or where we'll go while we're there, but its exciting - here's hoping for beach time!!! Not to lay out or swim, but just to relax and watch the sunset. Nice. Will says we may snorkel, which I've never done!

After these two trips, we still blessedly have 3 trips left, with a 4th pending:
-- Tiger fishing in KZN
-- A final (romantic!) Kruger adventure to two camps: Kapama Buffalo Cam p and Sabi Sabi Little Bush camp - high hopes for leopard sightings!
-- One last trip to Cape Town - winery stays, Kalk Bay (fourth time = the charm!), and lots and lots of dining out at the top restaurants in South Africa such as Rust en Vrede and Grande Provence (maybe even Nobu again!)

I will try to be better at posting between now and our return home in October. Stay tuned!

Things I'll miss, things I won't, and things I can't wait to do!

2010-06-07T20:05:00.002+02:00

I often think about things that I'll miss once we leave South Africa - and sometimes also the things I won't miss... and definitely the things I can't wait to do. I have a feeling this blog will turn into this theme as we start to count down to October!

I miss running. I really miss running with a group. I miss my Team in Training buddies. I miss running for a good cause. I miss having friends to go on a run with. I miss running at a regular elevation instead of a mile high in the sky. I miss having a mostly flat road to run on (although the hills here are pretty incredible).

I'm starting to think a couple things...
(1) Could I really wake up before work and go for a run? Could I? Is it possible to get up at 6:30, go for a quick 20+ minute run, shower, and get ready for work? If I did this just three times a week, how good would this be? I'll be honest: I'm not running now. It seems to me that I am just not getting to the gym as often as I can and after work, we just have to much going on. It would be great to fit in a quick run if I could and it looks like the start of the day may be my best bet.

That being said, I'm going to wake up tomorrow and run at 6:30 and then get ready for work. There. I'll see what its like!

(2) I want to start training for a race for when I return... Whether its a fun 5K in Knoxville one weekend with KTL (Buddy's Race Against Cancer 5k November 14, Jingle Bells Run for Arthritis 5K December 11) or a half marathon later on (Disney Half?)... ideas?

My favorite things: Kitchen edition!

2010-06-05T09:07:00.005+02:00

So maybe it took a few months, but here is the entry I promised on my favorite things in the kitchen! These are pieces I use on a regular basis (i.e. at least once a week, if not every time I cook!) and when using them, I always think - I should tell people about how great these things are! So here we go...

Le Creuset cookware: Whether its my dutch oven, my heart shaped pot, or my bakeware (perfect for enchiladas!), I swear by Le Creuset. I love it for the even cooking it provides, but adore it even more for its easy clean up - its ridiculous how easy food comes off these pieces! Bonus: it looks great on the stove! Amazon often has deals on Le Creuset, but you can also check out outlets. At the GA Premium outlets, there is a Le Creuset outlet as well as a Williams-Sonoma outlet that also carries very inexpensive Le Creuset. Its worth every single penny and will last forever!

All-Clad copper core: This set was an incredible wedding gift from my parents. We use these pieces on a regular basis, but are specifically in love with the covered saute pan (which I use to make PW's chicken parm and my family's fantastic beef/kudu/impala stroganoff).

Lodge cast iron skillet: If you don't own one of these (we have 4 - no jokes), buy one. It may be the best $19 you've ever spent. I love my cast iron skillet - for making caramelized onions (and blue cheese onion sauce), frying up bacon and cooking eggs in the grease, and more. Here's a tip: I love fried eggs, but I've always had trouble flipping them and keeping them in tact. I cheat my breaking them in the pan and then covering them with this lid - the lid will cook them from the top with no need to flip the egg. Easy!

Microplane 4 sided box grater: I use this guy ALL the time. Its a bit difficult to find grated cheese here in SA so its fabulous to be able to grate my own cheese. This grater makes it super easy. I also love my hand held zester for parmesan.

Oxo Salad Spinner: Another item used practically on a daily basis. I am one of those people that even though it says the salad in the bag is washed, I still give it another rinse before using. In addition, its useful for spinning off excess salad dressing if you've overdressed a salad. I also adore this Crate and Barrel salad bowl - super easy to clean and nice, high sides for tossing. We also use this pepper mill to season our salads - we love how it creates a great fine dusting of crushed peppercorns. We also love this olive oil spritzer.

Rice Cooker: I'm not a big rice eater, but I do love spanish rice, cheesy rice, and wild rice from time to time. I have a tough time making rice on the stove. This microwave rice cooker makes cooking rice a snap! Rice is ready in 12 minutes or less rather than the 24 minutes it takes on the stove top. Its also great for boiling potatoes and green beans as well as steaming broccoli in the microwave.

Martha Stewart citrus press: Looks like this guy is unavailable, but I love mine. The blue color is fantastic and its so handy to have one of these for squeezing lemons and limes.

Chalk board cheese plate: Love it. Love it so much, I bought a 2nd one.

Electric cordless kettle: I can't live without this. I never used one before moving to SA, but these are in every home here. Its great for making tea and coffee as well as pre-boiling water for dishes. It just makes everything that much faster!

Food processor: One day I'll have a nicer one. One day. But for now, this one is really great. From shredding cheese to making PW's restaurant style salsa and caesar dressing to just having something to cut up veggies, it works great and the price is right.

Pizza pan: Will and I disagree on this one (he hates the holes), but I love this pizza pan. Its perfect for tortilla pizzas - in fact, I think its fairly necessary.

Covered brownie pan: Love it! I use it for more than brownies, whether that's right or wrong - I just love the size! Its also great for corn souffle.

Wine decanter: A must for any wine lover. In SA, wines can be a bit corky - the decanter helps the wine breath and also help catch cork bits that would otherwise wind up in your glass.

Long time, no post

2010-06-02T21:29:00.002+02:00

A lot has happened since my last post in March...

We went to Swaziland with mom and dad and had an amazing time. We had our own two-bedroom cabin (complete with working fireplace and wrap-around porch) in the Mlilwane reserve, home to several rehabilitated species that I hadn't seen on other safaris in Africa. We had an incredible safari in the Mkhaya reserve for endangered species. While we didn't see black rhino, we sure did get up close and personal with about 12 elephants and got trumpeted at. Awesome. We bought incredible glass souvenirs, hand-woven baskets, and handmade jewelry. Perfect, incredible trip.

In April, we set the date to move back to the USA: October 20, 2010. There was just something special about 10/20/2010 that it seemed right. We'll set foot on USA soil on 10/21/2010 and probably take a couple weeks off work to figure out where to live, what to do about a car, ahhhhhhhhh. Very scary, but very, very exciting. I will have been gone from the USA for over 27 months. As the song says, "Still in peaceful dreams I see the road leads back to you..."

I traveled to Namibia for work twice - once in April, once in May. I'm wishing we had time to go back, but I'm thinking it just won't happen while we're here unless we take some serious time off work before we head back and I'm not sure that I can. We really wanted to go out to the desert at Sossusvlei, but oh well - it may just not be meant to be for now.

Our buddy Zach is here and we're so happy to have company again! We just got back from a 3 night stay in Cape Town - quite possibly the best trip to Cape Town yet! We stayed at an awesome apartment in Kalk Bay with ocean views, heated floors, and cable TV. Its one of the first times when the pictures on the website look EXACTLY like the place! We ate at Cafe Olympia no less than 4 times - potato & bacon soup, tomato & lentil soup, linguine del mar, scrambled egg breakfast with arugula (why is that so very good???), french toast croissants (sinful), and massive fresh berry parfaits. Yum, yum, yumyumyum.

We did the great white shark trip I've been dreaming of forever and yes, not only did I see lots of great white sharks, I did see one jump out of the water for a seal! And the seal got away - awesome (or not? Ask yourself!)! It was amazing to be a part of the circle of life. Will and Zach got in the cage and took some amazing close-up pics of the sharks. Its surprising how gentle they actually are - its not at all like you see on TV with them munching on the side of a boat. Who knows. The only bad thing was I got terribly sea sick and yammied not once, but twice over the side of the boat. I was too sick to get in the cage, let alone shimmy into a wet suit. The waves were super choppy that day and I don't feel bad as half the people on the boat joined me in hanging over the side of the boat. It was so bad, I stayed sea sick the rest of the day, even after we got off the boat!

We had a full day Monday, which was also Zach's birthday. After breakfast at Cafe Olympia, we visited our new buddy Dragana Jevtovic and bought an insane amount of her beautiful guinea fowl pottery. I now own a soup tureen. So exciting. While there, we got didgeridoo lessons - who knew?

Afterwards, we headed to Lindhorst Winery, for a private lunch and cellar tour with the owner, Mark Lindhorst. They made these awesome steak sandwiches with little soft rolls and a horseradish/mustard sauce, as well as a yumtastic mushroom sauce. The cellar tour was incredible - we tasted straight from the barrel! Very interesting to taste the flavors that start off his amazing wines. We had such a good time, the sun set on us.

We then went to dinner at the 12th restaurant in the world, La Colombe. WOW. It was like southern food meets France. No jokes - we had "pork crackling" served with honey - yes, fancy pork rinds! I had springbok tartare and veal medallions with morel mushrooms (MY FAVORITE) and a yummy zinfandel. The food was incredible! They topped it off with bringing us desserts that said "Happy Birthday" for Zach and "Happy Anniversary" for me and Will. Very special and very fun.

On our last day, we had breakfast at Cafe Olympia and took the drive up Chapman's Peak, which is so stunningly beautiful. We then decided to lunch on the beach at Camp's Bay, finally settling at Paranga for incredible sushi with ocean views. So relaxing, so fantastic, so perfect. I will think on that moment and the subsequent walk on the beach for years to come. Just a perfect, perfect day.

We're back in Pretoria and work is starting to pick up for the end of the FY. Next weekend is USA vs. England (YAY) plus Pilanesberg safari time. I can't wait!

Favorite Things: Beauty

2010-03-29T09:03:00.003+02:00

I can't believe its been a month since my last post! Sorry guys! I actually have tons of updates that I'd like to do. First and foremost is the trip to Maria's church where we donated money given by my family's church in Calhoun, TN - video, pictures, tons of fun! Second, my parents have been here since March 9 and we've had the best time. We've been to Kruger and Cape Town and they are headed back to us from Zambia after a 2nd honeymoon to Victoria Falls. They arrive tomorrow in Pretoria and then we're headed to Swaziland! Woohoo!

In the mean time, I'm stealing an idea from Pioneer Woman (I also love C.O. Bigelow Mentha Lip Tint!) and posting some of my favorite things. I'm inspired by some recent beauty finds...

Aveda Be Curly Curl Enhancer: My hair is curly, yet I almost always wear it straight as its not curly enough to really go curly. However, this product makes my curls amazing. No, it doesn't need to be paired with the shampoo and conditioner to get great results. If you have unmanageable curls, try this. You can buy a little $7 bottle to see if you like it. I promise - its worth every penny.

Curly hair tips: I comb my hair either before or during my shower so its not tangly. That way, once I towel my hair off, it should fall to my part. I then lightly scrunch my hair with the curl enhancer and dry with a diffuser. The thing with curly hair - don't touch it too much or else it will be frizzy frizzy.

Aveda Smooth Infusion Style Prep Smoother: Repeat: my hair is curly, yet I almost always wear it straight. This is an amazing product that I smooth on my hair before drying. It really makes it easier to dry my hair straight and it makes it look so much better. Again, you don't necessarily need to pair this with the shampoo and conditioner to get great results.

Straight hair tips: I have really long, thick, fine, colored hair. In order to keep it healthy and not dry it out, I don't wash my hair every day. Its true. Don't think I'm gross! To dry my hair, I let it dry most of the way and then dry in sections with a regular brush. Once dry, I use big hot rollers so that my has some volume and the ends are curled under. I then use my flat-iron to iron out any crazy pieces. On the 2nd day, I simply brush my hair with baby powder and use the flat-iron to iron out any crazy pieces. Easy peasy and no one ever knows its actually dirty.

Note: For shampoo and conditioner, I'm a suave professionals girl. I really love their products and think they make my hair great!

Philosophy Time on Your Hands: I am ashamed to admit that in order to keep my feet smooth, I use a pedegg. No, its not the real pedegg, but one my mom got off QVC or something. It works - really. As stupid as the infomercial is, the product really works. The pedegg combined with Time on Your Hands on my feet = incredibly smooth feet. I love it.

To finish off the pedicure, I swear by Seche Vite dry fast top coat. It will make any nail polish errors go away and makes the pedi last and last. It really makes you look like you just had a professional pedi. It also dries super fast. Incredible product I've sworn by for over 10 years.
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Lancome l'Extreme mascara: Amazing. Fake lashes in a tube. Woohoo!

Tend Skin: Ingrown hairs be gone! This stuff works like a charm.

Certain Dri: I once had a problem with hyperhydrosis. This means that I used to sweat for no good reason under my arms at all times. It could be freezing cold and I could be sitting absolutely still and I would be sweating like I just ran a 10K. Not cool for a high schooler. Not cool at all. If you suffer from inexplicable sweating at all times (note: this does not apply to working out - you should sweat then! its good for you!), try this. It will change your life!

As for my skin care regimen, with very sensitive, dry skin, I use the same beauty regime I've used since I was 18: Noxzema to wash my face, Clinique super defense moisturizer with SPF 30, and every now, a scrub with St. Ive's apricot scrub. Sooner or later, I should probably invest in a night cream and/or use any of the several tubes of eye cream that I have at my disposal. In the mean time, this is my standard. I also use Dove Sensitive Skin body wash plus Curel for extra dry skin. Works for me.

That's it for now! Will do a cooking favorite things soon!

Krystal burgers

2010-02-28T20:49:00.005+02:00

Its no secret: I typically spend my lunch hour scouring the Internet for food blogs and new recipes. My time is mostly filled up by Pioneer Woman because I just flat-out love everything she posts, whether it be about cooking, her house, fun things to buy, or photography. Besides, every recipe that I have ever tried of hers has been nothing short of absolutely fantastic (and might I add, the steps to get to this fantastic-ness have always been relatively simple and easy to follow), which makes me a devout reader of PW.

Thanks to PW, I also browse both the Tasty Kitchen blog and the Tasty Kitchen website, where I contribute recipes and make cooking "friends" under the name mrsnaglich. One day, somewhere in all this searching around, I stumbled upon this: Big Red Kitchen

It sounded fun, primarily because I also want a big red kitchen someday. As I read along, I realized this blogger also loves comfort foods with a healthy twist, but she also provides great commentary on the how to's of life, such as how to behave at the church pot luck. I fell in love with the idea of the 2-for-1 recipe of spaghetti bolognese and "sloppy giuseppes." You know I definitely bookmarked this page and this page for the most perfect idea for a themed dinner, baby shower or not! Antipasto salad, do-it-yourself meatball subs, homemade pizzas, and pepperoni dip??? Yes please. Sounds like my kind of party.

But it was this that got my heart pumping.

Yes, really.

A recipe for do-it-yourself Krystal burgers.

To give you some background, my grandmother was comfortable situated extremely close to a Krystal restaurant. Growing up, almost every visit to my grandmother's house included a trip to Krystal. It was the 80s. Supersize Me wouldn't come out for another 15 years. Sometimes it was a small indulgence of 2 burgers and other times I made a complete and utter gluttonistic disgrace of myself in front of my family as I devoured more than 8 Krystals in one sitting just because I said I could do it. While I have proven that I can eat more than 8 Krystals in one sitting, I'll hold on to that glory of yesteryear and stick to a healthy 2-3 from now on.

What is so special about the Krystal, really? Nothing about it smacks of gourmet eats. Its not even something fancy enough for any other chain to replicate. It is comprised of a mysteriously thin meat (beef?) patty, strange small onions, a solitary pickle, a gentle slather of American yellow mustard, and finally topped by what is almost always a very soggy bun (that I love to slurp on... seriously. its okay to gag here). I loved them so much, I used to beg my parents to buy the frozen ones from the grocery store. Seriously.

At Krystal, I don't care about the fries, the chili cheese pups, the mini corn dogs (although wow... I'd definitely eat a mini corn pup right about now), or even the spicy Krystal chick. I don't even want a Krystal with cheese. I just want a nice, yummy, soggy regular Krystal burger.

Side note: Two nights before my wedding day I have a picture of my now-husband smiling as he held a giant sackful of Krystal. If I wasn't willing to marry him before, this sealed the deal. Love by Krystal burger. Mmmm mmmm good.

So anyway. Back to this recipe.

I obviously live in Africa. As much as I think South Africans would enjoy Krystal burgers, the only American food chains in SA are KFC, McDonalds, and Subway (which is so terrible here I almost didn't list it... g-rody). Therefore, it is impossible for me to get a Krystal burger.

To add more background to this, I must also admit to being bitten by the mini-burger/slider phenomenon that swept through the US right as we were leaving. Our last meal in the ATL airport was at TGI Friday's - Will and I split an order of mini burgers before boarding the plane to Africa. While we were in London, we regularly consumed the mini burgers from Burger King (3 were jalapeno with spicy ketchup, the other 3 were BBQ with little onion rings - YUM).

Naturally, we figured we could make mini burgers ourselves. We got the meat, found little buns, made mini patties and set them on the grill, only to find they were impossible to flip and control. We wound up with a bunch of little hockey pucks. At a party. Lots of little buns went without little patties. It was a sad state of affairs and we wrote off mini burgers from there on.

So then I find this recipe. Krystal burger meets mini burger. Heck yes.

First of all, I was a huge skeptic of baking ground beef. Its just... weird to me. Bake meat? When I told Will what I was going to do, he just raised his eyebrows and blessedly said nothing and happily let me go on my way to try and make these mini yum-yums for the party last night.

Second of all, I had to find dehydrated onion and ground beef that had the right amount of fat yet didn't taste like Christmas (note: South Africans strangely add clove and coriander to almost all of their ground beef). This meant going to the butcher and asking for them to grind up sirloin steak, but add beef fat to it. Again, gag if you must.

So! I found the little buns again (mini garlic buns - yum!), find teeny tiny pickles and teeny tiny tomatoes and set in to make the burgers. Really, its easy. Generously coat the bottom of a pyrex dish with dehydrated onion and then press the meat on top and bake at 400 degrees for 20 minutes. Blot grease, add cheese, and bake until melty. Let cool, cut with a pizza cutter, and slide those puppies into the buns.

I set the pickles and tomatoes out to the side, along with ketchup and mustard, so people could make their own sammies. I also grilled up onions and mushrooms in Dale's steak seasoning - its my favorite burger topping.

I made Krystal burgers! It tasted EXACTLY like a Krystal (minus the garlic on the bun). This was one of the easiest appetizers I have ever made. Moreover, with the mini tomatoes and pickles, the presentation was super cute. They were gobbled up incredibly fast - everyone raved and raved over how great they were.

So! If you've got an event coming up and don't know what to take - try these! So simple, easy cleanup, voila!

Zimbabwe, the third time around!

2010-02-23T18:51:00.002+02:00

So far its a year of thirds - my third trip to Zambia, my third trip to Zimbabwe... well darn. I don't have another third! ha.

I'm currently in Harare for work. I adore Harare. Love it. Adore it. Its the best city! The people are super friendly, clean streets abound, amazing skyscrapers loom in the skyline, and trees, trees, trees - palm trees, jacarandas, and flowers galore! Its beautiful and happy. Even the work is good. All in all, its shaped up to be a great trip to Zim, which even includes my first attempt at Irish soda bread baking away in the oven. Results = to be announced...

As you know, I travel frequently for work. I deserve some credit - I've finally figured out how to pack for a 3 night trip in a carry-on bag. I've realized I only need two pairs of shoes for just about any trip. I have a dedicated bag of toiletries ready to go at a moments notice.

But no matter what I do... I always forget something.

Once I forgot my flat iron (we promptly turned around and retrieved it). Another time I forgot body lotion. Another time face lotion (a bigger "ooops!" than body lotion because I have such sensitive skin). Another time my allergy meds (and spent the whole time sneezing). Another time my allergy eye drops. I've even forgotten underwear (hotel soap and a hair dryer can solve just about any laundry crisis).

One time I even forgot my phone, only to drive back to the house and get it. I then got out at the airport only to realize, I forgot my phone in the car. Really. As I panicked and convinced a poor Avis car rental place for me to commandeer my phone, the sweet driver was running around the departures terminal looking for me. We eventually met up and all was well, but its not the way I'd recommend starting any trip.

This time I got in the car confident I had everything. Passport? Check. Cash? Check. Allergy meds? Check. Face lotion, phone, underwear? Check. Phew.

So I arrive in Zimbabwe, congratulation my expert packing skills to find...

I forgot my power converter.

No matter what I do, it seems I'll always forget something. Lists don't help. Its just bound to happen. And I just laugh and move on!

Valentine's Day 2010

2010-02-15T11:32:00.003+02:00

First and foremost, the countdown to the arrival of Mary & Gary is officially at 23 days. I CAN'T WAIT! We're headed to Kruger, Cape Town, and Swaziland and they are taking a 2nd honeymoon up to Victoria Falls - going by train and staying 3 nights at my favorite place: Sussi & Chuma Lodge. Fun times are headed our way!

Will and I had a fantastic Valentine's Day this year. We had originally talked about going to the beach for the holiday, but my recent travel schedule coupled with the upcoming trips with mom and dad made an additional trip a bit excessive. When it got down to it, I realized what I really wanted was a romantic date with hubby. And that's when it hit me - we should try one of the top 10 restaurants in South Africa that's located right outside Pretoria - a place called The Restaurant Mosaic at the Hotel Orient.

Will and I made reservations for two for dinner in private in their minaret tower. We chose Friday night as Saturday and Sunday were already booked. We drove over at sunset and on the way there, our headlights went out. The only way they would work was if Will would hold the lever forward with his hand - not conducive in a stick shift car. When we walked in, we told them we were having car trouble and they promptly sent their resident mechanic (who works on the Rolls Royces) out to look at our Land Rover.

Meanwhile, let's stop and talk about this place - its located in the Francolin Conservancy west of Pretoria in the mountains. As we pulled into the conservancy, we immediately saw zebra staring at us. Incredible! And then we pull up to the hotel - take a peek at the top of this webpage. Incredible. It was like stepping into another country. We're led through massive Indian doors (the kind you see in Zanzibar) into this incredible entry parlor, complete with indoor pools, winding staircases, and beautiful Persian rugs and other art. We're led upstairs to this beautiful dining room, then outside by an amazing pool filled with flowers and rose petals, and into the cozy minaret tower, which is lit only by candles and filled with all sorts of flowers.

Romantic? You betcha.

We're seated and immediately starts the parade of servers - what do we want to drink, hot towels for our hands and faces, a basket of all sorts of hot bread (SOURDOUGH - oh my goodness!), and an explanation of the menu by the executive chef. Even a cute black persian kitty came in to say hi to us.

Unfortunately, the tower was a bit warm (it had been over 35 degrees celsius and the minaret tower baked in the sun all day) and so we decided to stick it out for the first few courses and then go inside to the A/C and fantastic music (I'm a sucker for Frank Sinatra, Ella Fitzgerald, and french music playlists - think Something's Gotta Give soundtrack).

