The Sabbatical

NOTE TO EVERYONE:

2007-01-30T19:12:00.000-08:00

Since there have been many times were I don't have access to a computer for weeks at a time, it has put me behind a bit. I am currently transferring from notebook to computer, and trying to finish the pictures as well. I'm sorry for the delay and will try and get up to date ASAP.
thanks, ALEXIS

DAY 159

2006-12-03T19:15:00.000-08:00

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

2006-12-02T21:44:00.000-08:00

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

2006-12-01T17:14:00.000-08:00

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.

DAY 156

2006-11-30T16:30:00.000-08:00

Same as yesterday... worked on the blog till lunch, then went to the restaurant. Though today, instead of a strawberry smoothie, I got the tropical one. The tropical was good, but the strawberry one was even better. Afterwards went back onto the computer and worked somemore. Though I did take a break and check my mail, etc... so my brain could have a break from having to concentrate. The movie tonight was Friends with Money, which was odd, but still a realy good movie. It took a little longer to get to sleep today, but that was because the new JAMES BOND movie comes out tomorrow :) YEAH!!!!

DAY 155

2006-11-29T17:56:00.000-08:00

Worked on the blog at the printing place all day again today. Of course stopping for lunch at thatbristo restaurant and having that AMAZING sandwich that I had the other day, YUMMMMM.........I then walked over to Hyde Park, had dinner and saw the Black Dahlia, which was amazing. Iknow that it probably has already come and gone in the US, but if you haven't seen it yet, go see it.

DAY 154

2006-11-28T15:34:00.000-08:00

I got to sleep in today, which was very nice. This blessed event was because all I had to do today was catch up on this blog. Now if your wondering why I would have to catch up on the blog, but then you probably can count and realized that I haven't been up todate. This is because I only got access to a computer, let alone the internet about for an hour, once or twice a week. Thisamount of time only gave me time to check my email and other quick things. See even when I'm up to date on my blog, so I'm only having to do one or two days, it takes time time to uploadall the pictures and then actually type everything. Well because of this new no computer, whichcan I just say is just so wierd, I had to keep up on notebook paper. So now that I'm done withmy project the next 4 days will be dedicated to catching up on my blog on the internet. I worked soild today from after breakfast till lunch. I then stopped and went to this bristo-type restaurant that was in the same little business square as the printing place (like KINKO'S)that I was at using the computer. The lunch was so good that I decided that I was going to have lunch there tomorrow. While waiting for lunch I had a water w/ lemon, because if you didn't know lemon is very good for your body and cleaning it out...... and if you don't know me w/o ice as well. I have the biggest pet peeve about ice. This is my hatered towards ice; if you don't have a straw, when you lean back to drink, it clinks next to your mouth and get your upper lip and nose wet, and if you use a straw, by the time that you get close to finishing some, if not all, the ice has meltedand your drink is now watered down. I hate ice so much that I would rather have a room-temperature or warm drink that to have ice. Though that's the nice thing about refridgerators, YOU CAN GET THEM COLD, which then solves the problem. Well now that I've completely gone off topic. I also have a strawberry smoothie and the chicken sandwich with sun-dried tomatoes and pesto, WHICH IS AMAZING! After lunch I go back to work typing awayon the blog. When the store closes at 5pm I walk down the street to Hyde Park, which is a shopping mall , not a park. Anyways, I go to Wooly's (well the real name is Woolworths, but nobody calls it that) and get a light dinner, I'm not that hungry. Afterwards going down to the next floor and go to the cinemas. No don't laugh..... I saw Step Up. Now the only reason why I saw this movie was because it was the only movie that was playing at that time that I hadn't seen yet.Afterwards I walked back to the backpackers place and hung out there, watching TV and reading Holy Cow.

DAY 153

2006-11-27T17:02:00.000-08:00

Not much to say about today. I woke up had breakfast and then we all went to go visit Marnie atthe hostpital. We couldn't pick her up since she was staying one more day for the drips. Even though she still wasn't feeling good, at least she was feeling a little better. After the hospitalJeremy took me to the backpakers place for the last 4 nights of my time in South Africa. I will still see them, but they had some family comeing to visit and they had no room for me. Also I needed the internet like all the time to deal with my pictures and Jeremy needed it for work. So it worked out to go to this backpackers place in town.

DAY 152

2006-11-26T17:02:00.000-08:00

I slept in again today, starting my day off in more like the late morning/early afternoon. Afterbreakfast I went out by the pool and read some more of Holy Cow. When I had been reading fora while Jeremy and Ayron came out to play some cricket in the yard. But they sort of need at least 3 people. So I joined them, but first had a crash course in Cricket, which I would like tosay is not the easliest thing to learn. We then spent the rest of the afternoon playing cricket.Well a 3 person cricket game, which isn't really a game, more like a practice, but whatever, wehad fun. Later in the day Marnie said she wasn't feeling any better. See after the game we had gone to the pharmacist to get something for what we thought was just a really bad headake. Wellour Cricket was cut a little short than we would have liked because Jeremy took Marnie to the hospital. Well it turned out that it wasn't anything serious, but Marnie was staying overnight at the hospital because she was getting two diffirent drips.

