2010 came !!

Happy new year !!!!

2010 has finally arrived, a magic number most South Africans have been waiting for because it will be the year of the world cup and record breaking cash flows into the country... they hope.

Has it really been 20 days since I last posted something on here? My word, I reckon some of you were wondering what was going on. Especially since I left you with such big news pending last time. Well let's see how I can sum up the past weeks.

First of all, on the job it has been quite busy. We had very intense negotiations with our previous project. Well, they seemed intense to me because it was my first time sitting in on such a high level meeting. It looked like the boss of my manager thought differently (although he woke up at 3 am that day and was in the office around 4 am which is early even to his standards because he usually starts work at 5h30). But the negotiations went well and we were complimented on the preparation we made. Actually you could say we blew the other guys out of the water with our facts. Had it not been a sellers market, we would have gotten even more I think... but I don't want to talk too much about work. Let's just say my days are quite full and I enjoy the work I'm doing.

Other big news: my friend and colleague Florens became a proud father! He is a trainee from the Netherlands who came here just like I did, as a mise grad expat. He and his lovely wife Claudia were already several months pregnant (well she technically more than him) when they arrived here. Baby Charlotte came a bit early and was accordingly small 1800 grams and 43 cm. But other than that very healthy and growing steadily. They were very pleased with the hospital which they thought was a lot better than the one in Rotterdam. If you're thinking now: really? South Africa, a developing country, good hospitals? Then I can assure you they have top class facilities here, bearing in mind the difference between private and public hospitals. Actually, a hospital in Cape Town called "de groote schuur" did the first successful heart transplant in the world. So that can be an indication. Next to that, the Netherlands have the highest baby mortality in Europe, and Rotterdam the higest in Netherland... So Claudia and Florens weren't worried to come here in that respect. Check out the pictures below, see how proud they are (yet to come if I don't forget the damn USB-stick)!!

Other big announcement to make: I have my car! Just like I predicted, I received the car shortly after my last post. It's a VW chico 1.3 liter. Not a massive machine, but very convenient and termendously popular in South Africa, especially amongst students. You see these chico golfs everywhere you go. That is a good thing because then I am quite sure I can sell it easily before I leave, and all the other benefits of garages knowing this model well, having spare parts etc... On the flipside of that, it is one of the cars that is stolen the most. Because it is well known and not very complicated in its construction, thieves know how to crack these babies easily. That is why Shafeeka (I baptised her such) has an alarm, and I'm getting a tracking device and maybe even a gear lock to keep her safely at my side, or under my bum to be more precise. She has a cd player which I thought was a must, and I'm quite sure I'll install some more powerful speakers because I need my music when road tripping !

Road tripping is what I did from the moment I had her. I added 2000 kms on the clock in under two weeks :-) I'll let the pictures of the road trips speak for themselves...

A bit more on Shafeeka. She had only 57 000 kms when I bought her, she was born in 2001 and was carefully looked after. She needs a bit of a drink to start running (i.e. sometimes I need a choke to rev her up a bit). We have not really agreed on when and how much she needs an extra drink to start running. I gave her a bit too much in the beginning, resulting in her not wantin to start anymore because she passed out drunk. But we'll sort it out.
She was the result of weeks of car hunting, weighing out upsides to downsides and fitting the tight (?) budget I imposed on myself. She lives up to all requirements and I know we will be very happy in the coming months.

An other reason for me not posting anything in the past weeks is that I had my first visitors over. Well, they didn't stay at my place, but Kimsi and Abby (two colleagues from Antwerp) came here with a couple of other friends to explore Cape Town and surroundings. So I tried to hang out with them whenever possible, which meant going to Hout Bay often (40 min drive along a ridiculously beautiful beach road, with seals on rocks in the water, beaches etc...).
I spent a couple of nice days with Abby going out to Cape Point, a game drive, Paarl, and other touristic stuff. Great fun! Miss Abby is a very good car DJ and airco handler ;-)! The conclusion of the gang was: two weeks were not enough! So bear that in mind when you come here.

That's it for now. Keep safe, enjoy the festive season, don't put on too much weight.