Will and I had decided on the 6 course menu with wine pairings for our meal. Here are the courses (I took a copy of the menu and in case I lose it, here it is for permanent online safe keeping)(please also forgive the French misspellings - I can't figure out how to do accent marks in blogger):

Amuse Bouche: Chilled Melon Soup with Iberian Ham and Aged Balsamic, paired with Moreson Cuvee Cape NV
Review: Absolutely delicious! The soup was in a shot glass and incredibly flavorful and herby. The iberian ham was served two ways - it was wrapped around the end of a little crusty breadstick and the other was made into a samosa-style little treat. YUM.

First Course: Melange of Tomato, paired with Lamberti Pinot Grigio Santepietre 2008
Review: I love tomatoes. This medley included so many tomatoes, but just a bite of each. It was paired with - get this - a tomato TEA. It was so good - for someone who loves tomato soup, to have tomato tea was heavenly.
And to finally have Pinot Grigio after 1.5 years... yum.

Second Course: Medley of the Sea in Star Anise Scented Lobster Bisque, paired with Cederberg Private Cellar Bukettraube 2008
Review: Perfect. Again, a super small portion, but delicious. I haven't had scallops since I moved to South Africa and it was heavenly to have one massive scallop to enjoy. There was also lobster and homemade noodles in this incredible lobster bisque. Yummity.

Palate Cleanser: Lemon Verbena sorbet
Review: Again, perfect. I love lemon!!!

Third Course (the main - we had three options to pick from): Will got the Slow Roasted Duck Leg Confit with Sweet Port Wine Reduction with Veenwouden Syrah 2006.
I had the Beef Fillet Medallions with Wild Mushrooms and Thyme Infused Beef Jus served with Stony Brook Ghost Gum Cabernet Sauvignon 2005

Review: Incredible! My beef fillets were cooked perfectly, although it was a huge portion. There were so many different types of mushrooms on my plate - it would have only been better had a tasty morel been sitting there. Even the mashed potatoes were perfect!

Will's duck confit was the best I've ever had in my life. It was so tender and flavorful and was even paired with a cute little duck pie.

The third option was Pan Seared Scottish Salmon with Delicate Saffron Foam.

Cheese course: A parade of Cheese with Accompaniments and homemade Pear and Macadamia Nut Bread

Review: 10 cheeses - all incredible. I have MISSED manchego cheese - yum yum yummy. Goat cheese, munster, you name it - it was there and perfect.

Dessert (two options): I had the White Chocolate and Summer Berry Decadence and Will had the Passion Fruit Creme Brulee with delicate Poached Peach Jelly and Passion fruit Sorbet. Both desserts were served with Bottega Moscata Petalo Il Vino dell Amore NV.

First off, this was an impressive dessert. Mine had homemade raspberry sorbet, homemade strawberry ice cream, and a delicious panna cotta with fresh fruits. Will's creme brulle was absolutely delicious and his had homemade vanilla ice cream. YUM. The sparkling dessert wine was perfect - I want to find it here!!!

During the main course, we found out our car couldn't be fixed. A taxi ride home (and back) would cost upwards of R1,000 since we were so far out from Pretoria. Therefore, with the encouragement of a special rate from the hotel, we decided to stay overnight at the Hotel Orient.

This was, by far, the fanciest place I've stayed in South Africa, and definitely one of the nicest places I've ever stayed in my life. We stayed in the Marrakesh Suite, which was a stunner. The bed was incredible, the bathtub was huge, and it even had a recessed stereo and sound system. It even had a private patio where we enjoyed the night breeze and irish coffees. They gave us good toothbrushes and toothpaste and we happily slept over.

In the morning, we were treated to breakfast on the patio next to the pool, which again had course upon course. Homemade granola with fresh fruit and yogurt and homemade vanilla milk, which was fantastic in my tea. Freshly baked croissants and pain au chocolate were to die for. The two breakfast mains were salmon scrambled eggs and eggs benedict. I actually don't like either dish so I tried the salmon eggs. I can see how they were good, but they weren't for me. The same for Will's eggs benedict - good, but just not for me. But caviar was included with my breakfast so I just had that on toast. Yum. Breakfast ended with these jam pastries that were so tasty.

Overall, this was the best date of my life (and the longest too). It was so great to eat amazing food and drink amazing wine, and to also have some of my favorite foods that I haven't been able to have since I moved here. It was also great to try some new wines from South Africa, which we'll go visit the next time we're in the Cape. It was definitely romantic and all the stresses of life simply fell away for the wonderful hours we spent there.

Final verdict: We're going back as soon as possible.

The rest of this long weekend has been leisurely and fantastic. I've tried to take advantage of being in the pool as much as possible. Its been a relatively cool and rainy summer, reducing our opportunities to get in the pool all summer long. This week has been super hot and dry and since being in the pool is one of my favorite things, that's what we've done.

Saturday night we had some friends over for dinner and enjoyed the South African delicacies of bacon wrapped candied cherries and chili cherry cheese sausages. Will's wildebeest burgers were fantastic-o. It was a nice leisurely time and for once, our BBQ didn't get rained out by an evening thunderstorm.

Valentine's Day we woke up super early so Will could go golfing and I could have morning coffee with Heidi and Beth. I got in the pool with my book and played with the dogs in the afternoon. Last night we made homemade cheese ravioli and spaghetti sauce with meatballs. We also started watching the "10 Best Episodes of Lost." Its been a romantic, relaxing weekend - just what we needed.

I am so thankful for Will and so incredibly thankful that we've been so blessed to start our marriage overseas.

Victoria Falls!

2010-01-25T22:44:00.005+02:00

I got attacked by a crocodile. No really.

But let's start at the beginning...

We took a two night trip to Victoria Falls Safari Lodge, a stay we won in an auction in September that benefited the Tswhane Place of Safety. Vacation + charitable giving? Heck yes.

Prior to the trip, I asked if we could be upgraded and was informed that yes, our standard room would be upgraded to a deluxe room. Score.

We get to the airport with plenty of time, only to find that Will's carry-on suitcase is overweight. We were carrying on as there was no need to pack a suitcase for a two night trip plus things get lost in African airports. Its just fact. I travel frequently (I'm in Zambia right now!) and I have never been turned away because my suitcase was too heavy. Hassled? Yes. Questioned? Yes. But told to check my bag because it was 5kg too heavy? NEVER.

We were not happy to get this news.

Nevertheless, we did a quick rearrange of luggage (tip: always pack some of your clothes in your companions suitcase in case your stuff gets lost!), checked, and received our 1st row seats. We breezed through security and on into the international terminal where we decided to use our diplomatic status to purchase champagne to bring with us to Zim. Good idea, Nagli.

Let me stop here and just say how ecstatic I was to finally be traveling with someone, but most of all, to be traveling with hubby. It seems I am so often alone when I travel and its nice to have someone to talk to, someone to help, someone to laugh with... oh gosh, I can't even begin to relate how excited I was to be on holiday with Will! Yay!

The flight went off without a hitch, complete with the nicest flight attendant ever. We had tons of leg room and an entire row to ourselves. Heck yes for comfort! We get off the plane, breeze through customs, get our luggage, get transported to the hotel, and check in.

Then we get to our room.

Forgive me: the Kudu Suite.

We open the door. Our deluxe room turned out to be a 2 story suite, complete with private balcony overlooking the waterhole, 1.5 bathrooms, massive jacuzzi tub, and king bed. Wow. I must have been a good girl this year! We were completely and utterly stunned by the awesome room - it even came with sunscreen and bug repellent!

Artistic shot of our bedroom upstairs in the Kudu Suite

We took lunch at the bar overlooking the waterhole and then next thing we were off!

Activity 1: The Helicopter

Wow. May I say, wow? I didn't even have time to be scared. Seriously. We ran to the copter, got buckled in, and no sooner could you say "Victoria Falls!" we were off! Straight up into the air - how fun! I can't even begin to tell you how fun it was and how amazing the views were. I would definitely do it again! Only pictures can tell the true story...

Activity 2: The Sunset Cruise
You really can't find much to complain about when it comes to a sunset cruise on the Zambezi, complete with hippo sightings. Unless you like to complain about Zimbabwean vodka. Or the lack of any other beverage option beside Fanta Orange and coke. Or the Zimbabwean singers performing a horrificly offkey version of a traditional song. But it was fun, we took great pictures, and it was nice to be on the water.

Activity 3: Morning Safari
If I had never been on another safari in my life, I would have been horribly disappointed by this. Luckily, its not my only shot to see game! We woke up at 5:00am (TOO EARLY) and realized it was raining for our safari. BOO. We were only 4 people on the safari, but seriously, we didn't see much - impala, warthog, buffalo, elephant, eland, giraffe, zebra, birds. Breakfast was included, which was good, but all in all, I'll stick to safaris in South Africa or on the Zambian side of the falls.

*insert 4 hour nap here*

Activity 4: Wine route canoe ride on the Zambezi
I don't know why they call this the wine route canoe ride, but they do. I'm guessing its because you can drink while someone else paddles you down the Zambezi. Regardless, words again can't express how special this experience was to me and Will.

Going down the Zambezi by canoe is incredibly quiet and relaxing. Sooner or later, I'll post a video here to share the sounds we heard that day. We saw baby crocs, hippos, even vervet monkeys. At one point, our guides gave us a break on this beautifully white sandy beach. We took pictures, watched an elephant on an island (yes, he swam to get there!!!), and then played peek-a-boo with the hippos that were clearly irritated that we were visiting their hood. All of this while the sun was going down.

Special? Absolutely.

As we neared the edge of the falls with the great smoke in the distance, Will's boat bumped my boat, as it had done several times that afternoon when he wanted to get a new beverage. Or so I thought...

I then heard the guide start shouting behind me. As I turned around, there it was:

A CROCODILE.

I turned around just in time to see him right next to the boat and then SMACK! The guide dropped his paddle as hard as he could right between the croc's eyes. As he paddled away, the croc just looked stunned at the turn of events and he left us alone.

Somehow I was calm through all of this. I said, "I bet this happens all the time!" The guide says, "This has NEVER happened before!!!"

I guess we're lucky. A story for the grandkids.

That night, we dined in the hotel restaurant. I had crocodile curry in honor of my croc.

Activity 5: Victoria Falls National Park
$40 for the two of us to get into the park? And we only have one hour to see it? Moly. But we did it and get some awesome shots in the process.

I've heard the Zim side of the falls is much better than the Zambia side. I wouldn't say it was better - but I would say its different. You see a completely different section of the falls, including the Devil's Cataract, which can't be seen from Zambia. It was actually incredibly difficult to see because of the mist/smoke from the falls. Regardless, it was really incredible. Its a huge park so we definitely got a work out when we had to run back from the falls to our waiting hotel shuttle...

Vic Falls will also be the place where I will forever recall Will being called out to as "Papa" by someone wanting him to buy a parka! ha!

We get to the airport and check in, only to find out they've given our front row seats away. Don't get me started. As soon as we get on the plane, we realize we are in the absolute worst seats on the plane - seats that don't recline and have extra wide arm rests that won't move. I quickly complain to the flight attendant that I had reserved my seats but they were given away and I'm a silver SAA member. She says she doesn't think the flight will be full and we can change. As we start to settle into our reality of the seats, we're asked by the flight attendant to come to the front. We do. Turns out the lady checked in two men who don't speak any English into our seats... and since its an exit row, they can't sit there! God smiled upon us again!!! So in the end, we got the seats we reserved in the first place and again enjoyed plenty of leg room on the 2 hour flight back.

The only bummer on the whole trip is that most of my pictures didn't turn out (but all of Will's did - yay!). We got an awesome new digital camera for Christmas (thanks mom and dad!) but I guess I had it on some strange setting. Most of the pictures are grainy. Worse, the camera wouldn't take pictures quickly so even though I thought quickly enough to take a pic of the croc, the camera didn't agree. BOO. Will is looking into it and we should fix the settings before Mom and Dad arrive in March.

All in all, it was an incredibly fantastic romantic trip filled with the great outdoors and lots of fun on the river! I highly recommend Victoria Falls on the Zim side!

Happy New Year!

2010-01-15T12:43:00.009+02:00

ouch. November 5 was the last time I was here? Sorry friends.

A brief summary of life since November 5:

I traveled to Mozambique, Lesotho, Botswana, and Cape Town - all were trips for work and all were incredibly enjoyable. No pictures as I had no camera, but all great trips!
I celebrated my 2nd Thanksgiving in South Africa - hooray turkey! We finally fried one up!
We welcomed Maria and Butch, our first friends to visit us in SA in December - it was so good to have friendy friends in town!
I saw my first lion in South Africa (I had seen them before in Zambia, but not here) - big 5 complete in SA!
I watched a scary movie, which I hadn't done in eons (AHHHHHHHH, Paranormal Activity!). I'm still scared. Poor Will.
I sang Christmas carols at the Ambassador's house! It was so great to be accompanied by an amazing pianist and to be the lead soprano on my favorite Christmas carols.
We celebrated Christmas in Eesterust, bringing Christmas to more than 50 children!
We hosted a fantastic Christmas Eve dinner, using PW recipes (beef tenderloin, rosemary potatoes, burgundy mushrooms) - yum!
I got fantastic Christmas loot, including tsavorite stud earrings from Will (he handpicked these rare gems and then had them set for me - yay!), a copper double bottle wine chiller, silver platters, and heck yes - a camera!!!
I became mildly obsessed with turning "Party in the USA" into "Party in the RSA" - because, after all, I do bob my head like "yeah..."
I discovered 30 Rock (awesome) and John Adams (awesome)
Lost Season 5 = absolutely hands down best season EVER. Jacob/John Locke... WHAT????
I read the best book I've read since What is the What and A Thousand Splendid Suns... what is it? Oh heck yes, its My Life in France - the biography of Julia Child! What an amazingly great read!
Mad Men season 3 is so incredibly dark and depressing I've stopped watching it. BOO.

I took off two weeks at the end of December and enjoyed a "stay-cation" in Pretoria, aside from our brief jaunt to Pilanesberg with Maria & Butch. It was so nice to catch up reading, lay by the pool, try new recipes, and yes, rebuild my entire iTunes library. I really needed the time off to relax and I have come back to work 100% recharged.

What's the new year's resolution? Well, I'm continuing to challenge myself to do something I'm scared of.

Last year? White water rafting on the Nile in Uganda. That looked like this:
The year before? Horseback riding on my honeymoon and ziplining in Magaliesberg (I still have a massive dent in my left shin from crashing into the side of the mountain - sigh).
In 2007 - a half marathon (yes, scary!) and glacier hiking, both in Alaska.
In May, Will and I are celebrating our 2 year anniversary to go be with the Great White Sharks in False Bay, where they famously breach seals at Seal Island (as seen on Planet Earth). Its going to look like this:

HECK YES.

Tomorrow I'm getting on a helicopter flight and flying over Victoria Falls. Yes, I'm scared. Not scared like paranormal activity scared, but scared like we're-gonna-fall-from-the-sky scared. Oh well - I'll do it and bring back the pics to prove it. I have a camera now, you see. For now just know it will look somewhat like this:

We're also going on a safari, a canoe ride, and a sunset cruise. I am so excited about our weekend vacation to Zimbabwe/Victoria Falls! It will be my 3rd time to the falls but my 1st time to the Zimbabwe side (previous visits were from the Zambia side).

One thing we've been talking about here among friends is grocery shopping - spending too much, wasting food, not having a good plan in place, etc.. I feel like this is something I've recently done well so I thought it might be fun to share some tips for grocery shopping!

Will and I used to go to the store list-free and just buy things willy-nilly. While it was nice to have a stocked fridge and pantry and to make decisions on what we'd eat when we got home from work, this often resulted in us chucking loads of wilted, rotten veggies and spoiled milk and yogurt. It was wasteful, both in terms of money and in food. I just couldn't take it anymore.

For one month, I kept our receipts from our grocery trips and was absolutely SHOCKED. We were spending so much money on groceries and throwing about half of it away in the trash and stocking a good 1/4 of it in our pantry and freezer. Yikes. It was time to overhaul our behavior.

Every Sunday I make the plan for the week.

Step 1: Inventory! What do we have in the fridge, pantry, and freezer that we can/need to use and/or get rid of?

Step 2: Sit down with my cookbooks. I actually love to read cookbooks - I find them fascinating! I have tons of recipes I've clipped from magazines (Rachael Ray, Cooking Light, Food & Wine, Real Simple) and placed into a binder, but I also work from Pioneer Woman (obviously), Cooking Light, Best International Recipes, and Best Light Recipes. I also browse Pioneer Woman Cooks!, the Cooking Light website, and Tasty Kitchen (I'm a contributor there!). I look up the ingredients I have on hand and pull 1-2 new recipes that includes those. Or I just pick something new and fun!

P.S. I'm ITCHING for this and this...

I also work from a set list of our favorite things to eat, which includes:
-- Burgers
-- Tortilla pizza (I actually posted this recipe on Tasty Kitchen!)
-- Rainbow Salad with grilled chicken
-- PW's chicken parm
-- Beef stroganoff
-- Tacos
-- Sloppy joes
-- Soup and sandwich

Step 3: Make the list! I write out S-M-T-W-TH-F-S at the top of a shopping list and write out the dinner that corresponds to that night. I usually plan to make four dinner meals during the week, mainly because I've realized that we'll either go out to eat or eat at a friends house at least 2 nights a week (usually Friday and Saturday) and one night we'll eat leftovers or something simple, like a s. I also make recipes that feed 4 so that we have enough leftovers to eat at lunch and/or breakfast.

I write out the ingredient list for each of those dinners and also add regular things (dog biscuits, laundry detergent, toothpaste, sandwich meat), again, checking to see what we need versus what we already have.

I usually run the list by Will and make sure he's on board with the weekly plan. I really give him major credit for adapting to a scheduled dinner plan! He's been great about it.

Step 4: I head to the store with Will and STICK TO THE LIST. There are no coupons in South Africa so I don't really have the benefit of shopping with clipped coupons. If its not on the list, I simply don't buy it (unless its on super duper sale or its some American product that I've never seen before and am afraid I won't see again - Cholula? Its coming home with us!).

Step 5: Prep! On Sundays, I typically pack my lunch for the entire week and I may even go ahead and make two dinners in one night so I don't have to later on the week (example: maybe I make spaghetti or sloppy joes to eat another day but eat stroganoff that night).

The results?
-- More money in the wallet
-- Feeling less wasteful
-- Use of cookbooks that were previously collecting dust...
-- Feeling in control of my spending and eating habits
-- An emptier fridge and pantry (even our friends have commented!)

Some things we can't avoid. Occasionally we do go out more often than we meant to and wind up having to freeze something that was meant to be eaten for dinner one night. We still stockpile some items - but we really reserve that for things from the US, like Panko bread crumbs and brownie mix. I can't help it. While I don't think I'll ever be someone that prints out a calendar to put on the fridge but I like where we've come to in regards to our meal planning. Yay!

Next steps: I'm trying to do better at turning leftovers into something new. For example, I made carne asada tacos Sunday night (YUM) and Monday night Will and I turned them into steak fajita quesadillas simply by adding cooked onion and green bell pepper and cheese we already had on hand. I'm interested in trying this sometime too... I've been looking for a book and searching the internet, but so far... nothing.

And we're off to Victoria Falls - yay! Picture post to come soon!

update!

2009-11-05T13:15:00.003+02:00

From Heidi!

Thanks to everyone who donated to this wonderful cause. We have received about 4,000 so far which is enough to start building. If you are still interested in donating, we will continue to accept donations on the paypal site. The money will go towards buying food for the orphans once the center opens.

We drew a random number for the quilt drawing and the lucky winner is Jimmy Wells. Congratulations!

We will keep everyone posted on the progress of the Karabo Asara (meaning Hope is the Answer) Orphan Center.

Isn't this the best news? We are so thankful for everyone's continued generosity to make Karabo Asara reality! Heidi and I go this weekend to Eesterust to meet with the committee to start plans for building! YAY!

Will and I have battled a mystery virus that presented very scarily like malaria. Luckily, we're both malaria free but it took a few days to beat that monster back.

Our computer has a new hard drive, iTunes is fully recovered, and the camera is still missing. BOO.

Swaziland looks just like Ireland... in Africa. What a fantastic place! I can't wait to go back with Will for a weekend. Swazi has amazing crafts, including amazing glass works from Ngwenya. I've been in love with the glass hippo for years but at R450 (about $60), I've kept passing it by. In Swazi, the glass is CHEAP so I got dear ol' hippo for R115 (about $15)! Except, I of course picked a hippo with a flaw... now I think we need the elephant or buffalo book ends. I'm in love. Now if only Swazi had a good pub with Irish music...

Cooking has been going awesome these days. Last night I made Pioneer Woman's pasta alla vodka - what an amazingly yummy (and simple!) week night dish! I made a thai peanut chicken dish for Will that was fairly good - he liked it better than me. I also made these southwestern egg rolls - Will and I thought they were yummy, but would be better fried (we just can't kick our southern roots!).

The Pioneer Woman cookbook came in the mail and I'm a wee bit obsessed. There are so many recipes I can't wait to make! Quite specifically things that require ramekins. Except I don't own ramekins (but I really want these Le Creuset ones - don't laugh).

For Halloween, Will went as a very scary demon (with black hair and a black beard!) and I was a witch. We went to a fun party we helped cater. I was in charge of helping with dips and I made some really awesome ones, if I do say so myself. Here are some ideas for you the next time you take a veggie platter to a party...

Spicy Black Bean Hummus
Ingredients: 1 can black beans, at least 3-4 cloves of garlic (I think I used 6!), 1/2 cup of tahini, 1/4 cup of plain yogurt, lemon juice, a generous squirt of Sriracha sauce

Simply mix together until smooth in a food processor. Taste as you go and add as you like. I love garlicky, spicy hummus and the sriracha just adds the right flave. Enjoy!

Creamy Avocado Dip
Ingredients: 2 avocadoes, 3/4 cup of plain yogurt, 1-2 cloves of garlic, 2 tsp. of cayenne pepper, lime juice, salt and pepper to taste

Simply whip together until smooth in a food processor and taste as you go and adjust seasonings as you need feel is best. Again, I like spicy so I probably had a teeny bit of a heavy hand on the cayenne pepper! This is so very good with carrots. YUM.

If you've bought a carton of yogurt to make dips, use the remaining to make a ranch dip or a fruit dip for a fruit platter. Yum!

Pavlov's dog.

2009-10-20T12:54:00.005+02:00

A couple weeks ago, Bryan, Heidi, and I ordered a 12 pack of cheetos for $11 from Amazon. Really - it was a deal we couldn't resist.

The cheeto's came yesterday. I popped the top (they are in a cannister) and was shocked to find...

I salivated.

Yes, my mouth actually watered for cheetos.

I really worry what will happen when I finally return home and sit down at a Mexican restaurant. I may visibly drool for cheese dip. I ask early forgiveness if you are privy to the 1st Mexican meal upon my return to the US next year.

This weekend I went hunting with Will for his birthday. It was a last minute decision, but I'm so glad it worked out. We went with Beth and Adam. While the guys hunted during the day, Beth and I lounged around the camp, which was actually really nice. We laid in the pool, played with kittens and puppies, read our books, went for walks, watched E! tv (a true treat for those without cable TV), and made scrumptious meals. It was incredibly relaxing and very peaceful. Adam got an impala and Will shot another wildebeest so it looks like more wildebeest enchiladas and sloppy joes in the future.

I still haven't found my camera - have you?

