Debauchery in Durban

Considering how much traveling I have done in my lifetime (Zimbabwe, US, UK, Spain, Portugal, Italy, France, South Korea, Thailand, etc), it is surprising how little traveling I have done around my own country. Sure, I went on holiday to Plettenburg Bay every year, but that was as far as my South African travels went until I came to Rhodes for University. Suddenly my horizons opened to include Grahamstown, and from there one or two trips to Johannesburg. So, when given a reason to make a trip to Durban, there was little hesitation on my part. Grant needed a little convincing, but before long the plans were set in stone and there was no turning back.

When deciding how to get to Durban, we took the cost of travel into consideration. Flying would cost us around R1500 each both ways, while driving would cost about that overall. Once it had been decided that both of us would definitely be going, it also made financial sense to drive rather than fly. Since our original plan also included spending a week diving in Aliwal Shoal, this also made the most sense in terms of the time that we had. Once those plans crashed and burned (I still have to complete my diving course), the travel arrangements stuck and we were still going to be driving rather than flying down. A mistake, I can confidently say in hindsight, considering how long it took to drive there. I have driven from Grahamstown to Cape Town and back numerous times, a trip which usually takes me 10 hours including a quick stop for lunch. That is 899km in distance, while Durban is 799km away. So, in my mind, the trip should be at least an hour shorter. But apparently not. Roadworks, traffic and general stupidity on the part of other drivers on the road meant that instead of the 9 hours that we had been expecting, it took us 12 hours to get to Durban and just as long to return. Needless to say, I think I will be flying on my next trip.

Of course, once we actually arrived in Durban (well after the sun had set), it all seemed worth it as we found our way to Robyn's house and were greeted by the wonderful Robyn herself. Robyn makes everything worth it. If I had just taken the trip to visit Robyn, it would have been worth it. But, as it was, we had little time with Robyn and decided to make the most of it by taking her out for a nice dinner and catch-up. We went to a Mexican restaurant on Florida Rd, and continued to eat the most enormous pizza I have ever seen in my entire life. Yes... we ate pizza... at a Mexican restaurant. Grant was perplexed too, especially since we don't get Mexican in Grahamstown and he had been expecting to get something, well, Mexican. But we were all well-fed and thrilled nonetheless and the company was awesome. We then made our way down Florida Rd to an amazing frozen yoghurt place (I cannot for the life of me remember the name of it) where we treated ourselves to some condensed milk yoghurt with the works on top. It was.... divine. And makes me hungry as I am writing this. Damn Grahamstown and its lack of frozen yoghurt!! We decided to walk and eat and made our way back to Robyn's place for an early night.

Speaking of which... Robyn has the most amazing place that I could imagine. I wish that I'd had the forethought to take photos, but instead you will have to bear with me as I describe a gorgeous two bedroomed, two bathroomed house. Ridiculously high steps lead up to a veranda with a small pool on one side and sliding glass as the entrance to the house. You step inside and are escorted into a modern dream of dark wood floors, white walls and black furnishings. Leather couches decorate the lounge along with a massive TV, and further on is a small open dining area before you get to the uber-modern, uber-jealousy-inducing kitchen of amazingness. I swear that if that oven would have fit in Grant's car, Robyn would never have seen it again. And then there are the rooms - Robyn's pristine white haven with the open-plan bathroom, and her housemate's room which (I shouldn't know this, but Robyn snuck me in when he wasn't looking) includes a walk-in closet and three deep steps that lead into a sunken bath/shower combo that I would kill for.

Anyway, enough of that. Back to the weekend. After a few more hours of catch up, during which Grant was half passing out from exhaustion, we decided to call it a night and head to bed. Grant and I had an early morning after all. We woke up around 9 and I started getting ready immediately. We needed to be at the Blue Waters Hotel at 11:00, in time for Andrew and Nikita's wedding. This was the main purpose for our trip, and I was excited as anything. I had met Andrew before many, many years ago, but had never met Nikita despite our almost daily chats. We got along like a house on fire, and when Grant and I were invited to the wedding, it was hard to say no. So we didn't. And there we were on Saturday morning, arriving at the hotel and going up to a reception venue where we knew hardly anyone. Actually, I knew one person and Grant knew me. But, no matter, we sat ourselves down at our table and slowly started becoming acquainted with the others. And it turned out that Grant did in fact know more people than me after all! He quickly recognised the photographer as someone he knew in University days and, after telling Andrew how funny it was that the only person he knew was someone from Rhodes, he was approached from a woman who had been sitting at our table all along and informed that he did in fact know her too, from way back in the day at Rhodes! So, our lack of acquaintances was soon made up for as we chatted and danced and had a good time.