DAY 151

2006-11-25T16:58:00.000-08:00

I woke up a bit more on the normal side today, after which I finally had the energy to actually make something for breakfast and not just cereal. I played with the dogs outside till Ayron gotback from his swimming class, then played with him. At 4ish we all headed over to this restaurantcalled DORS to watch the game. This game im refering to was South Africa vs. England in Rugby.Onceagain we started on the drinks to get in the spirit of the evening. While eating dinner and getting a little tipsy we watched South Africa beat England 25-14. Because of the victory we started doing shots, first with a celebratory shot of Springbok (Peppermint Liqueur and Cape Velvet) and then the rest of our shot, well at least mine, I wasn't watching what Marniewas drinking, were Silver Bullet (Green Creme de Menthe and Tequila). We all went home and crashed for the evning.

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DAY 150

2006-11-24T16:57:00.000-08:00

Because of yesterday and all I did and then we stayed up even later and just chilled, I didn'twake up till 4pm. I'm not even talking about walking up earlier and then just going back to sleepor something. I'm talking about I was deep REM sleeping till 4pm, now that's what I call tired.When I finally got up everybody had already left, Ayron at school, Jeremy at work and Marnie out doing errans or something. Well I spent the rest of the afternoon out by the pool, lying in the sun, reading Holy Cow. Then as tradition has it, we had Thanksgiving leftovers for dinner.

DAY 149

2006-11-23T16:57:00.000-08:00

iiiiiiiitttttttt's TURKEY DAY!!!!!!!!
HAPPY, HAPPY, HAPPY THANKSGIVING EVERYONE!!!!!!

OMG, OMG, OMG, let me just tell you that today was soooooo busy, I don't even know how to tell you; but I'll try, LOL. I woke up and got off to a quick start, then Marnie and I went to the grocery store to get all the food for tonight.Now I realize that with normal people, they get the food before had, sometime in the days before. But no, we had to forget all about the day until the day. Well it did help that I was the only one remembering the day, since I 'm the only onewho celebrates it. At the grocery store Marnie and I go crazy, since being a culinary student, had to make everything byscratch. We get back to the house Marnie wishes me luck, which I need since I have to make a complete Thanksgivingfeast all by myself, all from scratch, without knowing the kitchen, and all in 3 1/2hrs. I was by myself doing all this sinceJeremy was at work, Marnie had to go to a meeting and our two guests weren't coming till later. Oh, did I mention that not only was I making this feast for me, Marnie and her family, but also two other people, one who I had never met.WOW, THANKS MARNIE FOR THE PRESSURE, THAT I DON'T NEED RIGHT NOW, just joking Marnie. I then get my recipes that I printed from my internet recipe box and then went to town on the food. I'm not going to go throught every detail about how everything was done because this is NOT the FOOD NETWORK, (LOL) though thatwould be cool f it was :) When it was getting towards the end and I just had a couple of more things left to do, peoplestarted showing up. We then made a party of it, so while I was in the kitchen finishing up and the table was being festivelyset up, we turned on some music danced around and had lots of fun. Besides the fast that I was in South Africa for the day, I think it will also be memorable, because of how much fun we had.When I had everything done and the only thing we were waiting for was the turkey to finish up, Ayron and I desided to make it more festive. We went into his room andgot out his colored paper. We made a Thanksgiving door sign, and Indian hats for everyone, 6 in all. Then to make it complete, we took out his facepainting crayons and made everyone's Indian look more complete. We then made a buffet of all the food that I had cooked and then sat down. Before eating we all went around the table and said somethng that we were thankful for.The best was when it was Ayron's turn, we asked him what he was thankful for and he then started saying his prayers, which just got everyone in stitches. To make the party even more of a party, we included a couple bottles of brut champagne, don't know what maker, but a least it was brut.while we were eating, they all had me tell them the story of the first Thanksgiving. Personally I think that their first Thanksgiving went really well. Oh, by the way this is everything that I made (remember everything was made from scratch, I even had to use a real pumpkin instead of canned, since they don't have canned pumpkin in South Africa): Herbed Turkey, Herbed Bread Stuffing, Gravy,Candied Sweet Potatoes (with orange, nutmeg, cinnamon, etc... yum,yum), Cranberry Sauce, Steamed Vegetables,Corn on the Cob, Sundried Tomato Rice Pilaf, Mixed Salad, Fruit Salad, Cinnamon Applesauce, Biscuits and then for dessert Pumpkin Pie (served with Vanilla Ice Cream). Oh, by the way that's 13 things in 3 1/2hrs BIATCHS!!!!

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DAY 148

2006-11-22T16:56:00.000-08:00

Not much to say about today. I slept in till like 11ish, had a late breakfast and then hung out around the house checking my email, playing with the dogs, giving the cat a head scratch...... and ooooooo, started reading this book my mom sent me, called Holy Cow. It's bout this journalist lady who goes to India and vows never to come back. Then 11 yrs later her life somehow, I 'm not going to say how, takes her back to India. The book is about what happens when she returns. It is a very funny book, and I love the way it's written too. I know have a project for all of you, go to B&N, or your closest bookseller and buy it. The full title is Holy Cow; An Indian Adventure, by: Sarah MacDonald, published by Broadway Books.

