It's been a while

We have come and gone, or more like gone to South Africa for three month and come back home to play with Gavin.

I assume everyone has been following our trip on Patricia's blog, and yes, I know she has not finalized it, and that is still in the works.

We have been busy drooling over Gavin and his adventures and learning the ways to negotiating the world around him.

Gavin and Oma

Now we are searching for a place to live for a while, so we can get all our stuff out of storage and from the different places we have stored them at.

Searching for somewhere decent to live for an affordable price is very challenging here in our area.

I am happy to have Patricia on my side, She is the best researcher I have ever seen, so there is hope for us,

We just celebrated Patricia's birthday, and that gave us a chance to get some of the family together for our 2014 picture.

The family is growing with leaps and bouds

With a bit of luck, I will now be posting a bit more often, so I can keep a record of what I have been doing when I start forgetting stuff.

Sitting waiting

We're waiting at the airport in Johannesburg for someone to give us a lift out to get closer to home. Last night, we were still hoping to make it to Germany to attend my nephew's wedding in Freiburg, but when we saw Lufthansa was extremely overbooked for the next few nights with an equally long standby list,we realized it was not to be. We investigated Delta for a flight home, same thing there for the night. The flight was hopelessly overbooked, and there were a ton of people on standby with us 27 & 28 in the cue, so we called Hector at the B&B were we had stayed on our arrival here.

Now after having a good night rest, we are back at the airport waiting for another 8 hours until we find out if we can actually get on for tonite. The joys of flying standby! But we wouldn't be able to do this traveling any other way.

This rest just gives me time to reflect a bit on a great time here in South Africa,

One thing that stuck out for me was how relaxed life seems to be, at least in East London. I got used to walking slower and taking my time to do stuff. As an example, our gardener, Nico, annoyed me in the beginning for coming late, and I don't mean just five minutes; sometimes it was over an hour, but by the end of our stay, I just got used to it and was very surprised when he turned up on time on our last day here.

What also made our stay very pleasant here was the cost of everything. We would go for dinner and for a comparable meal at home of $25 per person including wine, we paid about half.

That's the upside for us. The downside is felt by the other side. People here earn very little, like $15 for an 8-hour job cleaning house or gardening.

The experience here made me appreciate even more the life we live. I suppose that is reflected in the statistic that says that we in the US & the Western countries in general are the top 1% of the worlds population.

We had great weather, so we took advantage and walked the beach every day and went on some safaris, Patricia covered all of that in here writings.

Whenever I park my car somewhere, someone would be there pretending to make sure it is safe, and of course, you tip them when you leave, and I found it very appealing how everyone cups booth hands when receiving a gift. The tip for a service like this usually is $0.05US. I am not joking.

We got to make a lot of great friends here, and on our last Sunday, Jimmy & Theone invited us to a great restaurant about half hour drive from East London, right above the beach. We ate lots of oysters enjoyed a fantastic buffet. To top it off, the chef at the restaurant is our new friends Mary & Steve's son.

Steve & Mary

Patricia & Ady

Rod, Jimmy & Theone

Mirjam & Annkathrine

Now we have another notch in our house-sitting job reference and new impetus to continue in the profession.

And to cap it off, we have another night in Joburg. Did not make it out of here; better luck tomorrow.

Bloggggging

I've been looking forward to making an entry about the great party with friends we had yesterday, including some nice pictures and, something to say.

Well, I can talk about the party, but, there are no pictures. Once again,we had everything prepared: new battery, the right lens on the right camera body. Everything looked great; everybody was happy, and after a few hours, they left, and I had not picked up the camera once, just forgot.
The upside is,we had a great time with our new friends, but no pictures to prove it.

It often happens that when we have a great meal and want to record it, by the time we remember, the food has been eaten.

So I will simply recount what we prepared,
starting with Patricia's sundried tomato pesto, olives, mushrooms sauteed in sherry  ....

When everyone settled down, we served lemon garlic chicken, garlic shrimp - did I mention we love garlic - and a very beautiful looking and great tasting toasted quinoa salad, accompanied by a luscious green salad.

Theona made a great loaf of tomato, olive, rosemary bread that went just perfectly with the entire meal.
I made a Black Forest Triffle to round off the lunch.

We had water, wine and beer to wash it all down and coffee to keep us awake for the rest of the day.

I am looking forward to a Biergarten Party when we get back home, so, Michal, get ready.

Ah, I did take one picture of the empty table before it all started.

The party was for some of our new friends here in South Africa, for the welcoming birthday party and hours watching the World Cup together, for all the tips and recommendations they gave us, and the knowledge that we could always call on them, if needed.

Wildlife

Today was the the day we went to see the wildlife first hand here in South Africa.

Before we got to the Lions and Cheetahs, we had to have some fun on the drive.
I'll never again complain about potholes in the road.
Patricia got some great pictures of  Zebras, Giraffes, Antelopes, Elephants etc.
Our first stop was an Ostrich, and Patricia had to get right into her feathers to feel how warm she was.