Last night I decided to make this for dinner. I love chicken parm. Its fair to say I adore it. Yum. Its a fave. However, I've always hated making it as it takes too many steps, pans, and ingredients. Without fail, I always slop egg wash onto the floor, get flour all over the place, and make a huge icky mess of bread crumbs and chicken. Then it always tastes too bread crumb-y (or burnt) and the sauce? Forget it. Too much work, too much frustration... I'll just make spaghetti with meat sauce instead.

But this?

This recipe is the answer to all my problems. It cooks in one dish - one! No gooey egg wash, no bread crumbs, just simple boneless skinless chicken breast dredged lightly in flour and cooked in a skillet. No tasteless yucky tomato sauce - instead, a flavorful, garlic-ky tomato sauce for the little chickens to rest in. And melting cheese on the chicken in the pan using the lid and skipping the oven? Brilliant. Perhaps one of the best parts was that I didn't even heat up my kitchen with the oven - this was all cooked right on the stove!

It was such an easy weeknight dinner that earned, "Oh wow, this is really really good" comment from the hubs. It heated up awesome for lunch today too - yay!

If I haven't said it before, I'll say it again: I'm a fan of Pioneer Woman.

I head out to Swaziland early tomorrow morning and am looking forward to adding another country to my list of places I've been in 2009 (South Africa, Zambia, Uganda, Zimbabwe, Malawi, Angola, Namibia, Botswana, Ireland, Britain)! So far, 10 countries in 2009! But I'll be adding Swaziland, Lesotho, and Mozambique before the year runs out... 13 different countries in one year (not counting layovers where I spent money - that would also count Kenya and Germany) - I don't think I'll ever top that record! The only bummer is that I won't have internet or a camera the entire time I'm there. Oh well! I have a feeling Will and I will head to Swazi one weekend just for fun.

omg.

2009-10-15T10:39:00.003+02:00

THIS is what I found on my dryer this morning!

Its official. I live in Africa.

This scary critter is what's known as a baboon spider. This was the inspiration for the spider in Lord of the Rings. Seriously. Tolkien was scared too.

I screamed so loud when I saw this spider that Will thought there was a dead body in our garage.

Happy birthday Will! Your wife is screaming bloody murder in the garage and you now have the responsibility of ridding your casa of this hairy beast. What a gift.

Dear Lord, please don't let me find one of these massive, hairy (and yet non-venomous) critters inside my house. ..

swimming.

2009-10-12T13:16:00.003+02:00

I'm swimming again. I don't know what has brought on my sudden surge of swimming, but I am.

For those of you who don't know, I spent most of my childhood in a pool. Sometimes I was in the pool to teach swim lessons, to life guard, or to just simply have fun with friends. But a good 95% of my time in a pool has been as a competitive swimmer. I swam summers on my neighborhood team with the best coach ever. I spent a couple years swimming year-round on a competitive team when it didn't conflict with basketball. And, of course, I swam for my high school swim team, lettered, and then eventually became captain of the team my senior year.

FACT: I was CONVINCED that we kept sharks in the deep end of the pool when I was really young and starting out (5-6 years old). The lanes of our pool were half shallow and half deep end so any time I had to swim in the deep end, I sprinted for dear life as I was sure I was going to get eaten by our team's mascot that only lived in the depths of the pool. I eventually realized that sharks don't live in chlorine!

Needless to say, swimming was my life. Unfortunately, in my senior year of high school, I sustained a serious injury to both of my shoulders. Given the choice of undergoing incredibly invasive corrective surgery that may not ever solve the problem or pain or simply stopping swimming, I stopped. The pain was unbearable - it hurt to drive, it hurt to sleep, it hurt to do any physical activity period. I knew that I had to stop in order to get better. It was, to that point, the worst thing that ever happened to me. Of course, stopping swimming meant that I could sing more (swim meets always conflicted with musicals, shows, etc.) so I threw myself into singing and pursued that into college instead.

I didn't swim for exercise until about two years ago when I joined a gym in Atlanta that had a pool. It was weird, the pool was hot, and I didn't keep it up. Plain and simple.

Now I live in Africa and belong to an incredibly nice gym with a pool that uses salt water (blech) instead of chlorine. They keep the pool cool and on a 90+ degree day, I can think of no better exercise than going to swim.

The pool is large with 6 25 yd. lanes. This means I have yet to share a lane when swimming - yay! Swimmers range from every ability - a woman next to me yesterday verrrrrrrrrrrrrrrry slowly treaded water from one end of the pool to the other, all the while keeping her head out of the water. Most people swim at a slow pace, don't do flip turns, and usually only do freestyle (i.e. the crawl). In contrast, I swim all the strokes, always do flip turns (its ingrained in me the same way that boxing out when someone shoots a basketball is), and move a lot faster, without really trying.

While I swim, Will is usually somewhere watching me from a treadmill or the weights and he says he laughs as he sees me plow through the water just to swim faster than the guy a couple lanes down from me.

So I'm competitive. Its never gone away.

The thing about swimming is... I've missed it. Its comfortable to me. It really doesn't feel like exercise until I hoist myself out of the pool on arms that feel like spaghetti noodles. I can swim for 30 minutes and I just get to think about things. If I do breast stroke, I even hear the music playing in the gym, which is somewhat nice. Otherwise, its just relaxing and peaceful. Because I have a short attention span, most times I wind up swimming against the clock to give me something to do.

When you train as a swimmer, you'll have a minute clock on both ends of the pool. The dials are huge so you can easily see the minute hand tick by - the arm is black one end and red on the other so you can keep track of the time. Most often I sprint against the clock. I'll swim 8-10 laps, stop, wait for the clock to reach 60, and then push off, swimming as fast as I can to see what time I make it in. I have yet to enjoy the time I see on the clock - its about 20 seconds faster than what I used to swim. So this is what I do for at least thirty minutes - swim 8-10 laps at a moderately fast pace, then swim a 2 lap sprint (50 yds) as fast as I can, rest, swim 8-10 laps, sprint, rest.

I've decided that I miss having a kick board and a pull buoy, two things I never thought I'd miss. I really really REALLY miss my awesome purple speedo goggles - the ones I have with me fog up too fast. I'm really pleased that I wear a USA swim cap when I swim - just because I love swim caps with writing on them.

As I swim, my mind wanders... if I read a magazine article on the amount of calories you burn while swimming, would I be burning what the article says... or would the slow people moving along be burning that amount? Is there a website where I can get ideas for a swim plan so I'm doing more than swimming against the clock (my old coach has one here!)? What's better post-swim: steam room or sauna? etc. etc. etc.

Anyway, I'm happy, my arms are getting toned, and Lord knows while I'm not nearly as fast as I used to be (or as small), I'm happy to be in the pool again, pain-free.

Hope is the answer.

2009-10-08T14:53:00.006+02:00

I still haven't found my camera. sigh. And our computer mysteriously crashed and I have to buy a new hard drive. And rebuild iTunes. For me and Will. siiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiigggggggggggh.

Its just not a good time to be an electronic device and living in the Nagli casa. I'm sweet talking my 5 year old iPod as I type this because I'm sure its going to die a slow death soon.

Maria's Orphanage Update!
We have a name: Karabo Asara!

This means "hope is the answer."

And answer we have! To date, we've raised over $4,000!!! Heck yes! Unfortunately, Heidi's computer also crashed so we are waiting to get it up and working again to pull the exact number and do the quilt drawing.

The blueprints are being drawn and we couldn't be more excited for Maria.

Its still not too late to donate! Supplies, your time, cash... it all works and it all helps.

Recipes
I've been working out after work this week with Rilla. She came over after one workout and together we made an "interesting" meal of falafel, tzatziki (secret recipe - sorry!), black bean hummus, greek salad, and lamp chops. A really light dinner! Next time I make falafel, I think I'll bake it (or at least fry it a bit and then bake the rest of the way). Its too complicated to fry! It took a really long time, but the end result was tasty.

I'm diggin' Pioneer Woman these days (just look at those roasted garlic potatoes!). And I'm a big fan of this too. The baby shower food entry is pretty fantabulous as well as baby brie cups.

Will's birthday is next week and we're celebrating on Sunday night since Monday is a holiday. Yippeee! More recipes after the par-tay...

September? Where'd you go?

2009-09-29T12:38:00.004+02:00

I can't believe October begins this week. Wow. It will officially begin the countdown of one year left in Africa.

My fantastic in-laws departed for the US on Saturday night. Will and I were super sad to see them go, but understood that life was calling them home. To put it simply, we had the best time. Will and I learned that sometimes the best day can be spent reading a book in the sunshine with no plans whatsoever. They've learned that their daughter-in-law will argue for a solid 10 minutes that "FAQ" is a word (seriously. its a verb now. I don't care if its an acronym. I'm using it as a verb. there. ha.) just so she can win at scrabble. We've all learned that the best way to start your day is with a glass of bubbly South African sparkling wine and a shower overlooking a water hole filled with elephant, buffalo, hippo, and a croc.

Pictures to come soon, when I finally find my camera. sigh.

In the mean time, there's this!!! Pioneer Woman has A COOKBOOK! heck yes! On October 27, I will be pressing "order" on Amazon so I can get my hands on this bad boy as soon as can be (in fact, I'm really tempted to do my first pre-order on Amazon - its that bad!).

I'm posting because it looks like she may come to a city near you. Yes, YOU. Not me. For some reason, I'm guessing Africa is a bit too far for a book tour. She'll be in Atlanta on December 7. Go. For me. Please? Go see her.

She also posted this recently... I like. And this too (probably just because I love beef stroganoff).

In other news, Will and I have been cooking up quite a bit. A month's worth of dining out will leave you wanting to eat at home. Will did cook up some scrumptious impala tenderloin while the parents were here. Who knew that a dinner of impala, mac & cheese, southern style green beans, and rolls could be so good? Yum.

Will the hunter has stocked our freezer full of warthog, impala, and wildebeest that we must eat over the next few months. I'll post recipes soon. Impala burgers are perhaps the best burgers I've ever had.

Sunday night we had a relaxing night at home with Rilla, who has a brand new puppy (a lab/sharpei mix!). The dogs played and we enjoyed a nice dinner on the patio of grilled shrimp and salad. Rilla made a killer salad of avocado, tomato, onion, and hearts of palm. Paired with some grilled portabellos and onions, it made for a killer light meal on a hot day.

I made round two of spaghetti and meatballs to watch The Godfather Part II with (we've decided to veto watching The Godfather Part III, mainly because Part II wasn't as good as Part I and if Part III is much worse than Part II, then I'll pass) (I love italics today). I think I've decided that while I make a tasty meatball, they are too much work for a week night meal. Besides, my meat sauce rocks.

I'm eating a yummy lunch right now, which I brought from home. YAY! I've decided my new favorite thing to take for lunch is fat free refried beans and spanish rice. I make it Sunday night and divide the beans and rice into several separate containers. I then take a container with some salsa, guac, and tortilla chips and voila! A perfect lunch that's cheap, tasty, balanced, vegetarian, and doesn't leave me feeling hungry at 3:00pm. I won't even abandon it for other offers of going out to lunch because its just that good. YUM. And did I mention cheap? If you figure the beans are $1/can, the rice is about $2/packet, the chips are $3, the salsa is $3, and the guac is $3, then that's $12 total. This makes at least 4 lunches (you could make 3 man-size lunches) which winds up at $3-4 per lunch. It would probably be cheaper in the states as mexican food comes at a price here - its just not that popular yet. But again, yum. Just trying to throw out a new lunch option!

Read: send me spanish rice!

I'm trying avocado enchiladas tomorrow (but am cheating and using can sauce rather than making the recipe here).

This weekend we're headed to Taste of Joburg (hooray free tickets for diplomats!). Me = can't wait!

And by the way, Happy birthday Little Friend!

update.

2009-09-04T14:28:00.002+02:00

I'm overwhelmed.

My mom always said that it never hurts to ask.

I asked.

I received an overload of emails, donations, and more from family, friends, and even complete strangers. I feel so blessed to know so many amazing people that are happy to help me in this cause. I am so grateful for your generosity. As soon as things are more finalized with the orphanage, we can really plan on how to get this place into shape!

So - update!

I learned Nico's name is actually spelled Nyiko. Nyiko means "gift" - awwww.

Last Friday, I gave Maria money to go to the uniform store to purchase a uniform and shoes for Nyiko (I would have gone but alas, had no car since Will was on a hunting expedition). The cost? R500, which comes out to $62.50 (pretty good deal for pants, shirt, sweater, shoes, socks, etc.).

Maria took the uniform to Nyiko. He wept. He said, "I didn't think anybody loved me."

And so I cried when she told me.

She said he loved the uniform and is so proud of it. She said all he needed was a school bag. Ironically, Will and I had just cleaned out one of our closets and found a backpack. We decided to hold on to it and give it away when needed. I filled the bag with odds and ends - bubble gum, socks, a set of dominos, etc. I also included a pen and notepad. On the first page of the note pad, I wrote:

Nyiko,

You are very loved.

Love,
Will and Valerie

Maria goes on Monday to finalize the land and hopefully learn the name of the orphanage. She had to submit 5 names to the board (just in case any where already taken) and they will let her know which one wins.

More soon!

Happiness, Heartbreak, and How you can Help.

2009-08-27T12:26:00.017+02:00

Its taken me awhile to sit down and write this entry. I've been feeling a range of emotions and just haven't known exactly what to say. But I'm going to try.

On August 16, Will, Heidi, Bryan, Asara, and I loaded up the car and headed out to Eesterust. We were there to cheer on the Buffalo Boys, the soccer team that we support in Maria's township. After their game, we were doing a braii (read: cookout) for them.

We headed to the soccer field, a patch of dirt with two posts on either end to mark the goals. The field was full of boys in AYSO jerseys (donated from someone back home). I was so happy to see these boys smiling, laughing, and playing soccer. At the same time, my heart broke that they were shoeless and without protective gear (shin guards, socks, padding for the goalie). They played in dirt rather than on grass. When their ball went out of bounds, it went into the street.

We cheered the Buffalo Boys to victory that day. Yay! They returned to Maria's house where we grilled up a feast and popped popcorn. The little girls from Christmas were happy to see me again and we played and played. The Buffalo Boys loved taking "jumping pictures" where I would say "1, 2, 3" and then they'd jump and I'd snap the shot. Then they insisted on taking individual photos. Did I mention that they also wore their jerseys backward the entire time?

It was so fun - I really had the best day hanging out with these wonderful children.

Asara is getting held by the cute girls and boys!

Towards the end of the afternoon, Maria introducted me to two boys. One boy, Thabang, had appendicitis and got his appendix removed. I asked to see his scar, which essentially looked like a Frankenstein wound - all jagged, swollen, and awful looking. Thabang said he still felt pain from his wound and I could see why. I asked him how I could help him and he said, "Madame, I am happy. I do not need anything." I look at Maria, look back at him and gently say, "No really... how can I help you?" The same answer. I look back to Maria and say, "How can I help?"

It turns out he has no food to eat. Maria feeds him what she can but he is an orphan and has no one to depend on. Every day I bring something to work for Heidi to give to Maria so Thabang can have something to eat. I bought a big thing of peanut butter and a big thing of jelly and so I buy loaves of bread (have I ever mentioned that a loaf of brown bread costs less than $1 here???) and bring them to her throughout the week so he can have sandwiches.

And here's where I say: if you were literally starving and someone asked you how they could help you, would you be able to smile at them and say you are fine?

And my heart broke.

Maria then introduced me to Nico. Nico was the soccer team star - he has amazing skills on the field. He's a shy boy and wouldn't look me in the eye. I asked him about the soccer team and then asked him if I could help him in any way. The same answer, "Madame, I am fine. Thank you for asking." I look at Maria and back at this boy, who I can tell has pain in his heart. I ask him again - "Madame, I am fine." I look back at Maria, she speaks to him in Sesotho, and then he looks at me and back down again.

"School."

I look at Maria and she explains that he has no uniform to go to school. He needs the uniform and he needs shoes. I tell Maria - no problem. Will and I can buy him what he needs - just tell me how. Nico lights up at the news and thanks me profusely, as much as a shy boy can do.

And here's where I say: if you were literally growing out of your clothes and had no shoes for your feet and someone asked to help you, would you be able to smile at them and say you are fine?

And so my heart broke into a thousand pieces.

I have mentioned this before, but Maria is an AMAZING woman who cares so much for her town. She has saved and saved and saved and has finally saved enough purchase land to build an orphanage for all the children in her town. That afternoon, we went to see the lot of land to take measurements and see what work is cut out for us.

On the way back, we stopped by Nico's house.

And my heart broke into a million pieces.

Nico's "home" is a crumbling cement building that was never finished. Weeds grow inside the walls. Its incredibly unsafe. There is one area in which they dragged some scrap metal and they have made a roof, but his home is weeds, dirt, trash, and crumbling cement bricks. On the ground laid his gugu (grandma), who had swollen legs and was coughing up something awful. On the ground beside her were two little girls coated in flies as they played in the dirt. Nico's mother happened to be home - apparently she leaves him for months at a time so Nico is primarily cared for by his gugu, who is obviously very ill. Maria tells Nico's mother how we will help him and she weeps. In my life, I've never seen someone cry like that over someone else's offer to help. I asked her not to cry and hugged her, but I think that made it worse. She just wept and wept.

And my heart broke into a billion pieces.

I left Eesterust that day with a pain in my heart that I have never felt before. It was a day that changed my life forever. I left that day knowing that I must do everything I can to help leave this beautiful community a better place than I found it. When I had met these children before, I had no idea that these were the conditions that they lived in. I noticed the children had holes in their clothes and no shoes on their feet and that the ate like they had never eaten before, but it didn't sink in until I saw their homes how badly these children hurt.

I have to do everything I can to help this beautiful community that is so rich in love for one another but so poor in every other respect. I have to keep the soccer team going so that these boys have a bright spot in their otherwise dark lives. I have to build an orphanage to provide shelter and care for these children who have no one. I have to feed the hungry who would otherwise dig through the trash for scraps. I have to clothe the naked who can't go to school without the proper uniform. I have to use the gifts that God has given me to help in every way I can. I have to tell their story to anyone who will listen.

Immediate plans to assist Eesterust include hosting several fundraiser dinners to raise money to purchase shoes and shin guards for the Buffalo Boys. I think we can raise the $500 needed to take care of this need among our friends here in SA.

The orphanage? We're starting at ground zero with just the 5 of us (Maria, Heidi, Bryan, Will and I). We have to level the lot, build the space, and buy supplies. Wow. Maria wants the orphanage to have 5 rooms where the children can come for school tutoring, food, clothes, and a safe place to play and sleep. It will primarily be a day center, but for those children that have no where to sleep at night, they can stay there too. It will be 100% staffed by volunteers from the community.

This is a picture of part of the lot of the future orphanage.
Our work is cut out for us!

And so here it is: we are looking for ways to help Maria raise the money she needs to build the center. I am asking friends and family to seek donations for the construction of the building and initial start up items like beds, tables, and chairs. We estimate this to cost about $3,000. I know that purse strings are tight due to the recession so please know that any amount would be incredibly appreciated. Remember how I said $1 would buy a loaf of bread? $1 can buy at least 3 bricks for the building. $10 can buy 30 bricks. $25 can buy 75 bricks. As you can see, a little goes a long way. Even if you donate the change you have in your pocket or purse right now, you will make a change with change. Maybe you have a jar full of change you've been collecting - here's your chance to make change with change!

Heidi's mother has donated a quilt she made and we have decided to raffle it off. Any person donating $10 or more will be given a chance to win the quilt. We will inform the lucky winner at the end of September. We have set up a paypal account so people can pay either from their bank account or with a credit card. https://www.paypal.com/ (click on send money). The email address is bdestro@yahoo.com. We are working on getting a website made to show how much money we raise for this incredible cause! Stay tuned...

The quilt that will be raffled off! Beautiful!

I hope you will consider making a donation today. Even $1 will get us one step closer to getting this orphanage constructed.

We are also accepting donations of supplies and goods if you feel more comfortable donating supplies than money. Please leave your email address in the comments field of this entry and I will get in touch with you. Maybe you want to help the soccer team and have used soccer equipment, practice jerseys, cones, etc. that you could send to South Africa. Or perhaps you know a furniture store that would agree to send mattresses and beds overseas for the orphanage. Maybe you know someone willing to come here and provide medical services, such as dental care or basic health care services. Maybe you know a clothing store that needs a charity to cast off clothes to. Maybe you have old children's books that you don't know what to do with - truly, anything can and will help.

From Eesterust, we thank you for your support!
Picture above: Bryan, Maria, Will, and Valerie at the site of the future orphange
(the scrap metal building behind us will be knocked down)

See more on life with Maria by clicking on the "Maria" label at the bottom of this post.

long weekends = my fave.

2009-08-11T11:14:00.003+02:00

This weekend we celebrated Women's Day, which gave us Monday off from work. The long weekend was just fantastic.

On Friday, Will and I avoided mass chaos at the Embassy and didn't stick around for 5+ hours to see Sec. Clinton. Instead, after a busy week at work, we went home and made fantastic burgers and fries and got the complete scoop from our friends that did brave the chaos and saw Sec. Clinton and the new Ambassador to SA. An easy peasy low key night in = good times.

Saturday we hosted a party for the entire CDC-SA office and had the best time! We cooked warthog sausages, hamburgers, and fantastic grilled chicken legs (Will marinated them for hours and then basted with a butter/Texas Pete glaze = SPICY HEAVEN!). Folks enjoyed a lovely spring day in the sunshine - kids ran around our yard, Sanford was petted more than he has been in several years, and we just enjoyed a lazy day. I'm happy to have hosted my first grown-up party where kids of all ages and adults had a fantastic time and nothing got broken! Yay! After that, we headed to Tim and Rilla's for homemade chorizo and fun times with friends. It was a perfect Saturday.

Sunday we slept in. Bliss. I got online and realized that I somehow had ordered a $600 Gucci watch that I had been looking at on Amazon.com (it wasn't even one that I wanted!) and am thankful that the good folks at Amazon were able to recall the package before it got all the way to SA. Yay! I sat outside with the dogs for a good part of the afternoon, reading my book and looking through cookbooks to decide on the week's menu for me and Will (for the record, I'm trying beer enchiladas made with this meat sauce, lasagna roll-ups with meat sauce, and salad with crispy yogurt chicken). We went grocery shopping. We watched three movies (Gran Torino, Yes Man, and the International). A perfect low-key lazy Sunday. And most importantly, I made this for dinner.

I think this meal changed my life. I love patty melts. I do. Something about crunchy buttery bread, gooey cheese, and cooked onions makes me ridiculously happy. Its not something I eat often for health reasons, but oh man, I love them. Obviously, patty melts are not common in South Africa (nor do I imagine they'd be good anyway if I bought one at a restaurant). Cube steak is super cheap here (i.e. about $1/pound) and I happened to have some in the freezer. I found some small deli-type buns, which I thought would be good for portion control and not make a huge portion as seen on the website link above. Most importantly, I decided to buy some provolone cheese to melt on these bad boys. At the end, I put the bottom piece of bread on the cast iron skillet I had buttered the bread in and then put the meat on top and then layered thinly sliced provolone on top of that. I cooked it in the oven to get all melty and voila! Excellent sandwiches.

Yum. Absolute heavenly yum. Definitely try this recipe as its cheap and heavenly and will make the man in your life smile (and ignore the fact that this sandwich requires you to work out). Next time I may add mushrooms and bell peppers to the onions to make it similar to a philly cheesesteak (yet another menu item not found in SA).

