DAY 159

I wake up to the knock of room service at my door with breakfast. After eating breakfast I leisurely get dressed and pack up anything I took out. I go check my mail and such trying to pass time till the van from Earthwatch comes. A little while later the van comes, I pay the porter and then get onto the van. Here the rest of the group is already in the van since one person came from another hotel and the rest flew in today. Before starting our journey, we stop at a gas station so we could fill up the van for out trip. Of course since it was going to be a long one, we also got some drinks and some snacks too. 4 1/2 hours later we stop at the gate to the property were I think to my self "Oh thank G-D, we're finally here." Well that shows you how much I knew, LOL :) By now it had already gotten dark and we still had a 20min drive after entering the gate to actually getting to the buildings. We finally get to the building complex, when I thought that maybe there is no end. We just drive for the rest of eternity, there is no end, it's like the Energizer bunny, we just keep on going, and going, and going... We are all pretty tired when we get there, so we keep the evening simple. Durning dinner we do the whole, "Hi, my name is... I'm from... I do... for work/school, I like..., the reason I'm here is..." stuff like that. After dinner we have the rest of the evening to do what ever we like. Which I spend organizing my stuff so I have easy access to everything, but have most of thestuff still in the stuitcases. I read for a bit, then hit the sacks.

DAY 158

Today is a travel day...... you know what that means. A good laugh, that's what it means, LOL :) Well I'm sorry to say that I will somewhat be disappointing you all today. Only a little blunder happened. The reason for the little drama today is because the flight from Johannesburg, South Africa, to Windhoek, Namibia is only about 2 hours. So there isn't really the time for anything to happen. So I slept in till the last possible moment I could and then got dressed. I waked up the road to the bakery that Marnie and Jeremy kept raving about. After eating brunch I came back and packed up the rest of my stuff, with just zipping up my last bag whn my ride to the airport came up. I drove to the airport with two other people and then went to find which counter was for my flight. So I walk in and look at the screen to se were to go, the only blunder that I had at the airport was that I started going the wrong way down the corridor. I figured out my blunder pretty quickly, and turned around. After checking-in I went to a book store, bought a book and postcards, and stamps. I got throught the check-in and security faster than planned, so I had plenty of time to relax. After writing the postcards I went to the little post box next to the store and mailed them off. Before headed to the gate I stopped to get a hot chocolate and a snack for the flight. I had a smooth and quick flight to Winhoek, Namibia. I arrived at the airport and got my bags that weren't first, but thankfully were in one of the first couple batches, so I didn't have to wait long. Before doing anything I went to the money changing place to change some money. I give the lady both Euros and Rands. She shanges the Euros and then asks me, with complete seriousness, "What do you want me to do with these?" I chuckle and look at her and am like, "what do you mean, what should you should do with them?" Your a money changing place, so I guess the answer would be to CHANGE THE MONEY, lol :) She then tells me that South African Rands are accepted currancy here (Namibia used to be owned by South Africa). She tells me this as if it's like 2 x 2 and I of course should know this little bit of information. Not that she's mocking me or anything, more just straight foreward thought I should know or something. I get into a taxi and tell hime the name of my hotel. We then drive for about an hour or so, but feels more like 2 or 3 hours. The reason for the ride feeling like it took forever, was that we are in the middle of no whaere, so the road is long and straight, with no changing scenery. Oh, the scenery by the way is really pretty. It technically is a desert, but has some desert-y trees, some random bushes, etc... It's pretty baron, but at the same time very majestic and very like the scenery you would see in the Lion King. We arrive at the Windhoek Country Club Resort and a porter comes and gets my bags. I then see that I don't have enough cash on me, so I go inside to the ATM. I get one of my debit cards out and pop it into the machine. I put in the PIN # and then instead of going to the screen asking how much money you want, a messages comes on saying that something isn't working, etc... and that I have to contact a bank branch, so on and so on. I then realize that I put in the debit card that I had to close the account on a week or so ago. See I didn't want to throw it away, but I never got around to putting it in another safe place, that is other than my wallet. I then have to get someone from concierege to call the bank to have someone come and get it. This is because since the card is of a closed account, the ATM ate it, for security reasons I guess. Well I felt bad for the taxi driver and didn't want him to wait any longer, so I had the front desk pay and then have them put it on my bill. Well since nobody from the bank could come until later, the front desk said they would call my room when someone arrived. I then went to my room were there was a fruit basket amenity there, with a little welcome card adressed to me. Now maybe in this hotel the give every guest a personiled card with an amenity, but in my expreience, working in room service in oneof the best hotel on South Beach, even the "not so special fruit basket" is not given out to every guest. After this I went out and spent a couple hours out by the pool reading some more of my book. The pool area was really cool. See the hotel is in sort of a "C" shape and having the middle of it be were the entrance is.Then the open part of the shape is were the golf course starts, and in the middle of the shape is this green lawn with a winding river making a circle in the middle. The land that is in the inside of this river is were the kidney shaped pool is located. In the middle-ish/end of the pool there is this huge hollow rock formation, with a waterfall. The part that I liked was that to get to the "island" you had to walk over the huge rock, that was carved ino a bridge, to cross the river. A couple hours later I went to the front desk to get my card back. By this time it was gettting to be dinner time, so I went back to my room and ordered room service. Since I didn't really need to do anything tomorrow, I stayed up watching TV for a bit.

DAY 157

So I woke up and headed straight over to the computer place to finish my blog. I worked on the computer till a little after lunch time, when Marnie came to pick me up. She waited a little bit since I was almost finished and wanted to have it complete by the time I left South Africa. We then, with also Jeremy and Ayron, went to Rosebank. If you have forgotten about Rosebank, it is the place that I went on my first weekend here with Marnie and the other volunteer to go to that craft market. Anyways we first had to do two errands before anything else. The errands that we had to do was go to the Post Office and send a small package back of stuff that I don't need any more. I then went to the photo store and got my disposable cameras put onto CD's so that I could put them on the computer. Afterwards the four of us went to a restaurant for lunch. I have no idea, but it is all ways fun going to lunch, or any meal for that matter with the Staffords. After lunch, this is what I've been waiting for, we went to the theatre and saw the new James Bond movie :) They then took me back to the place that I was staying at and we said our goodbyes. I spent the rest of the afternoon on the computer tidying up my blog. making sure that everything was in the same font, etc... When the computer store closed for the day, I didn't want to go back to where I wasstaying, since there wasn't really anything for me to do there. So I walked down the street to Hyde Park, had a quick dinner, and then went to a movie. I know, I know you don't have to say anything. Tonights movie was A Good Year, with Russell Crowe. It was actually a good movie. I didn't think it was going to be a bad movie, but it was much better than I was expecting. I then headed back and finished packing, making sure that, except for the things that I would need in the morning that everything else was packed. I then read for a while, until I got to that stage were no matter how hard you try you can't seem to keep your eyes open.