Then we got to the real action,

Too hot today to be bothered with these people

OK, are they leaving, so I have my privacy back with my girls

Then there were the Cheetahs. I suppose they know a gentle hand when they see one.

For more on the adventures of today and our time here, sign up on Patricia's Blog.
give her until after the weekend to have it all put together.

Having something to do

I love going on a vacation and having something to do.
Thankfully, Bernd had just that something in mind for me.

He left me a wall to paint, but only if I have the time, within my three months here.

About one month in, I started looking at it and very casually started to scrape and sand the old paint away.

Now the holes have to be filled in. That's the point where it starts

to feel like work, so I have to go slow.

Then more fun again sanding the wall.

Now when you look at this, don't get any ideas about asking me to have a vacation at your home, it's not going to happened.
There are two more steps, undercoat and then paint. Now the time is getting short. I only have 45 days to complete this.

For the rest of what we are doing, go to Patricia's Blog

Patriia's new Blog

Now you can also follow our trip/housesit in South Africa.
Patricia is posting her own/our experiences with her pictures,
and I love every single one of them. Go and check out
Patricia's Travel Bits and have fun following our time here.

Not that we need one

Yesterday we had an excuse to drive out of East London west to Port Alfred where we picked up our friend Franzi, who is studying Hospitality Management at the Stenden University South Africa.
We arrived after a pleasant 2 hr drive through great open spaces, with townships along the way.
On the way back, Franzi led us to Bathurst where we had lunch at a historical building.

Back home, Rassie and Tommy were waiting for our arrival and very happy to see Franzi after all this time.

My father said....

Whenever my mother panicked about us kids not being at home on time or not knowing where we were, my father would say either that we would be home when we got hungry, or that if they don't hear from us, all is well.
So all is well. I know since we are here in South Africa and haven't made an entry in my Blog for the last ten days, everyone should assume that we are having a great time.

As I have mentioned, Patricia arrived on the 15th, and on the 20th, we celebrated my 68th birthday. Our friend Mirjam from Stuttgart, who also lives here for a few month in the year, arranged a nice celebration with some new friends. Everyone, including us, had a great time, and we got a lot of good info on where to go and what to see around here.

We are still settling in, as the house is very comfortable, and our hosts Eva and Bernd thought of everything to make our stay pleasant.

There is a great garden to take care of; I have to check for gopher mounds every day, and try somehow to keep them out of the yard, look after the pool sometimes and do some general stuff around the place.

Bernd left us with his cars, so first thing in the day, we go to the beach for a two mile walk to let the dogs out. Rassie loves to chase the birds - never has a chance - but you know what they say, it's the chase. .........

Patricia is leading Rassie & Tommy on

Then it's time for lunch, and we have the afternoon to play and explore.

Patricia is very heavy in shells at the moment, and I hope it wears off in time, otherwise there will be no room for anything else in our suitcases.

So far, we have had great weather, blue skies every day and temperatures hovering around the mid seventies, although the wind gets up around 35 mph.
Today it started raining, but not very heavily, just steady with temps in the mid 60s.

We have met very nice people and are starting to get a feel for the place, also being told where we can and can not go to be on the safe side, just like in LA.

Relearning

There is something I haven't done for I don't know how long.  For the last 30 to 40 years, I always put my washing in the dryer either in the laundromat or at home, even though we live in California where the sun shines all the time. I had to come to South Africa to hang my clothes on a line and let the sun do its work. They do smell nice and fresh when I took them down.
The only problem seems to be that my pans are starting to shrink. Can this be the sun's influence?

Our friend Bernd left two days ago, so I am in charge, well not in charge, of course, Rassie is still in charge.

He is not letting me out of his sight, just to make sure I am not leaving too.

I am having a great time here walking on the beach, working in the garden and doing stuff around the house, and waiting for Patricia to get here by the end of this week.

Jet-lag almost gone

I got here to East London (EL) South Africa (ZA) on Saturday, landing in Johannesburg on Friday, leaving the sun of California behind me and spending about 24 hours in planes and airports.

My transport over the Atlantic from Atlanta, a 14hour flight

I had a nice couple from Tuscon AZ sitting next to me, who were on their way Namibia for a safari.
We talked for a bit and then retreated to our respective headsets and movies.

Halfway over the Atlantic the sun started to light up the sky

On Saturday morning, after staying over night at a nice little guesthouse near the airport, I made my way to the final destination via Kulula Air. At first we boarded the plane, and everyone was seated until we were told that there is something wrong with the electrical system, and we have to change planes. They put as on a bus and drove to the next airplane.

A little excitement never hurts anyone

After arriving in EL, late, Bernd picked me up, and I met our charge for the next few weeks.

Rassie, loves to run after the birds on the beach

Today Bernd took me to the beach for Rassie's daily walk

This is a very nice place, and all I am missing now is for Patricia to get here in a few days, and, of course, I would love to have Gavin and Banjo here too.