Yesterday was another day just spent in the warm sunshine with friends. Hooray for what looks like the end of winter!!! We played tailgate golf, which is quite an interesting game that I'm terrible at. Will and I played Trivial Pursuit yet again and I am happy to report that we won. We love TP. Its true.

excellent weekend!

2009-08-02T21:31:00.003+02:00

What a fantastic weekend! What did we do? Nothing too crazy exciting, but it was just good times spent with fabulous friends.

Friday night we headed to Beth & Adam's for take out pizza and Trivial Pursuit on the Wii. The ladies beat the gents (hooray!) but I can't say it was a victory to be too proud of. Its difficult to play on the Wii and is super easy to select the wrong answer by accident. Regardless, it was super fun and a perfect way to spend a Friday evening after a busy week.

Saturday Will and I woke up to rain! I can't remember the last time we've had a rainy day in South Africa, but it was dark, humid, and stormy. We met Beth for lunch at a cute place called Isabella's - yummy. Its a cafe with homemade food, namely salads, casseroles, and quiche. Afterwards, I picked up take out from Geet, where they were so happy to see me, they gave me a free bottle of wine. I love South Africa!

Saturday night we celebrated our friend Atalie's birthday with a girls night in at our friend Rilla's. We had spanish tapas and made terrific Thai basil spring rolls with peanut sauce. I must say - they were pretty freakin' fantastic. We also made homemade naan to go with our takeout indian food. We watched E! and had loads of girl talk. The best part? Will was a fantastic hubby who drove all the girls around so no one had to drive and to ensure everyone made it home safe since their husbands were out of the country.

Today has been fantastic. I slept in, which is always a plus. Will and I went grocery shopping for the week and found cherry coke and Dr. Pepper! YAY! We got McDonald's (I love a quarter pounder with cheese). I sat outside in the sunshine and threw the ball for Muddy in the pool while reading The Six Wives of Henry VIII (so good!). I matched up mismatched socks. I made homemade manicotti and beef stroganoff and my lunch for the week since I have to work late every day this week. I watched tons of episodes of The Wire Season 2. Its just been a deliciously lazy day, which is what I need before a hectic week!

one year.

2009-07-31T23:44:00.004+02:00

One year ago today, Will and I said goodbye to the US and hello to South Africa. It seems like we've been here for much longer than a year and I think our families and friends back home would agree.

During the past year, I've traveled to 10 different countries, none of them being the one of my citizenship (South Africa, Zambia, Uganda, Zimbabwe, Angola, Namibia, Botswana, Malawi, Ireland, England). I no longer cringe at flying, although I still give my customary two pats on the plane with my right hand when entering the plane (oh superstition...). I also fell head over heels in love with Cape Town.

I conquered major fears by completing a canopy zipline tour (and creating a permanent dent in my left shin in order to not pitch my husband off the side of a mountain) and whitewater rafting (in class 4 and 5 rapids, no less). Clearly, I survived.

I've learned it can get a lot colder in Africa than I ever thought (yes, 32 degrees farenheit!). I've learned that I can actually slap lotion on my skin and watch it immediately disappear due to living in a high altitude, super dry climate. I've learned that chlorine from the pool will bleach out your dog's hair.

I've realized that its not so bad living behind bars - I hardly notice them on my windows anymore. I still don't know why my hydrangeas died a cruel, ugly death in the yard while everything else thrives (seriously - I had 7 foot tall roses!).

I've added strange phrases to my vocabulary, such as "Izzit?" or "100%" or "Oh shame..." and can actually sound out the various African languages fairly well, even though I have no idea what I'm talking about. My math skills have increased tenfold from doing exchange rate calculations on a daily basis.

I no longer think it strange that people sing out loud in public. I've grown accustomed to life moving slow - traffic, queues, internet service, restaurant orders. I'm used to someone standing at every stop light asking for money, food, or clothes.

I still haven't seen an elephant in South Africa.

I still can't drive a stick shift car.

My eating habits have majorly changed. I enjoy game meat more than I enjoy chicken. I order almost all of my food spiced "hot" - which is super duper hot. I prefer my eggs over medium instead of scrambled. I've fallen in love with Boursin. I still think biltong is gross although I eat warthog cabanossi for breakfast almost every day. I think I need these in my life right about now but the lack of adobo sauce and wonton wrappers will prevent me from attaining this goal. I tell people I miss them more than I miss Chick-fil-a and I only hope they know me well enough to know that means I miss them a heckuva lot.

My lifestyle habits have changed. A night in with friends with takeout pizza and trivial pursuit is a great time indeed. My best weekends are those spent with friends at a cookout with nothing to do but enjoy each other's company (oh yeah, and of course some time devoted to playing in the pool with the dogs). I love dinners out on the town, but also love those nights where Will creates something super tasty and we watch numerous episodes of a TV show on DVD. I guess I've realized that it doesn't take a lot to make this lady happy.

I've been incredibly blessed to share this fantastic experience with Will. Through the ups and downs, we've realized that we have a great thing together. We've built an incredibly solid foundation for our marriage due to our experience here and we are so thankful to have yet another year to keep learning how to be the best spouse we can be for each other.

To put it simply, we love South Africa. One of my favorite songs by is "Africa" by Toto. In the chorus, they sing "We're gonna take some time and do the things we never have." I know that Will and I will always look back on this two year adventure with fond memories because we've done just that. We've taken two years and removed ourselves from our safety net back home and taken on this great adventure with so many unknowns. And its been awesome.

Not the best updater.

2009-07-28T10:24:00.005+02:00

Sorry for the lack of updates - I really have no excuses. What have I been doing? Traveling, cooking, and working really.

Our 1st anniversary trip to Europe was absolutely amazing, despite me losing a disk with all our 1st anniversary photos on it (blast!). Ireland was insanely amazing and England was all that and a bag of chips. I was reunited with the Little Friend, her hubby Brian, and her parents in Ireland and we had the absolute best time. It was truly a fantastic vacation and I can't wait to visit both places again! We went so many great places and had such an amazing time - maybe one day I'll sit down and do a complete post about it.

In the mean time, there's this:

On top of Staigue Fort in County Kerry, Ireland

Climbing up the ridiculously small staircase at Blarney Castle in Cork

Have you ever seen two strangers so happy to take a picture with each other?
Me and a Yeoman Warder at the Tower of London

Oh yes, self photo time! Will, his fantastic gift of beard, me, and of course, Big Ben!
The lost disk of photos is filled with tons of self photo gems. BOO.

To update on June's food post...
(1) I've made chili con queso twice (thanks for the velveeta mom!), much to the delight of the Americans at post here in SA. I call it "Heaven on Earth" - and it really is. It really really is. YUM.

(2) I made the pasta alla vodka and linguine with chicken thighs. Both dishes were incredibly easy to make and inexpensive! The pasta alla vodka was a bit different than normal sauces I make - a teensy bit on the sweet side, but oh so good. I think next time I'll serve it was ravioli rather than just plain noodles. The linguine with chicken thighs was also superb - it made a ton of sauce! It was nice and light. I also added mushrooms to it because I just can't help myself.

(3) Why am I even posting today, of all days? Well, Will, being the fantastic hubby that he is, made something like this last night. We had a bunch of bell peppers in our fridge that were about to head south. He slapped those babies on the grill and charred them up. After he let them cool, he picked off the charred parts and put the rest in our food processor. Add some garlic and walnuts (yes, walnuts - not pine nuts), parmesan cheese, and presto - its pesto! Will tossed it with some egg noodles and it made a fantastic meatless Monday dish. I love recipes that use what you already have on hand to make something incredibly yummy!

(4) Completely unrelated to food, but noteworthy: Since its so cold outside, Will and I have been watching lots of tv shows on DVD. We're smack in the middle of Entourage, which we both really like. We recently finished Murder One and Damages - both shows were excellent! We're also caught up on Rescue Me and the beginning of The Closer.

Life is good.

Recipes to try when we get back!

2009-06-01T12:30:00.003+02:00

Because when I'm bored and don't feel well, I like to look at recipes, specifically on this site...

Homemade Chicken Strips

Shrimp Risotto ...except I want to make mine tomato based... and SPICY!

Apple Tart - not that I'm the best baker or that I really love baked apples, but this looks tasty and fun...

Bread! I want to make bread in a dutch oven!

Chili con queso - because mom sent me velveeta and I have a crock pot ready to make something de-lish and terrible for you.

Strawberry Shortcake Cake - again, I need to be a better baker and this looks like a great one to try.

Homemade Pasta - because I haven't yet perfected my recipe...

And pasta sauces! This and this and this and and this and this (especially the last one)...

sick.

2009-05-31T10:19:00.003+02:00

Will and I are sick. We've never been sick at the same time before and I've quickly realized how its no fun when you are both ill. Will has a sinus infection and I have no idea what I have (okay fine - I'm in denial about having a sinus infection too...) so we're both sniffling-sore throated-tired-red-nosed individuals.

Plus there's nothing worse than being sick on the weekend.

Despite our runny noses, we've had a fairly good weekend. Friday night we attended a trivia night at the British High Commission. Lucky them - they have a functioning party space on site! They had a cash bar, pasta dinner, and trivia with clues you could purchase with all proceeds going to a good cause. Adam, Beth, Will, and I made up the team known as "Blue and Gray" (much better than our original name of "Team America"). We came in last, primarily because we didn't know how to use the clues to double and triple our scores (we mainly got 8/10 on things) and after round 5 we really stopped caring. We got 6 boxes of antacids as a prize - woohoo. It was super fun, if a teensy bit long (10 rounds of 10 questions and starting at 7:30... yowsa).

Yesterday was the Super 14 Championship (i.e. rugby's equivalent to the Super Bowl). Pretoria's Blue Bulls were challenging the New Zealand Chiefs at home here in Pretoria so you can imagine how crazy the town was yesterday. We met up with friends at Cactus Creek, which has a great outdoor patio to watch the game (and blessedly this time had put in heat lamps since its so cold outside). The Blue Bulls killed the Chiefs - it was such an exciting game! I'm really enjoying watching rugby. Its no substitute for SEC football, but its fantastic to watch.

Today we're beginning the process of packing for Ireland & London. We have no idea what luggage restrictions there are for Lufthansa and BMI so we need to find out before we start hauling out luggage.

I am super stoked about our trip. We fly into Dublin, spend two nights there, and then head south to County Kerry where we're staying in Castle Cove (just south of Kenmare). We'll also overnight in Dingle and Kilkenny. Highlights include the Guinness Brewery, St. Francis Abbey (where they make Smithwick's), Mizen Head, Skelling Michael, Rock of Cashel, Blarney Castle... beyond that, we've just planned on seeing where the roads of Ireland take us.

London is much much MUCH more organized, primarily because we're only there for 4 nights. Its the 500th anniversary of Henry VIII's coronation so all the palaces and historical sites have special exhibits. We're definitely heading to the Tower of London, Hampton Court Palace, Kensington Palace, St. Paul's Cathedral, Tower Bridge, Westminster Abbey, the British Museum, the Courtald Gallery, the London Eye, and the National Gallery. Phew - that's a lot! And of course, we have to have high tea somewhere.

And as I told Will... if I see a taco bell or pizza hut while we're in London, we're stopping. YUM. Trashy American fast food!

If you have any tips or suggestions, let us know!

Recipes to try!

2009-05-28T13:31:00.004+02:00

I'm in love with my Crock Pot. Aside from the fact that I purchased it for $15 from someone moving back to the US when it retails for $50, aside from the fact that it has a removeable insert and carrying case, and aside from the fact that I can run it through the dishwasher when I'm finished so I don't have to battle the monster in the sink... it makes a-mazing soup.

This is all to say: send me Crock Pot recipes!

My mom gave me this recipe a LONG time ago. I love Olive Garden's pasta fagioli soup and thought I'd finally give the recipe a whirl with my new Crock Pot, per Will's suggestion. I prepped everything the night before and just set my Crock Pot insert in the fridge to keep over night. The next morning all I had to do was take it from the fridge, place it in the Crock Pot, and set it to "low." EASY.

I came home to a house that smelled so amazing! All that was left to do was make the noodles to go in it. When all is said and done, this soup definitely makes 14-16 servings. I used lean ground beef and added crushed fennel as it cooked to make it taste like italian sausage. I also added garlic here and there. The soup was incredible and we will be eating it for awhile.

Last night I decided to try a Rachael Ray recipe for sesame chicken that I had clipped awhile back. In addition to the green beans and red bell pepper, I added mushrooms and broccoli. I steamed all the veggies prior to cooking so they'd be easier to stir fry. I also used 1 tbsp. of honey instead of 3 tbsp. and used sambal olek instead of hot sauce. I also added garlic here and there because I can. I steamed the rice in my microwave rice cooker (buy it - it will change your life! its one of my favorite kitchen items - rice in 12 minutes!) and just added the chopped green onions when it was done. The rice tasted kind of like fried rice, but without all the grease. The stir fry was really light and tasty and I loved the toasted sesame seeds. I also liked making my own sauce rather than using a bottled stir fry sauce. This is a great way to use up veggies that are about to turn bad!

Enjoy!

Best weekend in awhile.

2009-05-28T13:08:00.003+02:00

Memorial Day weekend - typically a time for kicking off summer with burgers, boats, and being a bum.

Its winter here in SA so Memorial Day weekend wasn't all together warm and filled with burgers. But it was the best weekend I've had in a really long time.

Friday we hosted the Embassy's wine and cheese event. We opened our doors to our fellow ex pats, who in turn filled our house with wine and other delectable treats. My dinner that night consisted of wine, cheese, chorizo, cheesecake, and black pepper whole grain triscuits (have you had these? SO GOOD!). The sweet tea we served was imbibed as much as the wine - just goes to show you that its always a good idea to serve the house wine of the South! We had a fire bowl going outside, relaxing tunes on the radio, and just an overall fantastic party.

Saturday I woke up and cleaned our house with Maria. Together we washed about 50 wine glasses, 50 tea glasses, and tons of plates and forks. By 10:30, my house was sparkling. Note to self: always have parties on Friday nights when Maria can help clean up the next day!

We went to a food market that morning and bought the awesome paprika cheese someone had bought last night and some curious sausage that was oh so yummy. That afternoon we watched a rugby match at an outdoor cantina, which actually serves mexican food. It was so nice to sit outside and enjoy a beautiful fall afternoon. That evening, we had planned to go bowling but wound up eating fantastic sushi and seeing Angels and Demons, which I really enjoyed.

Sunday we ran errands and went to the gym. I went swimming for the first time since we've moved here and I had the whole pool to myself. So nice! That evening we had Geet for dinner, my favorite Indian place. Yummy. We also watched the Rescue Me season 5 episodes that mom sent us (THANK YOU!).

Monday was another lazy day with no plans. We finished up our wedding album, did a couple things around the house, made dog food, and did the grocery shopping. Monday evening Will made a fire in our borrowed fire pit and we ate outside under the stars - a delicious homegrown arugula salad (just arugula, cherry tomatoes, olive oil, shaved parmesan, and lemon juice) plus an amazing steak. It was so nice to sit outside in the cool weather by the warm fire, talking about our plans for the future while stars went shooting by. A perfect end to a perfect weekend!

Spandex a go-go

2009-05-07T22:23:00.002+02:00

This week was a miraculous week for me. I made it to the gym three different times* (Monday, Wednesday, and Thursday night) and took three different classes. WOOT! Its a first since being here in SA, and honestly, a bit sad. There are various and sundry reasons why I don't make it to the gym as often as I should (after being inside all day, I like to run outside... I've been out of the country.... sometimes I just don't want to), and they are all pretty lame so....

Why am I posting about the gym? I think with all things here, its just interesting to see how things are the same yet so very different. Sometimes I can barely understand the instructor because of South African phrases that are used during a cardio class. I find myself watching others rather than relying on what the instructor says because 90% of the time I have no earthly idea what came out of their mouth. I also find it fascinating to look at what people decide to wear to the gym. The shoes, the spandex, the tops... its all so different from what we're used to in the states. Its not bad, but its just interesting to see how everyone else looks the same (all black spandex, black shoes, etc.) and me in my Old Navy tank top, yoga capris, white ankle socks, and pink and silver running shoes = big sign that I'm clearly not from around here....

anyway!

This week I did kickboxing, body conditioning, and Zumba. Kickboxing was awesome. I forgot how much I like that class plus we had a great instructor. We actually did half the class with weighted poles, which made me feel very Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtle (did I just type that?) and tough. Great workout.

Body conditioning is South Africa's mix of hell on earth. Part cardio, part weight-lifting - its tough! Even though that class kicks my arse, I can tell. I love the way I feel afterward, like I got a total body workout in 60 minutes.

Tonight Beth and I tried Zumba. They premiered it at our gym tonight for the first time so we figured we might as well go when no one else knows what they are doing either. Ha! Chelsea has been raving about Zumba forever (and is training to become an instructor! awesome!) so when I saw it offered at the gym, I knew it was a must.

I'm in love!

Zumba is essentially what I would call Dance Party USA. Its mostly latin dancing (salsa, rumba, etc.) combined with some basic workout moves (knee lifts, lunges, squats) and a lot of shaking your hips and more. Our class also had some line dancing and the twist, which made the class really fun for me. It was great to workout to country music for a change! There was also a touch of belly dancing in the class. I know I looked horrificly awkward, but I didn't care. I had FUN. To be honest, it reminded me a lot of Jazzercise, but just a lot more awesomer. ha! I will definitely be going again. It just makes me realize I really need to buy some shoes for working out in the classroom. Fun!

*I feel its important to log my 2 mile run on Sunday, which was not going to the gym, but a way to start off the week with a little exercise in the great outdoors.

driving.

2009-05-04T22:59:00.003+02:00

I'm driving in South Africa. Its true. Well wait, not right now as I type this. But today and a couple days before that, I have driven here and there. And its exciting.

With Will gone, I am now reliant on driving myself around. Before Will left, I had the fantastic opportunity to demonstrate amazing ineptitude at learning to drive a stick shift hoss of a car in 30 minutes. Let me take the opportunity to remind you of the hoss:

I'm fantastic at shifting from 1st gear to 2nd gear (with my left hand, no less!) and backing the hoss up... all on flat ground, mind you. But driving through the incredibly steep hills of Pretoria while weaving through narrow roads all without someone telling me about keeping it between 200-300rpms (or something like that)? It just wasn't meant to be. As I told Will, if he was sitting in the passenger seat telling me what to do, different story. But he's not here so...

I had resigned myself to being car-less for the 17 days that Will is gone. I was going to get rides to work by walking down to the guest house 0.5 miles from my house and picking up the ride with the temporary staffers. I was going to walk the 2 mile round trip to the grocery store and/or restaurants to get necessary supplies and sustenance (have so far done this twice since Will has been gone - I love it!). All other fun was just going to be reliant on those who had mercy on my car-less soul.

And then... an offer we couldn't refuse. A friend of ours offered to trade cars during Will's absence, allowing me to graciously drive their automatic Volvo station wagon (I LOVE IT) while they took our beloved Hoss, their dream car (and they promptly took it on safari).

When I first got behind the wheel, it was weird. WEIRD. I hadn't sat in a driver's seat since for 10 months! But that wasn't what was weird. It was the seat belt coming over my right shoulder instead of my left. It was being in a car low to the ground after riding in the Defender for so many months. It was getting acclimated to a car with all the bells and whistles (I'm in love with the seat warmer, thankyouverymuch. the dingdingding to let you know you're about to back into something is awesome too).

For my practice lesson, I successfully backed out and conquered a round-about. Woohoo. And then I hit a curb. All confidence was shattered as I thought, there. I've done it. I've busted their front bumper (I didn't, for the record). And so the car has pretty much sat in my driveway, for fear that I somehow have an inability to grasp the sheer size of that car (did I mention that this is a volvo station wagon and not a teeny Yarus type car?).

But I'm getting better. I am still pulling through parking spaces and going to the most empty part of the (patrolled) parking lot to get a space as the parking spaces are teeny here and I just don't feel confident that I will pull myself into the space successfully. The streets go from being extremely narrow to those "luxurious wide lanes" that Elaine finds on Seinfeld, thanks to Kramer. At times I feel I have enough space, at other times I feel that the car next to me is going to side-swipe me (in reality, there's probably like 6 foot of space between us - who knows).

The thing is... I've realized I miss driving. I actually really enjoy it. I love getting in a car and singing along to the radio as loud as I want (I usually tone it down a notch for Will so as to not sing full volume in his face as he drives). I actually think round-abouts are a bit fun. I realize I really miss not being able to jump in the car and drive for two miles to see someone I love.

Tonight I'm happy to report that I drove to the gym. I went to kick-boxing, which was actually really really fun. I enjoyed the instructor and the variety of the moves presented in the class. My plan is to go to the gym and try new classes this week. Tomorrow night I'm trying a class called Powerpump, which I'm hoping is like Body Pump, the best class ever. Chelsea's beloved Zumba class is being offered for the first time on Thursday night, so I am definitely going to that. Some pilates and yoga may be mixed in there somewhere... I am just looking forward to mixing up my exercise routine (and being in town long enough to go to the gym instead of traveling!).

Slowing down.

2009-05-03T12:11:00.003+02:00

These once a month updates will stop soon, I promise. Why? Because things are slowing down... I will no longer be traveling as much as I have been, which means I'll be in the office and at home, giving me time to sit here and talk to you.

So!

With the passing of May 1, we have officially been in South Africa 10 months. Yes, 10 months! 10 months without momma and poppa Brock, without driving on the *correct* side of the road, without Target, without friends and family, without mexican cheese dip, without TV (gosh I miss Food Network), without being surrounded by people with similar southern accents.

And its been good. I haven't been too homesick - I guess mainly because I'm so busy and also because there is enough about Pretoria that reminds me of home that I don't miss it. I guess also because Will and the dogs are here to keep me happy. However...

Will went home last weekend to the U.S. and I miss him terribly. I realized this is the first time that he's left me... throughout our entire relationship, its been me leaving him at home while I travel to Tanzania, South Africa, Angola, Zimbabwe, Zambia, Namibia, Washington D.C., you name it. Aside from brief sojourns throughout the state of Georgia that would last one or two nights, I really haven't been without him. Go ahead - call me spoiled. We've just never been fans of being apart from each other if we could help it. But this is 17 days of being by myself in a foreign country. I won't lie to you - its been hard.

What makes it hard are the two dogs moping around the house and staring longingly at the door waiting for Will to bust in. Its hard when I have a really simple question that I must answer and I just want to run the scenario by someone... and no one is here (Muddy is really good at looking interested in my convos though). Its hard feeling like I should get out of the house and do something - but where would I go? And what would I do? Its even difficult thinking, "what should I make for dinner?" knowing that I'm filling up a fridge of food I have to eat repeatedly throughout the week (I hate leftovers). Its hard knowing Will is at a wedding where I'd like to be with him, that Will is with our family and friends, that Will is eating good sushi... and I'm here.

In some ways its been nice to have this time on my own as I've tackled quite a few projects I would have otherwise left undone. Its sad that my big plan for today is to unclutter our guest room, which has become the room in which we dump everything that has no official home.

Truly, I'm ecstatically happy for Will. He needed this trip home and I'm hopeful great things will come of it. He calls me multiple times a day (thank you Vonage!) to catch me up on life back home so its not so bad. But let's just say... I'll be glad when he gets back!