The wedding itself was a wonderful one. Not knowing the couple particularly well, Grant was worried that the service might have been religious (think of it as his worst nightmare), despite my assurances that it was unlikely to be. As it turned out, I was right. The ceremony was far from religious, and was actually rather amusing at parts (you wouldn't think that made for a good ceremony, but it certainly made for an entertaining one). The reception venue was beautiful with a view of the Durban coastline from 18 floors up, and the food was delicious. The guests were incredibly friendly and welcoming, as were the couple, and overall we had a fantastic day that made the Durban trip feel like it was completely worth it. A dinner at Bangkok Wok finished off the day, and was the perfect end to it. We made our way back to Robyn's and had another early night, which wasn't surprising considering that we were both feeling exhausted after the long day.

Sunday saw another early start as we woke up and started arranging breakfast at Robyn's boyfriend's place. Having only met James briefly on Friday evening, I was looking forward to spending some time with him and making sure that he was the right man for my little Robyn. Deciding to do something that we couldn't do in Grahamstown, the four of us made our way to Gateway to play some bowling. Little did we know that Gateway would also be Grant's dream come true, as he discovered the Ferrari simulator in the food court. R150.00 and ten minutes later, he had taken the car around the track and was satisfied, though still uber-excited, and it was time for us to play some bowling. Being the terrible bowler that I am, Robyn and I decided to challenge each other with the sides up, while Grant and James took each other on with the sides down. With an amazing finale, I swept the floor with Robyn (winning by a whole like 5 points), and completely lost track of how the others were doing while I was performing my victory lap around the bowling arena. Not really. But I would have been. Instead, Robyn performed a very interesting celebratory dance in her bowling shoes that slid along the carpets. For my entertainment, of course. It was lovely. Once the bowling was over, it was time for some air hockey, some lunch, some shopping, a piercing (not for me) and then it was back to the house so that Robyn could get ready for church (which I skipped). Once she returned, there was more preparation as we prepared for the night that I had been waiting for (without knowing that I was waiting for it) for weeks. That's right folks! I was in Durban! And what else was in Durban?? THE HUNGER GAMES! You should have seen my excitement when I realised it. Robyn was less excited, but totally willing, James was happy to be dragged along, and Grant... well Grant stayed behind and fell asleep early. LAME! Instead, I got to see THE HUNGER GAMES! Which I loved and will tell you more about in another blog.

And then... two and a half hours after the movie started... it ended, and it was time to make our way back. It was well after 11pm, and I had a 4:45am wake up ahead of me, which I was not looking forward to in the slightest. So I hugged Robyn as tightly as physically possible and promised that I would be back again soon, and made my way inside for a night of relatively restless sleep. And woke up ridiculously early. And we were on our way.

And so concluded the whirlwind that was Durban. It was brief, but it was amazing, fun, exciting, Robyn-filled, wedding-filled and supremely awesome. And hopefully we will be going back soon. Pictures of the trip can be found here:
https://picasaweb.google.com/102893679262962677151/DebaucheryInDurban

Why I Must Be The Worst Travel Companion In The World

I have a huge amount of sympathy for Grant, and so should you. Over the last weekend, he had to spend more than 24 hours in a car with me, and no one should have to do that. And so, here are the reasons why I must be the worst person to travel (in a car) with.

As a side note, I like to think that I am not that bad to travel with outside of the car – ie. On plane rides, trips where I meet up with people at the destination, etc. However, I cannot vouch for myself. This would require someone vouching for me.

1. “It’s So PRETTY!” I love traveling by car as a passenger, mostly because I am the kind of person who finds most scenery pretty. Aside from, say, the trip to PE which I must have done at least 50 times over the last seven years, I will always find new and wonderful things that I think are gorgeous. Even if it is something that I have seen before, chances are that I haven’t seen it in that light, that season or at that angle before. And I get ridiculously excited about it. To the extent that I was forbidden from uttering those words on the return trip from Durban. “Instead,” Grant advised, “how about you tell me when you don’t find something pretty.” Needless to say, those words were not uttered.
   
   
2. Photographer on Board. I restrained myself this trip, and Grant understood that I was restraining myself. Because of the whole “It’s So PRETTY” problem described above and the fact that I tend to like to take photographs of pretty things, car trips with me could very easily end up being long experiences. I swear, if Grant had been willing to pull over every time I wanted to take a photo, we would never have arrived in Durban on time to attend the wedding. And sadly, taking photos from a moving car that has windows and a windscreen that are less than crystal clear just does not work. This means that I didn’t actually end up taking very many photos of the trip to and from Durban. Which is a real shame. I totally want to head out in that direction (maybe just an hour from Grahamstown) at 7am again just to get the picture of the mist flowing over the hills and mountains. I cannot remember seeing anything more gorgeous in my lifetime.
   
