Greetings from South Africa!

Goeie Dag! (Good Day in Afrikaans).

I am sitting at the table in the house of my friends Kathy and Carlo. They live in Centurion, a suburb of Pretoria here in South Africa. It is 10pm on New Years Day!

I actually arrived in the country yesterday early afternoon. My two flights to get here were pretty interesting, to say the least! I flew first to Doha, Qatar and our flight was early. Normally this is a good thing. But it meant I had to wait around in the airport for 6 hours! I can’t believe I passed the time so uneventfully! Then we flew down to Johannesburg with a lot of turbulence.

Anyway, I arrived safely. That is the main thing. Kathy and Carlo picked me up at Jo’burg airport and took me home where I slept for an hour (after no sleeping on the plane journeys) and then we set out for some New Years celebrating, SA style. We went over to some friends of theirs and had a braai (SA bbq) with the works. Gosh, the food was soooo good; proper meat. All the girls were talking and the boys doing the cooking – rightful places I think! It was so fun. And so warm. Sitting outside past midnight. Lovely. A delight to see in 2010 with new friends!

Let me just interject with some info on the homes around here. Kathy and Carlo live in a compound, same as many others around here. It’s kinda funny – having people open the gates for you or scanning finger prints to open doors. There’s a private swimming pool here for everyone that lives in the compound too! And all the houses look similar, like a toy town or something!

Anyway, today we went to the swimming pool for an hour. What’s the weather like in England? Because here it is HOT! Then we went to Irene (pronounced Ireenee) to go watch Sherlock Holmes. Here’s another couple of funny things: in the cinema they have ‘love nests’ – these are two seats which don’t have arm rests in between, almost like a sofa! Haha. And these seats are spread through out the cinema. Such a funny idea. And then the shopping mall where the cinema was has giant cows everywhere. In the centre of the food court, there is basically an upside down cow – there are legs and even a huge udder coming out from the ground. And check this…the kids play on the udder and around the teats like a playground activity!! Haha. So very funny.

We have just got back from going out to the Steak House for dinner. It was Carlo’s parents wedding anniversary so we went out with Steph and Hester (parents), and Magdel and Hanno (sister and brother). There was a lot of Afrikaans speaking at the table, but I found it very amusing trying to work out what they were saying. We had some good conversations and enjoyed laughing about the English culture together! And the food, again, was very good.

Tomorrow we are getting up very early to go to Krugersdorp, where we will be seeing some lions and again, getting fed steak. I am beginning to really like this place!