So what's been going on with me other than missing Will...

This past week I went to Durban. It was quite possibly the worst travel of my life as I got picked up much too early and dropped off much too late. Save for complaints about transport, Durban was pretty nice! It reminds me a lot of Ft. Lauderdale - a big steamy city on the beach... and not the prettiest beach, mind you, but there's something peaceful about hearing the waves and seeing people have fun on the beach. I stayed at an awesome hotel where I got bumped up to the top floor with a sea view. For about $90/night, not bad. I ate dinner at a great little place on Florida road and had the best time.

Most importantly, I had great visits with my grantees. The first day I went out and met with the traditional healers (sangoma in Zulu), which really gave me a better idea of the project. Traditional healers are essentially the "doctors" of the villages here, except they haven't been formally educated or trained. They use the practices passed down from generation to generation to help people. As I took of my shoes and entered the sangoma's hut, I see all sorts of herbs, switches, massive roosters walking around, cobwebs, blankets, and fire pits to be used on people suffering from various malaise. They've been a HUGE help in the HIV/AIDS epidemic in terms of encouraging people to use condoms, referring those who need to go to the clinic, and more. What struck me was their gratitude. One traditional healer said, "Before PEPFAR, I was ashamed because I was not educated. You have made me feel important and I am so happy to know I have helped so many against this disease." I couldn't help but get choked up by her words.

Moving on to more random things...

I realized the other day how much my eating habits have changed here, so much to the point that I think my mom will be shocked the next time she sees me eat! What's changed?

I willingly eat runny eggs. Before, I liked my eggs scrambled - no yolk anywhere! Since being here, I started eating fried eggs, but only if the yolk was well done. For whatever reason, they won't do scrambled eggs here (there's lots of confusion when you ask for them) nor will they cook an egg all the way done. Hence, I've started to eat my eggs a bit runny. I'm amazed that it doesn't gross me out and that... I actually think it tastes better when eggs are cooked over medium. Don't worry... no sunny-side up eggs for me. That would take it a bit too far...
I ate pineapple on my pizza the other day and it was YUMMY. I also eat avocado on pizza. Try it. YUM.
I've acclimated to South Africa so much that I eat with my knife and fork almost all the time. South Africans eat in the european style of using their knife to make little bites to scrape on their fork. Its really interesting to me to watch and I've come to realize, it can be quite an efficient way of eating. Previously, I used to cut up my food, lay down my knife, switch hands, and eat. Now I just keep both utensils in my hands all the time. Weird.
I'm a big fan of curries, especially prawn curry.
I ate beets the other day. Yes, that's right. Me. I ate BEETS. My parents used to can beets when I was younger and I would literally leave the house due to the stink boiled beets create. Yuck. When I got home from Malawi two weeks ago, Will instructed me to change into something nice and he'd take me to dinner. Lo and behold, the most romantic date since our honeymoon occurred. We went to this fantastic French restaurant that was all candlelit, full of fresh flowers, and played fantastic french music. We ordered a tasting menu - french onion soup, scallops, duck breast, cheese platter, creme brulee. Romantic and delicious! I went back three nights later with Jody and Beth and I got a toasted goat cheese salad. It came with a beet and apple stack that was absolutely delicious. And it came with toasted pistachios
So within that entry above, my mom would be shocked that I ate: beets, duck breast, a platter of cheeses, pistachios

Random fact of southern Africa: everywhere I go, people sing. Whether they are tone deaf or not, they sing out loud, whatever song is in their head. Sometimes they are singing to a song playing overhead, but more often than not, they just sing to sing. And of course, it puts a smile on my face.

For right now, I am no longer headed to Mozambique due to timing issues. This leaves my next trip as my beloved R&R to Ireland and London. I'm having so much fun planning the trip! If you have any suggestions, leave them in the comments.

Donde?

2009-04-09T12:30:00.003+02:00

Sorry folks. I am around. I mean to write, I really really do, but things have been a bit hectic lately with traveling and life, so here!

Quick Updates on Life

We've been married over 10 months and lived here over 9 months. TIME FLIES.
Will heads back to the states this weekend for Land's wedding! Yay!
We head veryveryvery soon to Ireland and London and CAN'T WAIT. If you've been, give us tips!
Delta now runs a flight straight from Atlanta to Jo'burg - no more 16 hour flight! Check it out - prices are FALLING.
One major life goal has been to make a spicy meatball. Consider that one checked off the list as DONE. YAY!
I finished the Twilight series and watched Twilight. Hmmm. I thought the first book was good but by the time I got to the 4th... wow. Where did we veer off course in that saga? I could never have predicted the 4th book after reading the 1st... and I gotta say, when I finished the 4th, I just said, "Really?" I also was not a huge fan of the movie. Let-down city.
Muddy will run over 3 miles when dragged on a leash by his loving momma.
Me = huge fan of Susan Boyle. Huge. Happy tears, especially at her saying that nothing will change (i.e. no makeover, etc.) except that she won't be lonely anymore. Aw!
Mom successfully mailed pickles and monterey jack cheese from the states - yay mom!

And country updates...

Zimbabwe

My first impression of Zimbabwe? A giant gold-framed photo of Robert Mugabe staring down at me as I enter the airport. Walking 20 more steps, there's another... walking 20 more steps, there's another... and so on and so on and so on. Its clear - I'm officially in Zimbabwe.

As I exited the airport, I wasn't sure what would come next. Would I see the devastation I saw on CNN - trash filled streets, skeletons of people, dirty water? Surprisingly I saw what looks like my adoptive home for the past 9 months - it looks a lot like South Africa, except for even more trees - crazy huh? As I drove around, I took pictures of things on the side of the road. Next thing I knew I was in downtown Harare, surrounded by skyscrapers, clean streets, and palm trees. Hmmm. Not the Harare I saw on CNN at all!

All in all, people were friendly, I found lunch for under $5, and even though my room had no a/c, I was very comfortable and safe. I'd happily return to Harare, despite all the issues that it has.

Angola

Before heading to Angola, I heard horror stories about how awful the country is and how Luanda is a dump that is best avoided. I expected the worst - much like I thought Zimbabwe was going to be in my head.

Note to my future self: travel to Angola is long, hot, and arduous. I woke up at 4:00am to be ready to be driven to the airport at 4:30 in order to make my 7:45am flight. We get to the airport only to find - the stupid terminals don't open before 6:30am. This means standing in line at the boring airport just waiting. People coming up to the terminal, acting like they will open, only to run away again. sigh. Not good for my patience. Our layover in Namibia was fine, but just frustrating that we weren't on a direct flight. My patience was almost all used up and then...

It was time to board the flight to Angola. First, they load people from either side of the plane which would be fine if they were checking tickets, except they weren't. People sitting in the front of the plane loaded the back of the plane and vice versa. The aisles on this tiny plane were just not wide enough for people to push through. Second, they took my carry-on bag, which really isn't that huge. I gave it to them thinking no big deal. I get on board and notice practically everyone is carrying 3 bags, if not more. One guy was carrying a huge duffel bag AND A GUITAR... and they took my little suitcase? People must know something I don't. I get over it, settle in, and relax on the way into Luanda.

We land. My suitcase isn't waiting at the bottom of my steps like it should be. I instantly worry as it contains my laptop, makeup, change of clothes, etc. Everything I need for the next two weeks in case my luggage is lost. I get on the people mover to go to the check-in... and O.M.G. CHAOS!

I've never seen such a thing. The passport control was like one mass of 200 people just waiting to get through. No lines, no papers to fill out, nothing. If/when I go back to Angola, I am either taking a good book and snack and waiting for the crowd to die down in the back of passport control or I will find someone to give me diplomatic preference. It took me 2 HOURS to get through passport control. Yowsa. By the way, did I mention there's no A/C in the airport? So yes, I just sweated in the 100 degree heat of the room waiting to get through... YUCK!

With my patience worn, I slip through customs in a mad search of my carry-on bag which has been separated from me for over 2 hours now. I round the corner and then...

MY WORST NIGHTMARE. BAGGAGE CLAIM HELL.

This is where your luggage goes to die. If you've ever lost a bag, I guarantee you its in Luanda. No conveyer belts were working and luggage, boxes, and random items were strewn through a massive room. What was definitely absent was a place where all luggage stowed underneath the plane was placed. I about burst into tears. I found someone who worked at the airport, explained in broken spanish that I lost my luggage and next thing I know, I am taken into a back room where I show my luggage receipt. Then I am shoved into this incredible warehouse of... LUGGAGE. Black suitcases upon black suitcases upon black suitcases, stacked straight to the ceiling. I'm being yelled at in Portuguese as I realize... I will never find this bag if I am expected to sort through this mess. I breeze past the airport security in search of Dyad.

As I leave the room, I spot it! There, wedged in between a conveyor belt and wall - my carry-on bag! I run across the conveyor belt (there goes being conspicuous) and retrieve the bag, so happy to find it - and immediately spot my other bag.

Blood pressure drops. Life is fine.

Dyad and I manage to find our driver in the chaos, to skip some crazy search on the way out, and make it to the hotel. All in all, it took over 12 hours to get to the hotel after getting in the car this morning. Crazy!

Blessedly, the hotel was comfortable - clean sheets, comfy bed, A/C, internet, hot water. Not the nicest place I've ever stayed but it was comfortable and clean and after the long journey, it was a blessed respite. The only bad thing? It costs $30+ for a plate of spaghetti with meat sauce. The dinner buffet is $55. A hamburger with fries is $20. Angola is EXPENSIVE.

I ended up leaving Angola early as the Pope was coming and the entire city was shutting down. I luckily made it out of Angola without being strip-searched and without ordering the $5 grilled cheese and ham sandwich, the only food offered in the Angola airport where I was forced to wait over 6 hours for my flight.

Namibia
Windhoek is quite mountainous - I was surprised. I wasn't thinking sand dunes like the western part of Namibia, but I wasn't thinking mountains. Beautiful! Namibia I workedworkedworked. I really didn't go out very much. My hotel was located downtown and it was very nice. It was within walking distance of some great restaurants, which made it nice to get outside at night after being in the office all day. Windhoek reminded me a lot of Pretoria. I hope to get back to Namibia and see more of the countryside...

Botswana
Botswana is... well, at least in Gaborone... there's not a lot. Its flat and its nice enough, but its not as nice as Pretoria or Harare, I think. My trip to Botswana seemed really quick - I'm not sure why. My hotel was really great and there was an uber-fancy restaurant in the hotel that I enjoyed every night with my Twilight book. Going to Gaborone only made me want to get out in a car and drive to see more of the country. I'll be back. Its true.

My one interesting story from Botswana is that a fight broke out on my plane! A French guy pushed a flight attendant all over a bag. So silly. However, the French guy wasn't ejected from the flight - he just got counseled loud enough so we could all hear (and he grumbled the whole 35 minute flight to Joburg).

I'm currently in Malawi - more details to come later. Its really lush and beautiful here with mountains off in the distance. The landscape reminds me a teensy bit of Uganda. I'm not here for very long and most likely won't see much, but I'll report back on anything interesting.

Regular ol' update!

2009-03-11T12:46:00.003+02:00

Apologies for the utter lack of posting of Zimbabwe - I have no excuse! I just haven't done it, but I will. I should warn you that almost all of them are taken from a moving car, but c'est la vie, I didn't have time to sight see!

Next week I head off to Angola and Namibia for two weeks. This will officially be the longest period of time spent without Mr. Will since our wedding. Boo! I'll actually be in Namibia over the weekend and will hopefully find something fun to do during that time.

So what have I been up to... Will has been sick lately, which is quite the experience in SA. They keep all sorts of meds behind the counter and everything has different names so you just wind up giving the description of the sickness to the checkout person and they hand you bunches of stuff. Luckily, medicine is inexpensive here, and even better, Advil-CS works like a charm for a sinus infection.

I had some exciting and interesting cooking adventures this week. On Saturday, Beth and Adam invited us over to watch the USA vs. Canada baseball game (ah, baseball! love it!). I decided to make rosemary foccacia because (1) I just wanted to try and (2) I have a massive rosemary bush in my yard begging to be used. I searched online and found this recipe. After making the dough, I realized I didn't have the requisite 10x15x1 pan needed nor did I have the hours and hours of time it said the dough needed to rise. Undeterred, I proceeded using a 9x13x2 cake pan to put my dough and reducing the rising time to 30 minutes on each go. I also added a tbsp of minced garlic to my olive oil/rosemary mixture to brush on top of the bread.

I must report - it was fantastic! It was a bit thick, but it actually ended up being great for dipping in the marinara sauce I had made on Thursday night. Yummy.

On Sunday, we tried our hand at making Chinese food. It was a big fat FLOP. I made horrific fried rice out of brown rice - it was nasty. I have no idea why I made it as I'm not a fan of fried rice anyway - I guess I just wanted to try. We made General Tso's chicken but apparently added too much cornstarch as it was like eating chicken covered in snot-like goo. G-ROSS. The only saving grace was the veggie stir-fry I had made. We've now agreed that if we need Asian food, we should just go straight to Simply Asia, a fantastic little stir fry place where the two of us can eat for under $10.

Since Will felt yucky, we also watched two less-than-stellar movies this weekend: Indiana Jones and the Kingdom of the Crystal Skull and Casino. Indiana Jones had dialogue so bad it was funny and Casino was just way too depressing and gory to watch before bed. I had nightmares that night!

We're also on to season 6 of The Sopranos. Each episode gets better and better than the last, but I'm also dreading coming to an end of this TV show.

That's it for now! More as I travel...

Outside

2009-03-03T20:02:00.002+02:00

I'll be the first to admit it: for the bulk of my time in this country, I've been quite lazy. Granted, when I first moved here, it was at the busiest time of the year and I was lucky to just get my work done during the day and sleep. Working out wasn't fitting into the scheme. Plus we didn't belong to the gym and I didn't feel comfortable in my surroundings to take the streets on a good run.

Over the past 7 months (I still can't believe I haven't seen you folks in 7 months!!! or more!), we've joined a gym and I received a WiiFit that told me in so many words I needed to get my booty moving. I enjoy the gym but going after work means its crowded with everyone else that went after work too. I like the classes - they force me to work out in ways I wouldn't otherwise work out. However, there's something icky about being inside all day long and then going to work out inside when its a beautiful day outside. Even if its just a walk to the grocery store, I want to be outside after being inside all day long. Will and I have recently started taking walks to the grocery store, feeling oh so environmentally friendly as we stroll there with our own grocery bags - plus with the crazy hills in our neighborhood, its a walk that will leave you winded.

For the past two weeks I've finally put my worries aside, strapped on my Nike+iPod system, and took the streets (after carefully detailing my exact route to Mr. Will). It still shocks me that even now, I LOVE TO RUN. I really really do. Its a feeling I never thought I would have in my life, but here I am. There's just something about being outside, breathing in fresh air, and going through the motions of running that never fails to put a smile on my face.

I'm also a HUGE fan of the Nike+iPod system. If you are a runner, BUY THIS. For $29, it is oh so worth it. I plug in how far I want to run (2 miles) and it tells me as I'm running and listening to my favorite upbeat songs "0.5 miles completed..." so that I know exactly how far I've gone and when I should turn around. It calculates my average times, my pace, and even how many calories I've burned. It could only be better if it targeted my heart rate.

Today I'm pleased to report that using my Nike+iPod, I got my fastest mile time ever (according to the iPod): 9:40! Woohoo. I usually run along listening to the iPod and sprint the choruses, which results in a solid 10-11 minute mile. Today I noticed that I had completed the 2 miler in under 20 minutes so I knew something good had happened.

Anyway, just my two cents on how awesome the Nike+iPod is. I officially love going out for a run and being in the sunshine and returning to my WiiFit to do yoga in the comfort of my own home (while Muddy inevitably tries to stay underneath me while I hold "downward facing dog").

Cake!

2009-03-03T12:07:00.003+02:00

As I've mentioned previously, it is the custom of our office to bring a cake on your birthday. Today is my co-worker Sippho's birthday and he asked if I would bake him a cake since my cupcakes were so good. Since I happened to have leftover frosting and a box of yellow cake, and because flattery for my baking is very rare, I said yes.

I get home after work, pull out my ingredients, and prepare the batter. Realizing that I have extra chocolate chips leftover from holiday baking, I decide to pour them into the batter to make a chocolate chip cake. I pour the batter into a greased pan, realizing only after I've slid it in the oven that I didn't follow the high altitude directions. Ooops. I putter around the kitchen while the cake bakes, only realizing about 20 minutes into it that wasn't I raised to walk gently when a cake was being baked? And haven't my dogs run all through the kitchen, doors been slammed, and who knows what else? Ooops.

When time is up, I pull the cake out to find a distinct valley in the middle of my cake with some charred edges around the side. Ooops. Did I not calculate 375 degrees farenheit accurately to celsius?

Baking genius that I am, I decide to transfer the cake to a long tupperware, thus removing crispy edges. This is when I realize that all the chocolate chips floated to the bottom of the cake pan, making a chocolate crustiness on the bottom of the cake. Ooops. I coat the thing in frosting and sprinkle with the remaining chocolate chips, making what looks to be a 5 year old's attempt at baking a cake. Enter a husband doubled over in a fit of laughter here.

Regardless, Sippho was ecstatic about the cake. It was gobbled up before 9:00am and everyone raved and raved about my baking prowess. If only they had someone that was a good baker making treats for them!

A Zimbabwe post coming soon, maybe even tonight! I just need to upload pics.

Soccer Team!

2009-02-21T10:46:00.004+02:00

This morning Maria gave me a letter from a friend in Eesterust, someone we met at Christmas. She has organized a soccer team thanks to the soccer balls that we gave them at Christmas. The boys are having such a fun time playing soccer and "have dreams of becoming David Beckham." I can't wait to go and cheer them on!

However, because the team is new, they are in need of all sorts of items to make them an official team, which include:

Soccer jerseys
Soccer shorts
Professional soccer balls (the ones we gave them aren't tough enough for the league)
Goalie gloves
First Aid kit

These are the things they asked for, but I'm sure they are also in need of shin guards, socks, and shoes. The boys range in age from 6-12.

The community has asked Will, Heidi, Bryan, and I to help out with this task. If we help them, we get to name the team. Fun!

I'm posting this in case any of my fantastic readers would like to contribute to this great cause. They are many, many ways that you can help!

(1) Look around your house - do you have any of the items above that you would be willing to give away? Maybe an older pair of goalies gloves from your AYSO years? Maybe pair after pair after pair of soccer socks that you will never wear again... Even if you have some items that could contribute to a first aid kit (ace bandage, instant ice pack, band-aids, neosporin), that would be great.

(2) Buy up some of the items above (just reply to this post so there aren't duplicate items) and send through the diplomatic pouch for the cost of shipping something domestically. I'm sure that Wal-Mart, Sam's, and maybe even the dollar store have some of the items above (I wish we had dollar stores here...).

(3) Send a check for whatever amount you want, which I will put to use in purchasing these items for the kids (I'll even share receipts with you if you want for charitable tax purposes).

(4) Send cards or letters to these great boys and let them know you're cheering them on from the states.

(5) If soccer isn't your favorite thing but you still want to help out the wonderful orphans in this community, there are so many things that you could send that they would appreciate greatly. We're coming up on winter and their homes do not have heat. Any warm items (gloves, hats, etc.) that are going on sale in stores back in the U.S. would be really beneficial. A crate of Ramen Noodles would be fantastic and would offer a warm meal on a cold night. Books (easy readers, coloring books, paint-by-number), art supplies, dolls, toys, etc. - these kids range in age and they would appreciate anything and everything. Again, the dollar store or the Target $1 spot may have items that the kids would appreciate.

Of course, once this gets up and running, pictures will be posted soon... but for now, here are their beautiful faces!

New links!

2009-02-19T12:43:00.003+02:00

As you devoted readers know, much of this blog is (accidentally) devoted to food. South Africa has some interesting and strange foods (there should be an orientation to strange sausages for every newcomer!) and I like trying them all. I have found that I love ostrich, sweet potatoes are purple and white on the inside (I'd give my big toe for a yummy orange on the inside yam), pumpkins are white or green, biltong is South Africa's answer to beef jerky, and I still have no idea what a hanepoot is.

As newlyweds, we've really enjoyed cooking at home and experimenting with all these crazy foods. This means that I feel like I'm constantly on the Cooking Light, Rachael Ray, KraftFoods, America's Test Kitchen, or Real Simple websites looking up recipes to try. Recently I stumbled across three new websites that I really, really like and have therefore placed them to the right of this post for handy surfing.

First and foremost is The Pioneer Woman Cooks! I've seen these recipes online before, but after clicking on her actual page, I was astounded. Tons of yummy recipes with simple ingredients - I'm a fan. I like this website as her recipes include ingredients I can easily get here in South Africa. Yay! The parmesan crusted chicken is already making me drool... and her whole section devoted to sushi makes me want to have a sushi party sometime soon (if only I can find fresh tuna here!!!).

The second is Reformed Carnivore, my friend Rachel's fantastic vegan food blog. All of you know I am NOT vegan and definitely not a vegetarian (see commentary above on my love affair with all things ostrich), but I do try to eat veggie at least once a week for dinner, if not more than that. I always end up achieving that goal is I find I typically like vegetarian meals - plus the vegetables here in SA are soooo tasty and inexpensive! Not only am I fan of Rachel, I'm a fan of her recipes and pictures that accompany said recipes. Fabulous! Check it out. South Africa is a really healthy country, but I haven't seen much in the way of TVP, seitan, veggie products (morningstar farms and boca are non-existent here), soy-based cheeses, or even true block tofu (I've seen it a couple times, but not often) so a lot of these recipes I can't replicate vegan-ly, but could come close.

The third is a Rachel-recommended site: Vegan yum-yum. Again, I love the step-by-step pictures and the recipes. There's even a really great post on how to photograph food with a fancy camera (tips could be useful on all sorts of other types of photography).

Anyway, just thought I'd share. Enjoy!

Side note: I think I am going to try whole wheat pizza dough soon. I just got this recipe in an email. Hmmm. I've seen wheat pasta in the stores so we'll see!

A Perfect Prez Day

2009-02-16T23:04:00.003+02:00

Here's my recommended list of how to spend a perfect President's Day holiday:

(1) Sleep in, even if for some crazy reason your house alarm is going off because it was struck by lightning. Again.

(2) Eat homemade rice krispie treats for breakfast (thanks Beth!).

(3) Spend a good portion of your day outside, preferably lounging in your pool with your significant other and playing with your dogs (I finally took pictures of Muddy being submarine pup and I think I caught him right in mid-air! pics for you as soon as I find the upload thingy...). This activity is best enjoyed when you rig up your Bose iPod stereo to play through the window so you can hear it outside in the pool.

(4) Run errands with your hubby and experience limited traffic and no lines in the stores as everyone else is at work except you. mwahahhahaa.

(5) Bake Funfetti cupcakes to take to work the following day to (1) celebrate your own birthday* and (2) give your coworkers something else to smile about in their 4 day work week.

(6) Get wedding ring appraised, insured, and repolished so that it is no longer black underneath some of the stones on your wedding band (was it really THAT dirty? ewww...) and also get your hubby's ring repolished so that its shiny once again. Its like getting brand new jewelry!