   
3. Sleeping Beauty. There is nothing quite like a car trip to make me want to fall asleep. Especially when the trips involve getting up well before my usual waking hour – like getting up at 6am or 04:45. There is little that can be done then to keep me awake – coffee, Red Bull and Monster have no effect. Somehow I did manage to stay awake during both trips with Grant, but there were long moments of considering just giving in to the sleep that was threatening, and blinking lasted a lot longer than it usually does, since it was such an effort to keep my eyes open.
   
   
4. Bathroom Breaks. Another thing that I am terrible at, though to be fair I don’t have much of a choice in how my body handles itself. I tend to be terrible at needing to take bathroom breaks. Often at the most inconvenient of times, like just as we pass the last petrol station that we will see for the next hundred k’s or so. I can remember a number of trips where this has wreaked havoc – my trip to Yosemite with my parents and tagging along on a drive to Cape Town in my fourth year being only a few. While this is fine when I am on my own, it is absolutely awful when driving with someone else, particularly when you have somewhere to be and are trying to get there as quickly as possible.
   
   
5. Navigation. I have discovered that I suck at navigation. Apparently I cannot blame this on my HTC (though I am determined that it does not help matters) but only on myself and my lack of navigational skills. I am useless at judging distance (turn in 130m could be the next road or could be the one down there… I don’t know) and I am terrible at reading maps. The number of times that we took a wrong turn because I couldn’t tell what the GPS wanted me to do was embarrassing and I think I have been taken off navigational duties for future trips.

But, despite my terrible travel companion skills, we managed to make it to Durban and back in two pieces (one for me and one for him) and had a weekend that we can both look back on fondly. More on our Durban weekend later in the week (or month)!

French Dreaming

I really don't think that I appreciated France enough when I went there in 2004. I was 16 years old, and it was not where I wanted to be. I wanted to be back in South Africa, at a camp with my friends, lying on the beach during the day and sleeping in tents at night. Instead, I was forced into coming to France, travelling through the countryside, sleeping in four star hotels (that's just how my family rolls, y'all) and eating decadent French cuisine.

Now, I can see what you are thinking (yes, I can read minds). Why on earth am I complaining?? Dirty, uncomfortable camp compared to France in luxury - not too difficult of a choice, right? Well, I wasn't all too happy to be going along. As much as I wanted to visit a foreign country, I also knew by this point what travelling with my family was like, and it wasn't something that I particularly looked forward to. And I was right. As beautiful as the French countryside was, it was a trip filled with fighting. I was fighting with my sister, which led to my father fighting with me, which led to my parents fighting with each other, which led to my sister fighting with my mother for defending me. There was a lot of fighting. In between, we visited Paris, Ceret and other areas whose names lost in the whirlwind trip, but whose images are ingrained in my mind, and overall the trip wasn't quite as bad as I had imagined that it would be, but it was certainly not the way that I would have liked to experience France.

Now that I am older and wiser and far more appreciative of different cultures, different cuisine and different people, I want to travel there again. Unfortunately, this is not particularly likely. Instead I have to console myself by reading books that are based in France - books like Five Quarters of the Orange by Joanne Harris.

For those of you who do not know who Joanne Harris is, she is the woman behind Chocolat, the sensational book (also based in France) and the award winning movie that followed starring Juliette Binoche and (swoon) Johnny Depp. I loved Chocolat, almost as much as I love the subject of the novel, and somehow knew that I would love Five Quarters of the Orange as well. Harris has this wonderful way of writing that just draws you into the novels that she writes and keeps you there through a mixture of suspense, longing and nostalgia (for lack of a better word).

Five Quarters of the Orange, like Chocolat, has a theme of cooking running through it, and she uses this theme to reminisce about the main character's secret past. Framboise, the main character, inherits a cookbook and a single truffle preserved in oil when her mother passes away. Her brother inherits the farm that the family grew up in, and as he has no use for it, Framboise buys it from him and returns to the town where she grew up under the pseudonym of Madame Simon. There, she builds up a restaurant and a life for herself, all the while delving into the mystery of her mother through her cookbook, filled with recipes and diary-like notes, and trying to avoid the past that threatens to catch up with her.