(7) Eat a fantastic Indian dinner with friends and have lots of laughs while enjoying a beautiful summer evening in South Africa.

(8) Remember that you have an iTunes gift card and immediately start downloading all the musical treasures you discovered while you had access to TV while in Zambia and Uganda...

All in all, it was a relaxing, fantastic Monday off from work. I am dreading the pile of work that has undoubtedly accumulated on my desk during my 3 week hiatus from the office. Yowsa. Wish me luck.

On another note of interest, check this out. This is my friend Rachel's fabulous Vegan food blog. If anyone could ever convince me to go Vegan, its definitely this reformed carnivore! Its interesting to see the great things she comes up with and the pics are an absolute plus. I don't know how I'd even begin to replicate any of the recipes here in South Africa as I am in carnivore country (I've never even seen block tofu in the stores!), but I still like to look and see what new delights are posted. Enjoy!

*For some reason, it is customary in South Africa to celebrate your own birthday by bringing a cake to the office. Yes, that's right - you bring a cake to celebrate your own birthday in this country. No one buys it for you - you supply it and everyone else eats it. No "Happy birthday" singing either - just an email to everyone in the office saying "Valerie brought her birthday cake today. Its in the kitchen." The interesting thing is to note the time in which the email goes out to the time in which the last piece of cake stands. I am taking 40 cupcakes to work tomorrow and will let you know how quick they go. For the record, they are half funfetti and half devil's food cake, both imported cake mixes from the states so it will be an experiment to see whether my colleagues like these American treats!

Uganda and pasta!

2009-02-16T10:01:00.005+02:00

All in all, Uganda was fantastic. Even the roads are some of the worst I've ever experienced (potholes large enough to lose a Miata in!) and Will and I are both currently suffering from a mysterious malady we think was caused by swallowing too much Nile water, we absolutely loved Uganda.

The Ugandans are SO NICE! The Zambians are also super nice, but they are very shy and reserved whereas the Ugandans are just so much fun. Understandably, this made the trip really great as every where we went, there were friendly faces. We also felt incredibly safe in Kampala, which also made the trip great.

Even though I was holed up in the hotel for most of the day because of work, Will and I made it a point to go out every night. We went to what could possibly be the best Indian restaurant I've ever been to (which is sad, as I don't think I'll be making it back to Uganda any time soon to go back there!). Another night we went to a great Thai restaurant, which was really yummy. I think one of the nicest things about dining out in Kampala was that everywhere we went, we ate outside. The weather was perfect while we were there so it was nice to spend the evening relaxing outside and enjoying the great weather.

For my birthday we made reservations at Emin Pasha based on the recommendations of some colleagues. It did not disappoint. This place is incredibly breathtaking - I've never seen such a beautiful hotel! The food was incredible. I had a goat cheese and arugula salad and a really yummy butternut squash ravioli - just what I wanted! Will had a great steak. After dinner, we relaxed outside on a cushy bench under the stars in the beautifully manicured garden behind the hotel - it really was a perfect birthday dinner. When we returned to the hotel, we invited some colleagues to share the huge cake and wine the Sheraton had given me for my birthday. There was a karaoke band that convinced me to come on stage with them and sing "Total Eclipse of the Heart" - amazingly, the crowd cheered me on. All in all, it was an amazing birthday and one that won't be forgotten any time soon.

Here is a picture of the fabulous treats the hotel got me for my birthday! Will had asked the concierge for help in finding me some roses for my birthday. When he came back from running an errand, he found all the items above sitting in our room. As you can see, roses, wine, a big fruit platter, a bottle of "Lady Perfume" (eau de toilette de Sheraton!), and a nice note written to me about my birthday. Yay! How nice!

Next thing I know, someone is knocking on our door. Its this gentleman (who is very happy as you can see!) bringing a HUGE cake to my door with lots of birthday wishes. Nice!

A close-up of the massive cake! They even spelled my name right! This cake was HUGE and actually really tasty. We split it between 8 people and still had half of the cake left! One Sheraton waiter was ecstatic to take it home with him that night...

We're now in South Africa - it really feels good to be back! Yesterday we decided to have a pasta party and put the pasta machine I got for Christmas to use. I had seen an article in my Rachael Ray magazine on hosting a pasta party so I thought I'd give it a try. I was not disappointed with the results. We made homemade fettucine, a marinara sauce, and meatballs based on the recipes in the article. Everything was SO GOOD. Of course my meatballs were made with ostrich and panko bread crumbs plus some red pepper flakes and fennel seed, but man oh man, they were, in the words of Rachael Ray, yum-o. The marinara sauce was hands down the best marinara I've ever made. I added diced up carrot to lessen the acidity of the sauce plus some dried oregano and italian herbs to the cooking onions, and of course, lots of extra basil. It was PERFECT. I would highly recommend trying the sauce and/or meatballs as it was so tasty!

We also decided to be brave and try making ravioli. Will looked up our favorite dish from Maggiano's, the mushroom ravioli al forno, and found a cheater recipe online. Although my patience was tried by this sauce as you have to reduce everything (the mushrooms, the wine/onion mixture, the cream!), it truly tasted like the real thing once all was said and done. And that, my friends, is a-mazing. A shout out must be made to Beth, who assembled all the raviolis. The pasta is definitely a two-person job!

I did it!

2009-02-08T11:13:00.004+02:00

Two things really quick about the Nairobi airport:
(1) I get off the plane and enter the terminal to hear... DOLLY PARTON! And not recent Dolly, old school Dolly and it continued to play the entire time I was in the airport. Awesome! This confirms my suspicion that my favorite famous Tennessean is a favorite in Africa and should come give a concert here soon to all her fans.
(2) If Kenyans love Dolly, they REALLY love Obama! Everything - and I mean everything - had an Obama logo on it in the gift shops. From bracelets to shawls to books and magazines to even key chains and bumper stickers, its all pretty incredible.

As most of you know, for my the bulk of my life I've been the first to tell you that I'm somewhat of a fraidy cat. I think this all started to change when I went to Egypt in 2003 and promised myself to try anything and everything that landed on my plate, which resulted in me eating brain, intestine, and a fish with its head on. EW. Everyone knows how picky I am so this was a big deal! In 2005, I traveled to Zambia all by myself and went on a walking safari, which to this day earns street cred in Africa (they think you're crazy to put yourself on the same terrain as elephants and lions - I thought nothing of it). Back home, I started trying things I never thought I could do, such as running a 5K which eventually led me to running a half marathon and raising over $5000 for a good cause.

Then I met Mr. Will.

The fantastic thing about Will is that he acknowledges what I'm afraid of and then challenges me to combat it. Scared of kayaking down class 2 rapids? Get in a boat and try - I'll be right there beside you. Reluctant to try grilled asparagus wrapped in bacon? Close your eyes and take a bite and then decide for sure whether you like it or not - it can always be spit out. Nervous about climbing up to the top of a mountain in the middle of winter during hunting season where no one will hear us if something happens to us along the way? Let's just take the dogs and try (and then he proposed at the top). He got me ride a horse on our honeymoon, something that I had been afraid of doing for an extremely long time. Recently we even went on a zipline tour, and even though I did hurt myself, I surprised myself by having a really fantastic, exhilarting time.

So yesterday was a HUGE deal in terms of Will convincing me to do something I have NEVER wanted to do: whitewater rafting.

For years and years I've had friends try to convince me to go whitewater rafting and for years and years I've said "pass." Even though I spent the bulk of my childhood years in a pool and am a great swimmer, I've been incredibly afraid of what could happen in the white water. I just knew with my luck that I would be the person that would fall out and crack open their skull on a rock, the person that would somehow get tied up in the rope on the side of the boat and be dragged along until I drowned, that it would be me that someone knocked upside the head with a paddle. All of these events are extremely rare freak accidents that could occur, but to me, I just knew they would happen and it scared me to death. When Will suggested it a couple years ago, I looked at him like he was crazy and said "NEVER" - and I assume the expression on my face let him know this wasn't something that I would easily be swayed on.

To make matters worse, Stephanie went rafting on the Nile in Uganda in 2008 and had a DVD that documented the experience. They went down Class 2-5 rapids of churning water, crazy waves, and even steep waterfalls and I watched in horror as each boat when down the rapid and saw the people fall out of the boat and be retrieved by kayakers. At the end of the video I remember looking at Steph as if she was the bravest person I knew. I couldn't imagine doing something like that at all and felt I had lived vicariously through her video to feel as if I had experienced it myself. I thought that was that.

I was wrong.

A couple weeks ago I found out I was headed to Uganda for a conference. When I told Will, he suggested we raft the Nile like Steph. I thought about it - what was I really scared of? Thinking back to the video, I saw that despite the crazy intense class 5 rapids and that people fell out, no one got hurt and they were all quickly retrieved by men in kayaks. I remembered even though it was dangerous, it was still safe. And then I remembered how great it feels to feel scared of something and to try it anyway. So I said yes.

Yesterday morning we boarded Adrift's bus to Jinja with a bunch of other people as crazy as us. Nervously I picked my helmet and life vest. I breathed a sigh of relief when we were assigned to Jeffrey's group, the guide Steph had on her trip and who I knew was a former whitewater Olympian. We got into the boat, practiced paddling, flipping the boat, etc. And then it was time.

We went through a couple rapids until I knew it was time to reach the one that I feared the most from the video - a steep rapid (practically a waterfall) that all the boats flipped on and then a churning 8 foot freak of nature wave that you hit right after that. I was scared to death as we made it down the rapid and even more surprised that although half the boat fell out, my side of the boat stayed in. Unfortunately this meant that I watched in horror as Will fell out and went straight for that freak of nature wave. Of course, he was fine. After we did that rapid, all the other ones were super exciting and fun, even when we got stuck on rocks at a 90 degree angle (I am sure the photos of my face at that point are priceless because I just knew we were going to die).

All in all, I'm super proud of myself (and disappointed that my Neutrogena SPF 55 that I applied 3 times to myself and Will did not do its job). Will I go whitewater rafting again? To answer this questions from Will, "Yes, but not this year." Will said he had never gone through rapids like that so I'm glad to know that whatever we do next might be a little less dramatic. ha!

I feel like I only have a few more things to accomplish on my life. I could care less about bungee jumping, especially since I did that crazy swing thing in Destin which, IMHO, is more fun than bungee jumping would be since you swing and it lasts a good 10 minutes. I really want to go see the Great White Sharks in Cape Town, but I don't necessarily want to get in the cage with them, especially if they throw chum in the water (ew). I'm still extremely hesitant about riding a motorcycle - its just not my cup of tea.

But I can look back at my life and say with lots of satisfaction that I've lived an adventurous life and am officially no longer a fraidy cat.

Victoria Falls!

2009-02-04T21:34:00.010+02:00

The very top of Victoria Falls! I'm taking these pictures during the middle of rainy season so my visit to the falls is VERY different from when I visited during dry season. Enjoy!

Here I am, nice and dry!

The falls! The spray is so great that I can't see very far down the gorge or to the bottom! And the one thing you may not get from these pictures is the sound - it is so loud! They call the falls Mosi-o-tunya, which means "The Smoke that Thunders." You can see the "smoke" from the falls for miles and miles during rainy season.

I put this picture in to show the contrast of when I visited in September 2005. Believe it or not, I'm standing in the same place in both pictures. You can see how great the spray is and how much more water is coming over. Crazy huh?

All of these pictures will be a bit blurry due to the spray. Its like being in an absolute downpour! It is absolutely amazing, breathtaking, and truly indescribable.

In order to see the entire length of the Zambian side of the falls, you have to cross this bridge, which at this time of the year is COVERED in about an inch of water. As we crossed the bridge, gusts of wind and spray came in every direction! The best part was that if you're scared of heights, you can't see anything if you look down.

Again, same place, different times of the year! I was soaking wet on our trip into the park to see the falls. Note to self: "You will get wet on this ride!"

The road going into Zimbabwe from Zambia. See how everyone is carrying what they can into the Zimbabwe...

Enjoying sundowners (and drying off!) at the Royal Livingstone

The monkeys love to steal fruit from drinks.

Don't let looks deceive you: this baby monkey is a THIEF.

Monkeys, monkeys everywhere!!!

This little guy had his eye on me...

A beautiful sunset!

I know several of you REALLY want to visit Victoria Falls. I feel like I've seen them at two extremes. To be honest with you, I'm not sure which one I think is better since they are so different.

I loved seeing the falls in dry season as you really could see how great the ravine is that the falls spill over. It is so steep and so long, its just amazing to me. It really makes you wonder how the earth split apart to create the falls. Its also nice to walk in and out of the park bone dry. The only bad things about going during the dry season are obviously not seeing the true falls and all the baboons that roam around the trails in the park (and are very aggressive).

I am so thankful for the opportunity to see the falls during the rainy season. The sound, the spray, the sheer amount of water spilling over that grate ravine - its incredible! It was also fun to don a poncho and get so incredibly soaking wet, all because of a waterfall! The rainbows were beautiful and no baboons could be found in the rain. I missed seeing the ravine because I think its just so stunning but at the same time, it was replaced with an incredibly stunning view.

Perhaps what I'm saying is - there's no bad time to go to the falls!!!

Zambia!

2009-02-02T18:22:00.002+02:00

After 3.5 years, I have returned to Zambia! Yay!

Yesterday I made my first of many trips to the international terminal of the Jo'burg airport. This led to a few noteworthy experiences:
(1) Even though I'm booked on the flight, they tell me at check-in that they are doing "everything they can" to ensure I'm on the flight. This means my pleasant request for an exit row is denied. I end up with a boarding pass in my hand and am happy to not be inconvenienced.
(2) Next its through security/passport handling. The security line I'm in conveniently deposits me into the Diplomat line. As I'm walking up to the window, the woman starts waving me away and saying "You must join the queue to your left." I then flash my Diplomatic passport and the next two minutes result in about 101 apologies from this woman for mistaking my Diplomat status. Her last comment to me: "Can you get me a job at your Embassy?" Hmmm.
(3) As I am boarding the plane, the ticket handler scrutinizes my boarding pass. Next thing I know he's taking a pen and scratching up my boarding pass. He then hands it to me and says "2D." HECK YES! AN UPGRADE!!! I don't know why or how (I'm guessing my miles status on either Delta or South African air) but I'm relieved.

Ah, business class. I love upgrades. I love them even more on South African air, with their large cushy seats and attentive service. I enjoyed champagne and a fabulous grilled fish meal with - real silverware! Will has always thought it was lame that they took real silverware off the airlines - its how the passengers of Flight 93 was brought down in Pennsylvania! It was nice to have such a comfortable flight and be fed so well.

Our arrival in Lusaka was fabulous. Again, I breezed through passport control with my Diplomat status - what a bonus! Our luggage arrived quickly and we met up with our driver. In 3.5 years, Lusaka has changed A LOT. Mostly it appears that they've added a bunch of new restaurants and stores. All in all, its nice!

The hotel I am staying at has also changed dramatically. When I stayed here before, my room was a throwback to the 1970s, complete with a very dated photo of a giraffe and slow dial-up Internet. Now my room is resplendent in muted beige and blue with wireless internet, a flat screen TV (with movie and TV show channels! I'm watching Samantha Who right now!), and a cushy bed with fantastic sheets. Even the menu has radically changed in the hotel.

Tomorrow I'm headed to Livingstone (read: Victoria Falls) to meet with a few partners, including one brand new partner so that's exciting. We should have enough time to go see the Falls - keep your fingers crossed for good weather. Its rainy season so its going to be really different seeing the falls now then when I saw them in December. Yes, I'll take pictures if its not too wet!

facts

2009-01-28T18:14:00.004+02:00

Fact: I open birthday presents early. I was a good girl when it came to Christmas presents, but with birthday presents, not so much. As they come in, I'm opening them right up, primarily because I will actually be in Uganda on my birthday and I don't want to wait until I get back to open them. So here is where I say I have received the most thoughtful, considerate gifts ever! I am so thankful for my friends and for the reminder that people are thinking of us back home. The formal thank you's will be dropped in the mail ASAP, but the formal shout-out was definitely in order for one of the best care packages I have received yet.

Fact: I am now 28 (according to my WiiFit). Heck yes for losing 14 years off my age and being what I'm supposed to be!

Fact: Will said my mac & cheese is gourmet. Coming from my husband, this is a HUGE deal, as I believe him to be one of the best cooks ever. We had our Southern BBQ on Saturday and it was an absolute success. We introduced 20 people to the beauty of fried okra and oh man, did it taste like home. The corn souffle recipe (I didn't use cheese in mine) was an absolute hit - it was the first thing to be entirely eaten up. The recipe was easy to prepare and bake - I highly suggest it! I did my macaroni and cheese differently this time as I made more of a roux for the noodles and then used goat milk pecorino cheese, white cheddar cheese, white gouda, and a liberal amount of white pepper. I was absolutely delish and I was very happy.

Fact: I need a shot to go to Zambia and Uganda. Apparently there is a meningitis outbreak in both Zambia and Uganda and I have to get a big ol' shot before I leave. Most of you know that I have every other vaccine possible so this shot will mean that I have all the shots needed for traveling. Crazy huh?

Fact: I finally got to Jo'burg. Yes, I've lived here for almost 6 months and just made it to Jo'burg last weekend. Beth and I visited the Apartheid Museum. The museum was very information and similar to the kind of experience you would receive from visiting the Holocaust museum. You feel terrible afterwards knowing that people suffered and died unnecessarily in this world. I'm glad I went as I think its helpful to understand the history of the country I live in and would recommend it to future visitors. When I return, I think I'll get a tour guide to help me understand things even better. Jo'burg on the whole was not what I expected. It looks a lot like Pretoria - I'm not really sure what I was expecting. The downtown doesn't appear to be as modern as I thought that it was, but it is quite large.

Fact: I like The Sopranos. So I was one of those people who missed out on the Sopranos hype when it was on air, primarily because I haven't had HBO since I lived at home. It just never seemed to be the type of show I would be interested in. As I have fallen in love watching TV shows on DVD, I wonder what else I've missed (Six Feet Under, Curb Your Enthusiasm, 30 Rock, etc.)... suggestions?

Fact: Muddy can retrieve things off the bottom of the pool. Have I ever mentioned that Muddy is part submarine? He loves to spend hours retrieving his red ball off the bottom of the pool. Its great exercise for him and its really cute too. One day I will take a picture...

Fact: I'll be out of town for two weeks starting Sunday. I'll be in Zambia for a week and then Uganda for a week. Expect more posts while I'm away! I'm excited to return to Zambia as I haven't been back in 3.5 years. I know some of the staff is the same so I am really looking forward to the familiar faces. Will is joining me in Uganda and we are planning to raft the Nile. Wish me luck!

Time to BBQ.

2009-01-21T11:20:00.003+02:00

We'll be here officially 6 months on February 1. Time has truly flown by! We realized its been a very long time since we've had true southern food so we're throwing a Southern shindig on Saturday and looking forward to it!

The proposed menu!

BBQ meats (I'm sure traditional bbq on the bone plus pulled meat for a bun)
Homemade BBQ sauce
Fried okra
Hushpuppies
Corn souffle (going to try this recipe and attempt to make creamed corn from scratch since its not sold here)
Baked beans
Gallons and gallons of sweet tea

Guests are bringing healthy appetizers and sides since the menu we're providing is pretty rich and unhealthy, but oh man, so yummy.

Next month is quite the travel month. I'll be in Zambia and Uganda, spending a week in each country. Will is going to join me in Uganda, which I'm happy about as I wasn't looking forward to turning 28 in a foreign country by myself. We're thinking of rafting the "Mighty Whitey Nile" and going to see chimps and gorillas. Excited? Heck yes.

Cape Town pics...

2009-01-16T10:56:00.003+02:00

The post under Kitchen Creations holds "Cape Town Pics, Part one!" so scroll down if you want to see some fabulous photos. More pics to come once our home internet becomes more reliable...

Kitchen creations

2009-01-09T11:45:00.003+02:00

Will and I have had some major kitchen success as of late. We've perfected our ostrich spaghetti, homemade guacamole, ostrich burgers, and tortilla pizzas.

On Sunday, we had our friends Adam and Beth over for dinner to see Christy and Steph before they left for the states. When thinking about what we'd make for dinner, I suggested shrimp and grits, one of my favorite meals from back home. Will agreed and I got online and searched for just the right recipe. I ended up printing off 8 different recipes and tried to figure out the common links between them. In the end, Will made his shrimp and grits how he felt like doing so I had to get him to write down ingredients so we can recreate his masterpiece down the road. In the end, it was seriously the best shrimp and grits I've ever had. Will made a terrific roux for the shrimp and the greats were perfectly creamy, cheesy, and garlicky. YUM.

Last night I decided to try making indian food at home. Woolworth's sells spice kits for all sorts of different indian food. All you get are the spices and the matching recipe - the rest is up to you. I picked up dal makhani, butter chicken, and lamb rojgan josh. Will and I have cheated at indian food before, using premade kits and frozen naan from Trader Joe's (although I must give Will props and say that with spices, he can make some fantastic indian tandoori meats). We've always been pleased with the results so we thought we'd try again, just this time, more from scratch. I prefer making something from scratch than eating premade goop that you heat up in a bag anyway.

Since we couldn't find naan in the store yesterday, I decided to make it using this recipe. I didn't grill it; instead, we baked it in the oven. My naan came out quite thick and too sweet (1/4 cup of a sugar is too much, IMHO). It doesn't taste bad at all; in fact, its almost like a yeast roll, just flat. Next time I will try this recipe and see if its better (although I will probably still bake it instead of fry it).

The dal makhani was fantastic! At first I was really worried when I added the tomatoes/onions to the lentils - it just looked funky. However, when I added a small amount of cream and simmered it - tada! It turned perfect. It definitely didn't lack in flavor, but its spice temperature was very mild so I kicked mine up a notch with sriracha. I'm not sure how I could make it hotter without adding red chili flakes. I'll have to think on it. Hmmm.

The butter chicken was absolute heaven. I thought it was just as good as you could get in a restaurant. Again, while spicy, it was not hot (does that make sense? I'm saying it was flavorful, but very mild heat). I felt the sriracha would change the flavor too much so I just ate it as was. I didn't do anything to the chicken before simmering it in the sauce - maybe next time I will marinate in yogurt and spices. I also didn't add the crushed cashews that were in the recipe - to be honest, I just forgot until now! ooops! But to be honest, I think it was just fine as it was and nuts would just add extra calories so its probably just as well that they were left out (save the cashews for a snack!).

I didn't cook the brown basmati rice long enough. Ooops. I was tickled to find brown basmati rice in the grocery store. How nice! I like it better than traditional brown rice. yay!

All in all, I would say it was a successful meal. Indian food is one of my favorite things, but its one of the more expensive types of cuisine here so to be able to make it at home saves some dollars and results in awesome leftovers. I think we're going to have that dal for at least another week - it made so much! You can bet that these kits will be in my shipment back home!

Cape Town pics, part 1

2009-01-07T18:15:00.007+02:00

On the very private Diaz Beach at the Cape of Good Hope

A-mazing.

One of my many attempts to catch the waves breaking on the rocks. This one is okay...

The very massive and steep 90 degree angle sand dune we had to climb down to get to Diaz Beach.

The very very steep and long climb up the mountain (after climbing up the sand dune) to get back to the top of the mountain. Notice - no hand rails!

The steep way down to the bottom - view from the top! Stairs plus sand dune = beautiful beach time!