I adored Five Quarters of the Orange, and it is a book that I intend to read over and over again. The scenery described is beautiful, the recipes mouthwatering and the story intriguing. If you have read Chocolat and loved it, I would highly recommend this book. It has some of the best parts of the novel, and even though I still think that Chocolat is slightly better, I wouldn't pass this one over. For those that have yet to read Chocolat, I would recommend reading it first.

Johannesburg

I am terrible. I have lived in South Africa for 22 out of the 23 years of my life, and yet I have never travelled around the country. Sure, I have visited Plettenberg Bay pretty much every year of my life; sure I studied in Grahamstown which is ten hours away from my Cape Town home. But still, there are so many places that I haven't explored.

One of the places that I feel I haven't gotten to know nearly well enough is Johannesburg. When people think of South Africa, the first two cities that generally come to mind are Johannesburg and Cape Town, and yet I have only ever been to Joburg twice, and have never done any real exploring on either of those occasions. The first time was spent driving through the outskirts of the city to get to Sun City and the second time was mostly spent in Benoni and the towns that lie just outside of Johannesburg. This is why I was kind of looking forward to heading there last weekend.

It was Sam's twenty-first (Sam being Grant's sister) and Grant's dad had been kind enough to buy us each a ticket to come down for the occasion. The event itself was on a Friday, which meant that Grant had to work a half-day and we started on our way to the airport at 12:15. The check-in for our flight closed at 13:35. We could totally make it. We all climbed into the car and started on our way to the highway.
But wait.
We needed to fetch Grant's jacket from the drycleaner.
Slam on brakes.
Back track.
12:30 and we were back on the road again, speeding a little but not too badly. Just trying to catch up on some lost time. The tunes were pumping, we were all singing along. Everything was hunky dorey and we were making good time. And then...
Slam on brakes.
Procession of cars in front of us held up by two different trucks, both going ridiculously slowly.
This procession lasted for at least half an hour and when we finally managed to overtake, there was no doubt about it. We were going to be late.
Shaun (Grant's brother) tried to phone the airline and check-in over the phone, but alas, no such luck. 1Time does not allow for check-ins over the phone. We had no choice but to hightail it there and try not to get caught by any of the notorious Port Elizabeth speed cameras. Thankfully, we arrived at the airport with about five minutes to spare and Shaun ran to the queue to hold our places while I carried the luggage and Grant parked the car. With about a minute to spare, we checked into the flight and went straight through security and onto the plane.
Sighs of relief were breathed.

The flight to Johannesburg was quite an entertaining one in itself as Grant and I eavesdropped on the argument that Shaun started with the religious girl sitting next to him about how stupid and pointless and unreasonable religion was. Shaun is, of course, an atheist. We merely sat behind him shaking our heads and trying to pretend not to know him, giggling at the look on the flight attendant's face when she realised what they were talking about. Evidently, she agreed that this was not a conversation that should be had in the middle of a flight with no way to leave.

Once we had arrived in Joburg and were on solid ground once more, we made our way to the venue for the 21st and immediately started setting up - blowing up balloons and placing them at all of the tables; setting up the main meal, dessert and tea areas and getting the spit-braai started. A couple of hours later, we finally arrived at the house and had to start getting ready immediately for the party that was to come. Dressing up in the dress that I had worn for my own 21st (since the theme was the same), we quickly got ready and made our way back to the venue to carry on getting things ready. Once the guests started arriving, the birthday girl started calming down. The disaster of the chocolate fountain and the DJs who had neglected to bring her music and had replaced it with their own doof-doof alternatives were quickly forgotten and she slowly started having fun. The rest of the night went smoothly with dinner being served (a perfect spit), toasts being made and alcohol being drunk. Needless to say, Sam and her boyfriend both ended up getting completely sloshed, with the boyfriend taking the brunt of the beating at the hands of his father who wanted to "raise the boy's tolerance." He ended up spending the night hugging the toilet in Grant's spare bathroom and retching non-stop until about 9am.