View from the top (Diaz Beach is behind us on the right)

We walked all the way from where we were down to that private beach. Very worth it but quite the work out!

Cape of Good Hope - where the Atlantic meets the Indian Ocean!

You can barely see the white lighthouse at Cape Point...

Will and Steph pose at Fair View winery.

A happy goat in the top of his tower at Fair View!

Just for mom and dad: a picture of flowers AND birds at the top of Table Mountain!

It was so cloudy when we went up to Table Mountain, but oh so fabulous!

Cloudy times at the top of Table Mountain

More Christmas pictures!

2009-01-07T15:51:00.006+02:00

The sweet sweet grandmas. We found out they want to throw us an anniversary party with lots of singing and dancing! Can't wait!

These little guys were so cute trying to figure out the Christmas crackers!

Cute! A crown from the Christmas cracker (and yes, a WWF tshirt)

Will being Santa and Maria at the mic and all the bags we organized and tied up to give out!

These kids loved the bouncy castle!

Maria's daughter LOVES my sunglasses.

Me and Maria!

My favorite painting from Tanzania that I had framed here plus our family photos!

Our Christmas tree - it turned out to be quite a UGA tree!

"The stockings were hung by the bar with care..."

*Check out the zebra rug in the background!*

My favorite nativity scene: made of banana leaves and from Tanzania!

Thanks Stephanie!

All of my nativity scenes - 4 in total!

Pictures from Christmas!

2009-01-05T13:30:00.005+02:00

Will and I with the cute kids!

The sweet sweet grandmas

Standing outside Maria's house

With Maria, giving our unprepared speech to everyone

1/3 of the audience. Wowza.

Heidi, Bryan, Dyad, Will, and Valerie with the sweet kids!

These little kids love soda and biscuits!

Have you ever seen such a huge tub of rice or bowl of pap? Huge!

Me with a sweet little baby from Eesterust. She fell asleep in my lap and snored! This is yet another section of the group under the tent. So many people!

Cape Town, part three!

2009-01-05T11:27:00.004+02:00

Is one week in Cape Town enough? I think not. All this trip did was solidify that it is one of my favorite places. I just adore it!

Here's the rundown (with lots of links for me to remember places to go next time!):
We stayed at a really inexpensive self-catering guest house in the central business district of Cape Town. $80/night for a two bedroom apartment? Awesome! Better yet that it was within walking distance of the Company Gardens and lots of great restaurants and shops.

On Monday we drove to Paarl/Franschhoek because the rather was cold and rainy. Based on recommendations, we went to Fairview, which may be my favorite winery just because they have yummy wine, fabulous cheese, and funny goats that climb on a tower! Afterwards we went to Graham Beck and I had a fantastic sparkling wine sampler. We drove into town, which is set against the mountains and full of great shops and restaurants. Based on yet another recommendation, we ate at French Connection, which was super yummy. We shopped around for awhile (my lone souvenir is a turquoise leather fly swatter!) and then headed to Lindhorst, which had fantastic wine. We headed back to Cape Town and walked around Long Street and decided to eat at Maharajah, an indian restaurant that lacked in atmosphere but made up in yummy food.

Tuesday we headed to the Cape of Good Hope, which was AMAZING! The drive down the coast line was beautiful and we passed through all sorts of fun towns. At the Cape, we decided to take the walk and went down a rickity boardwalk and stairs and an extremely steep sand dune to get to Diaz Beach. It was fantastic exercise and well worth the excellent views. I really loved the Cape of Good Hope and would love to spend more time there. Its the southernmost point of the African continent and is also where the Atlantic and Indian oceans meet.

Afterwards, we ate lunch in Kalk Bay at Cafe Olympia, which was FANTASTIC. That evening we attempted Table Mountain, but found it had closed due to windy weather. We sat in traffic to get there for well over an hour! Yuck. We headed back to the V&A waterfront and ate at Balducci's, which was disappointing as we all wanted sushi and for whatever reason, you had to sit in a different part of the restaurant to order it. Bummer!

Wednesday was New Year's Eve. We headed to the V&A Waterfront and took a boat ride out to Robben Island, where we could see the prison and the ships wrecked along the shore. We also saw seals, dolphins, and one whale on the ride. It was very relaxing and fun! We ate lunch at the waterfront and people watched for awhile. That evening we headed to Long Street and spent New Year's Eve at an Irish Pub called the Dubliner. It was a very different new year's for me as I never even heard a count down from where I stood upstairs looking out at the street - just people cheering at midnight!

On New Year's Day we went to an alpine slide that was fun! We also drove around town, taking in Constantia, Hout Boy, and Camp's Bay. For dinner we went to my favorite restaurant in South Africa - 95 Keerom. YUM. We had fantastic fish carpaccio, I had the yummy canneloni again, Will and Christy had delicious gorgonzola gnocchi (YUM!), Steph had fab ravioli, and Will had an amazing trio of game meats (Springbok, Kudu, and Wildebeest). Dessert was amazing too! It was all so yummy and definitely ranked in one of my top 10 dining experiences of all time. The best part? It is SO INEXPENSIVE! We had top quality wine, appetizers, pastas, main courses, and dessert for $45 each.

Friday we visited Stellenbosch, another wine region in the Western Cape. We started off at Spier, which is a huge winery and conference center. They even had a cheetah reserve! Next we had a fabulous wine and treat pairing at Lanzerac, which was fantastic. The grounds of the winery and hotel were absolutely stunning. We quickly ate lunch and headed to Neil Ellis, another stunning winery. The finale was Waterford, where we had 11 wines to taste plus a chocolate pairing. There was an indian spiced dark chocolate, a dark chocolate made with rock salt, and a milk chocolate made to taste like roses. I like the first two chocolates but the last was terrible! It was like eating soap. Based on multiple recommendations, we tried out Bukhara Indian restaurant. We sat outside on their 2nd floor patio and had an amazing meal! The perfect end to a day of wine tasting.

Saturday we went shopping at Green Market Square, ate FANTASTIC burgers at Cafe Royale, and went up to Table Mountain, which was finally clear (although a bit cloudy when we got up there).

All in all, it was a fabulous trip filled with good times, yummy wine and food, and fantastic scenery. Pictures to come soon!

weird.

2008-12-23T18:46:00.000+02:00

anyone know how to fix it so I can upload pictures? My handy toolbar is missing and I can't find any place to upload pictures for you. Help?

Eesterust!

2008-12-23T11:14:00.004+02:00

We had such a fantastic time visiting Maria's community on Saturday. Maria, our housekeeper, and Victor, our gardener, both live in this community. Maria is essentially the leader of the community. She takes care of all the orphans, including those living with HIV, as well as the women who are living with HIV. Even though she doesn't have much, she gives them food and cares for them. She listens to their problems and provides advice. She is so selfless - I find her to be one of the most amazing people I know.

So back to why we went to Eesterust, which is located about 45+ minutes outside of Pretoria (for the record, it takes Maria and Victor about 2 hours to reach our house by taxi and bus. YIKES.). My coworkers, Heidi and Bryan, have had Maria working in their home for the past two years. Last year, Heidi and Bryan went to Eesterust and brought Christmas to the orphans in the community. There were about 20+ people there and they gathered in someone's house to celebrate the holiday. Maria asked Will and I if we would like to celebrate with them this year and we said absolutely. We consider Maria and Victor to be our South African family so we definitely wanted to celebrate the holidays with them.

A couple weeks ago, Heidi and I went to the South African version of Sam's and loaded up on staples such as flour, maize meal, rice, beans, cooking oil, tea, sugar, and salt and got a couple pull-aparts and soccer balls. We made 40 bags consisting of these items - 35 of them going to the children and 5 going to some women that are battling HIV and aren't doing very well on the medicine. Dyad, another coworker of mine, wanted to participate as well so he bought some art supplies for the kids. We divvied up the loot and brought it with us to Eesterust.

We were SHOCKED when we arrived! There were two huge carnival tents filled with what I think had to be at least 150 people, if not 200. We came in and everyone cheered! We sat down in the front and Maria called us all up to the microphone to say something to the crowd while she translated. We all got tears in our eyes as we thanked this wonderful community for allowing us to be a part of their family during the holidays since we were all so far away from ours. Maria mentioned that it was our first Christmas as a married couple, which resulted in an immediate "AY-YI-YI-YI-YI-YI-YI!" victory cheer from the grandmas and next thing I know, Will and I were swept up into a wedding celebration song with all the grandmas dancing around us. FUN.

After speeches, we got all the gifts together, Will donned a santa hat and gave them out to the kids. Most of the grandmas accepted the presents on behalf of the children, which was so sweet. The kids loved their pull aparts, which came with paper hats that they put on (see picture below). We served food to the group - I thought the line would never end! I scooped up rice and pap (like sticky grits) and just sweated in the 100+ degree heat as I got a facial from the steaming rice. Then it was time for the jumping castle. I have never seen so many kids descend on a jumping castle before! It was so funny. We passed out coke and fanta - you would have thought we were passing out $100 bills or something the way the kids went crazy for this stuff! And then we just played with the kids. The little girls were so cute. I tried to teach them the electric slide, which, without music, is pretty funny, but we just laughed and giggled the whole time. They loved playing with my sunglasses and checking out my freckles (which they found out, don't wipe off).

All in all, we had an amazing time and can't wait to return to spend time with these wonderful people. The grandmas are hilarious and the kids are so much fun. Its amazing to see how little they have and how happy they are.

Maria is in the process of setting up a formal orphanage for all the children. Right now, she is in the process of buying the land. Once its purchased, Will, Heidi, Bryan, and I will go back to help build and paint the orphanage. I took so many pictures on Saturday that I am going to get some 8x10 copies to frame to hang in the orphange once its ready as a surprise to Maria. I can't wait to see this dream of Maria's realized and want to help as much as I can.

So, in sum, if this a cause you'd like to help with, please let me know. Look at the faces below and the area where they live. They could use so much, whether its stopping at the dollar store and getting little toys or school supplies to give to the kids, to go to Kroger and buy a box of ramen noodles to send over, to buy gloves/hats/socks that are bound to go on clearance soon to send during the winter time so they can keep warm during the night, to write letters to individual kids to let them know that there are people thinking of them and loving them from very far away, or to even make a small donation to give to Maria to help her purchase the space and the supplies she'll need to build the orpanage... there are so many ways you can help this beautiful community. Just let me know.

Its Christmas knickerknocker and we're going to make sausage balls. Hopefully they will turn out as yummy as my parents and Will's parents... wish us luck! We pick up Christy and Steph from Jo'burg tomorrow and plan to launch into cookie baking mode, complete with Christmas music and movies. We've been invited to a Christmas Eve party at the Australian high commission - its a party for all of us who are still in country and not with our families - should be fun! Christmas Day we plan to wake up, open gifts, eat breakfast, and then head to Jo'burg to spend time at Child Haven, where Christy and Steph have been during the month of December (see those cute kiddies by going to "neema.imani.penda" listed in our favorite links at the right of this post!).

Its surreal to not be with our families and to be in crazy hot weather at Christmas (so hot we've been in our pool every day!), but we feel really blessed this holiday to be with people we care about and to be serving others. We miss everyone so much and hope that you all have a wonderful holiday.

*NOTE: Hmmm. For some reason its not letting me upload photos! I will figure it out and post them in a new post as soon as I can!*

Hmmm.

2008-12-15T16:23:00.002+02:00

Its funny what you find yourself thinking about over here. I have now come to realize what its like to want something you can't possibly have for two years. While People Magazine, banana peppers, real mexican food (I miss cheese dip!), TV commercials (seriously - I never see them anymore!), radio stations that play Christmas music 24/7, running clubs (the only one here drinks beer at their water stops...), and even cold Christmas weather top the list of wants and can't haves, there's one thing that keeps coming up in my thoughts over and over:

Papa John's garlic sauce.

Yes, that's right. GARLIC SAUCE. The one that comes in the corner of box next to the little pepperocini. For some reason, while I would L-O-V-E to have some Papa John's pizza, I really really want that little thing of sauce. Its weird what you want when you can't have it.

Sick in SA.

2008-12-11T19:55:00.006+02:00

*blah* This is my first time being sick in South Africa (barring my two fantastically horrific food poisoning episodes - I'd like to forget about those) and I gotta say - its stinks to be sick at Christmas and it stinks to be sick in 100 degree heat. It stinks even more to have to get dressed and walk through the Embassy to get to the med unit to see a doctor - I don't know about you, but its hard to be sociable when you feel puny. Anyway. I've spent the better part of my day camped out on the sofa watching girly movies and snuggling Muddy.

So what have we been up to? I guess we've been pretty boring lately. So boring we forgot the SEC championship was last week. Will looked at me in horror and said, "Did I just forget about FOOTBALL?"

We've painted our downstairs, finally framed my art from Tanzania and hung it on the walls, bought potted plants for the house and patio, planted a bank of hydrangea, and even decorated for Christmas. We have a red tree with UGA ornaments. It was news to us that people here don't get real trees. We went to the plant store to look at trees and the ones they had made the Charlie Brown tree look like a 8 ft. Frasier fir tree. Seriously.

I guess our exciting stuff is coming up. In two weeks, we head to Cape Town with Steph and Christy for a week's vacation. We'll celebrate New Year's there - exciting!

Next weekend we are going to my housekeeper's township and handing out food and toys to the children there. Maria is like the mama of the town. Everyone comes to her for care and advice. Sadly, there are lots of child-led families (i.e. families where the parents have died of HIV/AIDS and the oldest sibling raises the younger ones) as well as families that don't have much to give to their kids so Will and I are going with our friends Heidi and Brian (who also have Maria as their housekeeper) to bring Christmas to these needy families. We're taking flour, beans, rice, sugar, salt, cooking oil, candy, tea, writing pens, soccer balls, and some pull-aparts to give out. I don't have any gift bags so we're going to use grocery bags, but I have lots of ribbon to dress them up with. We're going to have a little party there with cookies and balloons and Will is going to dress up as "Father Christmas." I am really looking forward to it and think it will be really fun. Pictures to follow!

I've already suggested to Heidi that we go back in the winter time and take things like small first aid kits, ramen noodles, knit hats, socks, etc. If you'd like to contribute to this cause, be on the lookout for winter things when they go on clearance at the end of the season (or in the $1 spot at Target) and send 'em my way. We bought enough to give things out to 30 families.

And one more note: I can't believe it but I've written over 90 Christmas cards to send back to the states! Unfortunately, my stamps haven't arrived yet so please forgive me if you get your Christmas card at New Year's. I was thinking of you long before but -sigh- the barriers of being halfway across the world!

And, as promised, Marine Ball photos!

Christy, Steph, Will, and Valerie

Beth and Valerie

Beth and her husband Adam

Valerie and Steph

Closing November.

2008-11-30T20:45:00.001+02:00

I can't believe its November 30 already. This means that it was just 4 months ago that I was eating at Maggiano's with my family, enjoying my last night in the US. I can't believe 4 months have flown by so quickly and that I'm 1/8th of a way through our time here. To say that we've loved it here would be a major understatement - I guess that's why time flies by so quickly!

It also means December is almost here! I've already started my addiction to Christmas music (p.s. Harry Connick Jr. and Tony Bennett both have new Christmas CDs out this year which are FANTASTIC!). We're getting our house painted tomorrow (no more cream walls!) and once the paint is dry, we will put up our Christmas decorations. I can't wait! Will has agreed to be Father Christmas for when we go visit our housekeeper's town. We're going to give gifts to the orphans she takes care of there. We're excited about it. It also means I need to get started on my Christmas cards...

Thanksgiving went super well. Will made the best turkey on our Big Green Egg - it was amazing! We had traditional cornbread dressing, mac & cheese, and green beans for sides (we realized no mashed potatoes, but oh well!). Steph made a derby pie and I attempted a pumpkin swirl cheesecake, which came out a-mazing if I do say so myself. All in all, it was a low-key Thanksgiving and we were thankful to spend our first Thanksgiving as a married couple with family and friends.

On a side note, have I mentioned the pumpkins here are white and the sweet potatoes are purple on the outside and white inside? Weird!

Last night was the Marine Ball here in Pretoria. We had so much fun getting dressed up and dancing the night away! Pictures soon...

Cape Town, part deux.

2008-11-19T22:22:00.007+02:00

This is my second trip to Cape Town. In November. Its true.

As I boarded the plane and patted the plane my "for good luck" two times on the right side (so what, its my thing), I wondered, "How many times have I flown?" And I realized, I may have traveled a lot. Whether it be a flight to D.C., NYC, Florida, Alaska, California, Texas, Wyoming, Egypt, Tanzania, Zambia, or South Africa (to name a few), I've flown more times than I can count. And this, my friends, was the first time I've ever flown for business and managed to pack everything (including a laptop!) in my carry-on suitcase. Wooohooo.

I'm here to speak at a Youth Prevention conference, which I have always thought is an interesting name for a conference. They mean HIV prevention in youth, yet it sounds a lot more like they want to prevent youth in the first place. Anyway.

I'm staying somewhere completely different than the V&A. Let me just say that everything about this place makes me crave the V&A. I may be on the beach, but the view from my room is of another building, I sleep in a twin bed in an extremely boring beige room, I'm at least 10km away from actual Cape Town (i.e. I'm in the middle of nowhere on the beach), and there is sand on the desk where I sit my laptop. I had to pay for my internet and did I mention everything in this hotel is beige??? The only good thing about this trip is finally being a good sister and taking a picture with "flat Christopher" on behalf of my sister's students' project (like Flat Stanley).

See here:
Yes, that's me holding up flat Christopher to the back drop of Table Mountain and Lion's Head. And yes, its very windy in Cape Town, in case I never mentioned it before.

Luckily, Katherine and Heidi, two of my friends from work, are here this week for training so I went out to dinner with them both nights. Last night we went to Andiamo at Cape Quarter and had a fab time and tonight we went to Caveau Wine Bar and Deli for some before dinner drinks and apps (WONDERFUL!) and the 95 Keerom for dinner. Everything is "small plates" and I had fabulous porcini mushroom linguine, canneloni, and creme brulee with fresh berries. Yum. Yum. YUM.

That's really it from here. Just wanted to log the most recent trip to Cape Town, albeit short, but good.

And what would a Cape Town post be without a fantabulous picture from the top of Table Mountain of Mr. Will and myself? Here we are, enjoying fabulous J.C. Le Roux champagne at sunset on the top of Table Mountain, Everyone should take the opportunity to enjoy the view from this mountain as you will see other fabulous craggy mountains, oceans, and a glittering city below.

Cape Town ate my curlers

2008-11-11T10:11:00.007+02:00

That's really the only negative thing I have to say about Cape Town. Granted, I've had these hot rollers for about 5+ years so its quite possible that they were on their last leg anyway and decided to ka-put while in one of the most marvelous places in the world, but who knows. They're gone and I just ordered more off amazon.com (I love Amazon Prime!).

So here's my Cape Town weekend re-cap:

On Friday night, I met up with Will and we had a drink on the V&A waterfront, where it was chilly but fun to sit outside and watch the boats come in to dock. Afterwards, we went to the Whisky Festival, which was really fun. It was all types of whisky - blended, single malt scotch, Jack Daniels, and even Bailey's. Will stumbled across at least two new single malt scotch brands that he really liked (BenRiach and one more...) and I tried quite a few single malts, only finding a few that I could say "That's nice" after a very small sip. At the end of the evening, I walked out with a big bottle of Bailey's (a gift to the ladies in attendance) and Will and I decided to eat Italian on the waterfront.

Saturday we woke up and enjoyed the extensive breakfast included in the hotel rate. It is a-mazing. It is a huge breakfast buffet of fruits (raspberries - yum!), pastries, deli meats (SALAMI!), cereals, and all sorts of juices (strawberry! mango! guava! pineapple!). In addition to the buffet, you order off the menu so you can get eggs, omelettes, french toast, etc. Every morning I got a fried egg with bacon and potatoes (my fave breakfast), which meant if I ate late enough, there was no need to eat lunch. Good planning, huh?

Beth and Adam were also in Cape Town for the Marine ball so on Saturday and Sunday we spent time with them. We were all set to go on a whale watching tour, but due to the extreme windy weather and the whales leaving Cape Town, we decided to skip it in favor of the wineries in Franschhoek. We visited 4 wineries (Chamonix, Dieu Donne, Grande Provence, and Franschhoek Cellar) with the most expensive tasting costing $2.50/person.

Reviews!
Franschhoek Cellar: Our first visit. An amazing space and nice tasting room. The most expensive at R25/person (about $2.50) for 6 wines (3 white, 3 red). All the wines in the tasting room were on sale for about R10 ($1!) and the most expensive being R50 ($5). Unfortunately, we weren't big fans of the wine and didn't buy anything here except a magnet.

Per their recommendation, we went to Chamonix next, which is a great rustic wine farm with fantastic wines. Their tasting was R20/person for 5 wines, but they were all very very good.

Per their recommendation, we went up the road to Dieu Donne, which was amazing. Here it was R10/person for 5 wines and the cheese plate for 4 people was R120 ($12) so each of us enjoyed wine and cheese for the low price of $4/person. The wine was great, but the cheese was incredible. The platter had swiss, cheddar, feta, and mozzarella along with strawberries, tomatoes, cucumber, and other veggies. It also had two amazing cheeses - a soft farm cheese made with berries and then this AMAZING spring onion cream cheese that was heaven on earth. I'd drive back there just for the cheese. The best part about this winery is that you sit outside among these amazing mountains and its just so beautiful.

Per their recommendation, we made our last stop at Grande Provence, which is AMAZING. It reminded me a lot of Napa in terms of how the wine tasting room was set up and their food pairing. It was truly gourmet. Again, the tasting plus food pairing was R50/person and it was amazing stuff to eat with the wine. I loved it here. We bought enough wine to have it shipped back to Pretoria. We will definitely return here, potentially to stay a weekend to spend more time in wine country.

That evening, we attempted to go to Table Mountain, only to find gale force winds at the top (pics of that excursion soon). Instead, we went to Lion's Head and watched the sunset over the ocean. We then went to the beach and took some more windy pics.

For dinner, we attempted a place on the beach, but screaming babies and black colored tuna in the sushi made for a hasty departure. We then used one of my grantee's recommendations and went to Tank in Cape Quarter for amazing sushi. We really liked Cape Quarter as its this courtyard set up underneath this huge tree so you can sit outside and enjoy dinner under the stars but not along a busy street. The sushi was similar to what we'd have in the states. I'll admit it wasn't the best sushi I've ever had, but I liked the variety of the sushi rolls which you don't really find here. Plus it was fresh fish, which is sometimes hard to find in sushi places. Plus our total bill came out to $60, which for starters and about 8 rolls of sushi, is pretty incredible.

On Sunday, we decided on a late brunch and then walked down to the water front to do a speed boat tour along the coast of Cape Town. It was so fun, plus we saw dolphins, penguins, and seals in addition to getting an amazing view of Cape Town at 70mph. Afterwards, we hung out on the waterfront where a fun Irish festival was going on. Irish music, irish wolfhounds, irish dancers - what's not to love?