Saturday morning greeted a number of hungover individuals (me not being one of them) and Grant and I sat around playing Boggle with Shaun and Rob (Grant's dad) until about 12:45, when we decided that we should probably start getting ready if we were going to meet my cousin for lunch at 1:30. We quickly got showered, dressed and freshened up and were on the road by 1. Unfortunately, we hadn't been on it long before we hit some major traffic. Traffic on a Saturday morning? That's Joburg for you apparently! We hadn't been in the traffic for long when Grant noticed the little orange light blinking out of the corner of his eye.
"Uh... we have no petrol."
Forty-five minutes later, we were still well stuck in the traffic with no sign of it relieving and the car was starting to feel like it would stall any minute. After an hour in traffic (and being half an hour late already) we finally found an exit and only just made it to the petrol station on time.
Phew. One less thing to worry about. Now we just had to get to the restaurant where Daniel would have already been waiting for half an hour.
After driving through the centre of Joburg only to turn onto a different highway and go in the opposite direction, we finally found ourselves nearing Waverley and quickly found the restaurant that Daniel was waiting at. After a quick introduction to his friend, Danielle, we went into the restaurant to get some food from the buffet only to find that (thanks to the late hour) there was hardly any of it left. Despite this, we paid R200 for a couple of small plates of food and then went on our way. Not wanting to go our separate ways quite yet, we decided to head to Zoo Lake where we had fun watching the geese (and the people attempting to feed them) and went on a boatride on the lake where Grant decided it would be HILARIOUS to row us into the fountain. None of us were particularly impressed, least of all Daniel who practically jumped out of the boat to stop himself getting wet. When we got off, we decided to go for a quick walk around the lake and then headed back to our cars.

On the drive back to Grant's house, we couldn't help but notice the number of Jews that we were passing, walking on their way to shul (synagogue).
"Wouldn't it be funny if Gina lived in this area?"
We were going to be seeing Gina later that night so that I could see where she lived, meet her fiance and get the material for my dress (me being a bridesmaid and all). We shrugged off the question, figuring that Joburg was a big place and she probably stayed in one of the other Jewish areas - there had to be quite a few, we were sure. When I phoned Gina after sundown and she told me that she lived in Oaklands, I figured it probably wasn't the place we had driven through earlier. I had seen numerous signs there telling me that we were in Glenhazel, not Oaklands. As we got into the car and the Garmin started pointing us in the same direction, we started getting suspicious. When we started seeing sites that we had passed hours earlier, we knew that our earlier suspicions weren't too far off. Oaklands was, in fact, pretty close to Glenhazel. It was too bad that we hadn't been able to contact Gina earlier and spend more time with her during the day.

After meeting with Gina at a petrol station (she didn't know her address, having recently moved), we travelled together to the apartment that her and her fiancee will be living in when they get married in two month's time. As she had only moved in days before, the apartment was in a bit of a state, but that was to be expected, and it didn't take away from the awesomeness of the place itself. Grant immediately fell in love with the giant TV that Joel had insisted they buy, and while he studied it carefully, Gina and I slipped into the bedroom where she showed me the material and design of my bridesmaid dress. I instantly fell in love with it and can't wait to have it made! After showing us around and changing out of her shul clothes, it was time for some food and we headed to Great Burgers - a Kosher burger place in Glenhazel itself. It was only the second time that Grant had had a Kosher meal, and despite his teasing on the way that he was just dying for a cheese burger (Jews cannot eat meat and milk together, so cheese burgers are a serious no-no), his Kosher burger did seem to exceed his expectations. After dinner, we had a quick tour of the neighbourhood, seeing where Gina's old apartment was, where she works, driving past the Yeshiva Academy that I heard so much about during my high school years and finally showing me where Joel works. Since Joel caters events like batmitzvahs and there was one happening that night, he was at work and I got a chance to go in and meet him even though he was ridiculously busy and not too up to chatting. In any case, it was nice to finally meet the guy that one of my best friends is going to marry, even if it was only for a minute or two and even if it did feel excessively awkward standing amongst people in their Saturday best with me in a pair of tracksuit pants and a t-shirt. As we drove Gina back to her apartment, her and I discussed some of the wedding plans. Since I have to make my way to Joburg for the event, I needed to know when to book my flights. Gina calmly informed me that her bachelorette is being planned for 8 days before the wedding, which set me into a bit of a tizzy since I will hopefully have found work by then and can't really take off that much time, nor fork out that much money for accommodation if I don't have a job. But despite this little hiccup, I am really looking forward to coming down to see my HSBFF (High School Best Friend Forever) get hitched. We arrived back at Grant's place without too much difficulty and before his parents did, as they had been at a Neil Diamond concert, and chatted abit with Shaun and Grant's dad and stepmom (when they arrived) before calling it a night and heading to bed. We had to be up early the next morning after all.

Sunday morning dawned and we all packed into the car with the bags that Grant and I had shared at the back and started making our way to the airport. After a quick breakfast at Mugg and Bean and a hurried goodbye, our trip to Joburg was drawn to a close. Even after spending a weekend properly travelling around it, I still feel like I hardly know the city, and I don't think I am the only one. I think you have to have lived in Joburg for a long time to consider yourself knowledgable enough to say that you know the city. But I can tell you what I do know - what with the traffic and the size of the city itself, I am rather glad that I don't live there.