That evening, we decided to go to Table Mountain at sunset, which to our surprise, is a buy one-get one free event so it only cost Will and I $14 for a cable car trip up the mountain. At the top, we enjoyed champagne while watching the sunset. So incredibly beautiful - I can't wait to share pics! We also saw a guy wearing an Atlanta Braves jacket, which then resulted in us meeting a whole group of people from Atlanta. I asked if anyone had a Chick-fil-a chik'n biscuit in their pocket, but no one did. Boo. Ironically, these people attend the same church as Christy and Steph - what a small world! Anyway, Table Mountain at sunset is an absolute must. I just could not believe how amazing the view is from up there!

Afterwards, we headed back to Cape Quarter to eat at Andiamo, a great little outdoor italian restaurant. I got soup and spaghetti with meatballs and I must say - it was delicious! I have yet to have spaghetti and meatballs (or meat sauce for that matter) that was similar to what I'd get in the states and this was spot-on perfect. We'll be back. The best part? All 4 of us had soup and a main course plus wine and the total bill - with tip! - was $40. WOW. $10/person for an amazing dinner.

I must point out there is a Tapas place in Cape Quarter that has a spanish style menu so we may head back there to try their guacamole, nachos, and other spanish style food (chorizo! yum!).

All in all, I gotta say - Cape Town is amazing! It is so relaxing there plus I feel safer there than I do here in Pretoria (although I feel pretty safe in Pretoria). It seems less expensive than Pretoria too. I love the variety of activities and the beauty of the town and surrounding region. If I could move there, I would in a heartbeat.

When we come back, I think I will prefer to stay on the waterfront, especially in fall/winter, just because I felt like it was centrally located with plenty to do there without needing a car. Plus cabs were readily available and the hotel we stayed in was so nice and included a breakfast so good, you could take away the cost of breakfast and lunch from your budget. We're staying more downtown during the New Year, but now we know our way around town a bit and know that you can spend a great day entirely at the waterfront.

P.S. Domestic flights in South Africa don't have the crazy liquid rules, which means I carried my wine purchase onto the plane with me, no problem!

heck yes

2008-11-05T21:19:00.004+02:00

Welcome to Cape Town.

I am in LOVE with Cape Town. This may be my official favorite place on earth. I remember the first time someone told me about the fabulousness of Cape Town. I was in Zambia on safari and had made friends with an Australian couple at the lodge I was staying at. They said of anywhere on the planet where they had traveled (which was practically everywhere), Cape Town was their favorite place by a landslide and that I mustmustmust go there.

And here I am. And I can confirm - this place is AMAZING.

What's so great about it?

For starters, its stunningly beautiful. Amazing craggy mountains set against beautiful bays and coastal waters. I feel so silly I drive around town as I keep exclaiming, "That is so beautiful!" over and over. But it is. I can't help it.

Second, it is incredibly diverse. At any given point, I could close my eyes and open them and think I am in San Francisco, Florida, or even Zanzibar based on what it looks like to me. The people are also diverse - every culture is here, which is so nice to see. I just love it.

Third, I happen to be staying in an amazing place. My hotel is on the waterfront, which I happened to realize tonight is in a really spiffy location full of shops, restaurants, and of course, great views. And everything is CHEAP. Well, food at least. Albeit tonight I got "take away" Thai food, last night I ordered room service and the whole meal (I even got dessert) with tip cost less than $10. Find me a fancy hotel anywhere else in the world where you can get an entire yummy meal plus dessert plus tip delivered to your room for that price. Plus the bed sleeps like a dream and it has a fantastically awesome A/C. Me = happy.

In sum, get on a plane and come see me here!!!

The only downside is that I am here for work which means my days are filled to the brim with meetings, meetings, meetings. Its good though as I'm meeting lots of folks I've known over the phone/email for the past year. I love putting faces with names. Its a bit exhausting though. I spent the entire all-day meeting talking and/or answering questions. Very tiring. Lucky for me there's a fabulous spa with weekly specials that I decided to take advantage of this evening so I could relax!

I am staying through the weekend as I have meetings well into Monday so Will is joining me on Friday evening and will stay through the weekend with me which I am SUPER excited about. I almost don't want to explore any more than I already have because I want to experience this amazing place together.

Our plans for the weekend are quite loose as we'll be here again at the end of the year for a week and can plan that trip out as much as we want (wineries, Gordon's Bay, Robben Island, penguins, etc.). We really just want to get a feel for the town. On Friday night, we may go check out the Whiskey Festival being held at the Cape Town Convention Center. Why not? Its bound to be interesting... On Saturday we are going on a whale watching tour and I really hope we see some great white sharks. I have always been fascinated with great white sharks and the chance to see one from a boat, let alone a breaching great white, would be insanely awesome to me. I could seriously check off a life goal if we see one. On Sunday, weather permitting, we may head up to see Table Mountain. Its one of those things you gotta do on a clear day and if its cloudy, you might as well pass.

I would be remiss if I let the day pass by without mentioning the election. Its been interesting to live out an election overseas. I think the newspapers have interesting headlines here anyway, but they've been particularly amusing lately. Yesterday's said something to the effect of "Voter ambush feared" which is a funny thing to say, right? Today the town is plastered with Obama's face. Two of my taxi drivers yesterday sported Obama stickers and everyone wanted to know how I felt about the election. Its been interesting to hear their views and how they interpret what is going overseas back home.

This election and the upcoming South Africa election have the potential to make incredible impact upon my work so naturally all of my grantees are curious about what electing Obama as President means. If only I had a crystal ball, right? I think you could reasonably assume that he will support the HIV/AIDS initiative in Africa more than President Bush did while he's been in office (note to diminish in any way what President Bush did with PEPFAR and PEPFAR II, but I've always been of the belief that there could be so much more that we're doing here...). I'm not sure how much more, but I think my grantees can be assured that Obama won't take away PEPFAR II (which goes until 2013) - if anything, he'll either add more money to the initiative or expand it.

p.s. Just to add to the list of amusing acronyms Africans use not realizing what they are saying when they say them, someone asked me what I thought about GAS* today. Hmmmm.

*General Accounting Standards

some adventure

2008-11-03T17:43:00.002+02:00

I am ecstatic to announce that I am married to the South African chili champion! Woohoo! Okay, maybe not for all of South Africa, but Will entered a chili contest at the embassy for the Halloween contest... and won! When we showed up for the contest that was supposed to start at 5:30, we found out they couldn't wait to eat/start the contest, so they began at 4:00. When we arrived at 5:00ish, all of our chili was gone! And I mean ALL. Every one else still had chili left, but ours was scraped clean. Yay Will!

Saturday was a very disappointing and sad day for a Georgia fan.

Sunday Will and I hosted a birthday brunch for our friend Beth. Will figured out how to make breakfast sausage (this incorporated having spices sent to us from my parents plus Will placing a special order with the butcher for ground pork) and I must say - it was AMAZING. And it made the best breakfast casserole! We had such a fun time celebrating Beth and having yummy mimosas.

On Sunday afternoon, we drove to Magliesburg to combat my dislike of heights by doing a zip line tour! I was really scared at first and on my first time across, my gear was too tight and it hurt. I also lost my glove which resulted in me saying "helpmehelpmehelpme" as I pulled myself barehand on the steel cable. NOT FUN and resulted in surprisingly, only two blisters. By the third zip line, I finally was able to look around and enjoy my ride across as opposed to just being in absolute fear of not making it to the other end. Unfortunately, on the 6th ride across, I was sent too soon and faced with the choice of either knocking my husband off the platform on the side of the mountain or just myself crashing into said platform, I chose the latter, resulting in a massive bloody knot on my leg. Yuck. Overall, I had a great time and would do it again, just because I know I can. I love it when I do something I think I'm scared of and then do it anyway.

I leave in the morning for Cape Town and can't wait! More news from there soon...

lunch at the desk

2008-10-29T11:28:00.005+02:00

I must thank my fantastic hubby Will for my yummy lunch today - a sandwich with turkey and a really yummy tomato, an apple, and even Caramel Quakes (okay, that thanks goes to mom for sending the quakes, but still - Will put them in my lunch bag). Yay Will!

I've been really busy at work and at home lately so I apologize for the lack of updates. In great news, I can report that my sister-in-law Stephanie and our friend Christy have joined us in South Africa after spending three months in Tanzania at a baby hospital (see their story here). It is so nice to have family and friends here! We've really enjoyed their company.

Friday night we had a cookout to introduce Steph and Christy to our friends here. Ostrich burgers, guacamole, baked fries (in a cast iron skillet - works like a charm!), and other yummyness abounded. We enjoyed watching Steph's video of her rafting the "whitey mighty Nile" in Uganda - she rafted class 4 and 5 rapids! Crazy! But its an amazing video and the commentary is hi-larious.

Sunday we visited a new church, which I am really excited about. Hooray for Sunday evening services! Its a presbyterian church, but its def. not PCUSA. Regardless, we really liked the music, the message, and the people at the church. They were very welcoming and it felt like we made instant friends. They even gave us the names of other churches to try out, just to get a good fill of what the church community is like in this town. I am looking forward to returning soon.

Last night we had girls night! 8 of us met up at Cappucino's for dinner and then went to see Mamma Mia!, which I LOVED. Although I gotta admit, Pierce Brosnan is not the best singer ever... I couldn't really watch him without laughing. But all in all, GREAT movie.

Saturday we've found a place to watch UGA vs. Florida - WOOHOO!

Next week I go to Cape Town for work, which I am really excited about. I am meeting with lots of partners there so it will be fantastic to finally meet them! I will be gone for a week and on through the weekend and am really looking forward to seeing the town as everyone loves Cape Town!

Thanksgiving update: We've had some preliminary discussions pertaining to our Thanksgiving day wishlist. I got my November Real Simple yesterday and am so intrigued by this, I just bought pumpkin spice and pumpkin through net grocer (although I wonder - is the gelatin necessary?). I'm not sure if we'll be able to find a turkey or not, but let's hope!

more!

2008-10-19T12:52:00.004+02:00

Even though I uploaded these to the last post, somehow they didn't make it! Anyway, here are the pics* from the whole point to Will's birthday fishing trip!

Rainbow trout!

Bass!

Bass again.

Beautiful fishing hole in the mountains!

*please note that while it was kind of you to think that the author of this post was too busy with the camera to catch a fish like her hubs, it turns out all she was good at catching on this very windy day was algae and weeds. Ew. But to make myself feel better, here's proof I can catch a big fish, on a fly rod no less! (okay, so I caught a whitefish when we were fishing for trout, but still... it counts to me!)

picture mania

2008-10-19T10:36:00.009+02:00

Pictures taken from our recent stay at Dawson's Trout Lodge in Mpumalanga. We were the only guests there on Monday and were joined by two others late on Tuesday. We truly had the entire place to ourselves!

View from our room of the mountains and jacarandas

Beautiful!

View from the pool area of mountain range at sunset

Trying out "sunset" mode on my camera

Will said to take this shot...

Our bathroom (well, the tub anyway - there is also a huge shower)

Will loves poured cement sinks (that's our welcome drink on the counter)

Furry dead things cover the floors at every turn

Bedroom (with furry thing on the other side of the bed). Our room was really huge - I don't know why I didn't take more pics. It had a walk-in closet, mini-fridge, a window you could sit in and look out into your backyard, and as noted, a massive bathroom. VERY NICE, but it should be noted, while there was a fireplace, there was no A/C (but there was a fan, thank goodness!).

Outside our room (check out those jacarandas!)

Zebra in the distance...

Dawson's has two giraffes: Tom & Jerry

Yay giraffes!

Mr. Will fishes.

I think this is one of the first pics of me in Africa. Here I am with the Defender. Nice.

Waterbuck (these are ladies which is why they have no horns). Apparently they smell really bad and the other animals don't like to be around them. They also have a bullseye on their rear. Sad, huh?

Where we had breakfast and pre-dinner drinks

The main entrance to Dawson's

I love this tree and the cute little bicycle

The pool - much too cold to swim!

Pre-dinner drinks and the basket of dried fruit, biltong, and nuts

awesome.

2008-10-17T12:54:00.001+02:00

I'm saving my pennies to go here, maybe next fall!

Trout lodge pics coming soon...

***Just for my future reference, MTBeds listed the deal as $275/night per person for the luxury beach villa and $325/night per person for the infinity beach villa until October 31. Now the deal is $425/person for the luxury beach villa and $475 for the infinity until December 2 (2/12/08). Interesting....

...and we're off!

2008-10-12T23:45:00.003+02:00

We're headed out on our first African road trip in the morning! Woohoo! We'll be driving 190 miles away to Dawson's Trout Lodge to celebrate Mr. Will's birthday. I am really excited - we'll be hiking to a waterfall, going on a game drive, and of course, fishing. I'm looking forward to seeing more of the country, taking the Defender out on open road, and just enjoying what will hopefully be a 2nd honeymoon with the hubs.

Random note: Yesterday I decided I wanted to get a pair of chocolate mary jane crocs to wear while I work in the yard. We found a pair at a sporting store and I tried them on and was ready to get them until I looked at the price tag...

$60! For CROCS?!? Aren't they, at the absolute most, $30/pair back home?

It is so weird what is expensive here and what isn't!

photo mania!

2008-10-11T11:28:00.021+02:00

So this is predominantly a photo entry of pics from our yard, per request of Momma Brock. Enjoy!

We *think* this is a fig tree. I am not sure why I can't get a non-blurry shot of it...

Birds of paradise. YAY!

Strange red furry tree plant we bought for the empty corner of the yard, paired with red thorny flowery thingy and other red flowers....

Yellow roses! YAY!

Our back patio with the Big Green Egg.

Our Land Rover Defender: Will's pride and joy (note the purple jacaranda tree behind the vehicle)

The picture above is of the newly added plants to our back yard as well as Victor's flower beds that he created around each plant with the rocks pulled from our pool area. I think he did a great job. And yes, that's Muddy in the background playing with his ball.

Strange red thorny plant that I really like!

This is a view of our bedroom balcony. I must admit, not the best pic.

One part of our herb garden, specifically our basil and mint and geraniums. They are growing like crazy here!

Tomatoes! One is supposed to be cherry tomatoes and the other regular tomatoes. We'll see.

Another view of the Defender

My Lantana that Victor helped me bring back to life after I mercilessly killed it. That's also a lavender plant on the right - we'll see if it takes.

My daisies, now slightly dead, but am hopeful will bring back to life and that they will spread...

Sanford says Hi.

Our office, where I'm sitting right now. Not the hugest room, but we like it.

Muddy says Hi.

Our guest room that is supposed to be our UGA room, once we get pics hung. Its different now that they brought two more twin beds so this bed has been turned into a king and the other twin is in Will's "man den." Please note that at present, we do not own any twin or king sheets and that we have company coming in less than two weeks. Ouch. We also don't know what on earth to do with the white desk in this picture, but will hopefully think up something soon as it is quite awkward here. Hmmm.

random facts

2008-10-09T17:47:00.003+02:00

Our internet is still out at home. Quote: "The new router will arrive today. If not today, then tomorrow." The router did not arrive today. sigh.

The Rand stands at R9 to the $1. That's the most its been since I've been here. When I first arrived in August, it stood at R7.5 to the $1. We bought the car at R8.2 = $1. Now R9 = $1. May I just say, WOW?

Since the Rand is so high, we ate at Ritrovo two nights in a row. Heck yes.

I am getting used to eating prawns with their heads on, but only if their bodies are already butterflied. Prawns are so big, it is kind of like eating a shrimp steak. I had prawns diablo last night at Ritrovo, which was served in a really spicy tomato sauce over parmesan risotto. YUM. To get an idea of what my meal looked like last night, go here.

I'm in love with this.

I just ate all my jalapeno cheddar GoldFish and there are no more now. Isn't it strange to live somewhere unfamiliar with GoldFish?

We are thinking we may go to Hartbeespoort Dam this weekend to peek around, shop, and maybe visit the Elephant Sanctuary.

On Monday, Will and I will travel east to stay here for Will's birthday. Trout fishing, hiking, and other fun awaits for a nice holiday away. Me = can't wait!

Read!

2008-10-08T18:42:00.003+02:00

What is your favorite book?

I find that I have more free time than I used to have to read, which is so great. I've gotten some great suggestions from friends, but am looking for even more, including if there are any inexpensive ways to get books through the mail other than half.com.

Ideas?

weekend.

2008-10-06T12:56:00.004+02:00

Our internet is out at home for unexplained reasons, which means my contact with you folks has been nil for the past few days.

We chose to get our internet through a separate provider than our phone service, Telkom, who only offers plans up to 3GB/month. Since we have the Slingbox, we knew we'd need much more than 3GB to download TV shows so we also use SAOL to get 10GB/month.

What this really means is - everyone blames everyone else when there's a problem. Luckily, we've been able to identify that the problem is the ADSL line provided by Telkom, not the equipment provided by SAOL, but yeeesh, what an absolute nightmare.

So, in sum, the truth is that all the pretty pictures I've snapped for you folks will take that much longer to post here. Boo! It will be worth it to see the snap of the 1970s dining hutch at least.

Friday night we decided to go see the Blue Bulls play rugby. It was their last game of the season and unfortunately, the first time it has rained since we've been here, which meant we sat in a pub and watched the game as opposed to actually paying the money to stand in the rain to watch a sport we don't understand. I think a wise choice, don't you? By the way, I think this is quite interesting. It almost makes the Dallas cowgirls look like innocent school girls... there was seriously a strip tease before the game started in the center of the field. Maybe its Dallas Cowgirls meets Coyote Ugly meets Striptease?

Saturday I got my hair cut and am happy to report, it looks pretty good. I thought about getting my hair colored, but then got nervous and bailed out for fear of having skunk-like highlights reminiscent of the crazy hair here. So... another time.

We decided to stay in on Saturday night and make spaghetti. Dyad came over for dinner and claimed it was the best salad and spaghetti he's ever had and he still liked it after we told him it was ostrich spaghetti. Heck yes. It was so nice to cook in my Le Creuset pot too. Yay!

Sunday was even lazier as we stayed in all day, reading and watching movies. I can report that I had no idea how different the Bridget Jones books are from the movies, but moly! They are quite different. I think I can safely say that this is an exception to the "book is always better than the movie" rule as I truly like the Bridget Jones movies better, especially The Edge of Reason. Actually, Sex and the City is a truly horrible book and the TV series/movie fantastic-o.

Fast food!

2008-10-03T10:00:00.004+02:00

I miss Chick-fil-a. I knew I would, but I really really do. Sweet tea, chicken biscuits, chik'n minis, even the spicy cool wrap. Yum.

In South Africa, there are three American fast food chains:
(1) McDonald's
(2) KFC
(3) Subway

To date, I have eaten at all three, even though back home, I very rarely eat at any of them! But I must admit - it was nice to get a taste of home.

Subway was just okay - I was starving so I got the meatball sub, except it was super weird so I didn't even finish my sandwich. Subway is really far out of the way so I doubt I will go back any time soon. It just smelled funny in there. ew.

One of my coworkers brought me KFC one day when I had to work through lunch. He brought me the "streetwise combo" (I think its a funny name!) which was a chicken leg and wing and fries. I must admit - it was AWESOME. I rarely enjoy chicken on the bone, but they do something different to the KFC chicken here because it was heavenly. Will had to try it and he agreed - it really is spectacular here. I'm not how sure how often I'll ever eat here, but yum.

Will and I tried McDonald's this weekend. I like overseas McDonald's just to see how they are different. I must report they have "corn cups" which are literally little plastic cups filled with corn kernels. Weird. Check out the website above for the pic. They also have the "McFeast Deluxe" and the "Grilled Chicken Foldover" which looks crazy scary.

We got a 4 count of chicken nuggets to try (weird - not the same as back home), a big mac (for Will - I have still never tried one!), and a quarter pounder with cheese. The QPC was fantastic, but next time I must ask for it without ketchup as the ketchup here is terrible. Most importantly, the fries were heaven on earth. We won't eat like this very often, but its nice to know we can get a greasy taste of home when we feel like it.

It appears that they do have sausage biscuits for breakfast, albeit on an english muffin. It may be worth a try to see if its the same sausage from back home (I doubt it...). But ooh yum, it looks like they have breakfast hash browns.

Neither KFC nor McDonald's has biscuits, I am very sad to report. Boo.

Yesterday I had South African fast food. There are several to choose from, including Steers, Something Fishy (craziest name for a restaurant ever), and Wimpy. I haven't tried any of these. My co-worker brought me Nando's, which was pretty all right, especially for a hungry girl who worked through lunch. It was a grilled chicken sandwich with lettuce and tomato and fries. Thank goodness I keep packets of ketchup in my desk at work!

finally.

2008-10-01T13:25:00.007+02:00

Two months to the day, we finally received 7,200 pounds of our stuff.

To give some background, prior to moving here, we divided our stuff into three piles: storage, the 7,200 lb. sea shipment, and the 450 lb. air shipment. We were there when the movers came and we watched them pack up the little house in Atlanta. I had carefully labeled every box either "air," "sea," or "store" and it wasn't until Monday that I realized numerous things that I had labeled "air" had actually come across the sea.

Anyway, when we first got here, all we had was the luggage we brought with us on the plane. Two weeks later, we got our 450 lb. shipment of randomness, which included, among other things, all of our suits and dress clothes (that we don't really need here), my magnet collection, a couple things from my office in Atlanta, and dog beds. Weird? Yes. This meant more time wearing only the clothes we brought with us.

Luckily, our shipment came early. It typically takes three months. Ours would have been here in 1.5 months, but the hurricanes slowed the ship, so we got them 2 months to the day.

Were we excited? Heck yes. But now we live in chaos!

It was apparent that our movers felt it necessary to pack things very randomly. For example, in one box, you may find socks, toiletries, dog biscuits, one cast iron skillet, some pens, and a blanket. Weird? Yes. This made it very frustrating to unpack as I felt like I was constantly runnings things up and down the stairs for what didn't belong. Luckily, Beth came over on Monday and was an absolute rock star in helping us get things sorted. Our housekeeper, Maria, also helped get everything sorted out so we finally have most items in the rooms they belong in so now its just a matter of each item finding its home.

We were also lucky in that we only have two things missing (I know other people who have entire crates missing, which are seriously the size of the office I am sitting in right now, if not bigger). We're missing our shop broom, which is no big deal, but we're also missing Will's collection of framed sports memorabilia (for lack of a better description). Two items are pretty much priceless. One is a poster from the 1980 Masters tournament which is in Japanese and framed beautifully. Prior to having it preserved, someone offered Will $750 for it. Before we left, Will paid an arm and a leg to have it preserved and framed so I don't even know what price tag to put on it. We are also missing a huge panaromic framed photo of Sanford Stadium, my favorite ink sketch called "The Freshman" which pictures a bulldog puppy sitting at the base of the Arch, and fear upon fears, Will's Sigma Chi fraternity signature thing (I know no way to describe it). Is he upset? YES. I'm hoping it wound up in storage or that its making its way here, because unless you're a UGA sports fan, I don't think anyone would want to make these items theirs... we will see. Keep your fingers crossed. We also think we're missing Will's medical kit we got from work, which would be a HUGE bummer, but I'm hoping I can ask one of my colleagues to pick one up and bring it with them from Atlanta when they visit in a few weeks.

Now we're going through the tough decisions on setting up our first true home together. Do we paint? Do we exchange out furniture? Can we please get rid of the 1970s china cabinet that is so hideous ugly (plus I have no china to display in them as its all in storage in Atlanta!)? What on earth do we do with the awesome 1970s wedding pics of our parents (my vote: display them on an end table with a picture from of us from our wedding)?