DAY 147

2006-11-21T16:56:00.000-08:00

A little after breakfast Marnie came over and picked me up and we drove back to her house. Once there I took out everything from my bags and cleaned them. More because somthing sticky had gotten on the bottom of my bag and since I was doing one, why not do the other one as well, right? While cleaning and organinzing and throwing awaypieces of paper, etc... that I didn't need anymore and was just cluttering my bag, did some laundry. Wow, was I inthe need for some clean clothes. It felt good to get everything cleaned and sorted out properly.

DAY 146

2006-11-20T16:55:00.000-08:00

I slept in today since all I was going to was a motel not far from Marnie's. After making sure that I had everything, I headed over to the motel and just hung around doing some secretarial work. I would've normally gone to Marnie's but she had gone camping with Jeremy and Ayron and they weren't going to return till tomorrow morning. The only other thing that I did today was I walked to the grocery store to get something to eat. I could have taken a taxi or something, but I needed to waste time, and I also was in the mood for a walk.

DAY 145

2006-11-19T16:55:00.000-08:00

Today was an extremly long day not because of what we did but because of the time that we spent in the car. After leaving Guinea Fowl Lodge at 6 something in the morning My guide and I drove the couple hours to our first place of the day - 1 word - ELEPHANTS. I basically spent the morning playing with elephants from baby to adults :) I arrived at the Elephant Sanctuary and joined this family who was also there. The first thing we did was pet and brush the elephants. Afterwards we went to the place in the woods were first we sat down and they told us thingsand had the elephants do tricks, like lying down, trumpeting, shaking their heads, bowing, lifting their feet at different times so it looked like the were dancing a bit, and at the end they even gave each person a kiss on the cheek from Tamba :) That was really cool, even though I had to borrow a WET-ONE from this lady afterwards. Here are some of the things that I learneddurning our little lecture. Unlike Asian elephants, you can't teach African elephants by using a stick but by treat rewarding. Also unlike Asian elephants, if you do use a stick to an African elephant it will just hit you back, and you will not come out a winner in the Smackdown. Asian elephants hide in danger, African elephants run, or if they can't run fast enough turn around and run towards the enemy, I guess in the attempt to run over them. Female elephants are pregnate for 22 months. When walking in a group the hold the elephant in front of them's tail. When they kiss you onccy your cheek it is this sort of sucking of their nose. It sounds gross but he use their nose for more than just the obvious, they also use it for talking, picking up stuff, etc... Thier spine is concave, just like a horse. The African elephant's ear is larger than an Asian, but still doesn't go high that then crown of the head, like an Asian elephant, the African's ear is also shaped like the continent of Africa. Also on the elephants the actual ear hole is infront of the actual ear "flap". The lower jaw bone weighs 41.89lbs, those extremely large tusksthat you see weigh 90 lbs. An elephants tauck length depends on the genes of the parents. Theirdung takes 2yrs to break down. In parts of South Africa, in the tribes, the smoke elephant dungfor medicinal purposes. Elephants don't eat their own dung, but if they have diahrea they eatthe dung of a healthy elephant to get the good bacteria to help them. The 3 elephants that weplayed with were Tamba (5yrs/1,433lb), Mabusa (10yrs/3,306.93lbs), and Cumba (15yrs/6,503.64lbs). After all this and even getting to see an elephants skull, I got to do the coolest thing. I got to go on a 20min ride on Cumba. I t felt just like riding a horse with high withers, bare-back. After this amazing time I sat in the restaurant and had something to drink. Near my table there were these really pretty birds. The nests the bilt were even cooler. The malesmake these nest out of grass, etc... into a ball with the opening at the bottom. This is a security measure, so no predetors can come inside. The even better part, that I think is funny, is that if the female doesn't like the nest then the male has to start all over again. After the elephants wedrove over to Pilanesberg. While on the rode to Pilanesberg we past a lot of Platnium mines, which was cool. Our stop was this huge resort place called Sun City. This place is really it's own city, it has a huge casino, waterpark with a beach that had fake waves, 4 huge hotels, 2 clubs, a 5 screencinema, a huge lake, a HUGE golf course, which Africa's Major played on the course, and even a wildlife park. I was going to play at the waterpark, but it started raining so we looked around and then had lunch there. After lunch we went to Kwena Gardens Crocodile Sanctuary. Where I saw the biggest crocodiles ever in my entire life, including TV. After spending an hour or so there we went on to our last and bestest adventure. We drove to the Pilanesberg National Park. Here I went on a 2hr SAFARI!!!!!!!! While on the safari I found out that elephantseat 24/7 and only stop to drink, they also never sleep. There was also at one point that we had to stop the car since the view was AMAZING!!!! I t looked like it should of come out of The Lion King or something.On the safari we saw: Elephants, Giraffes (and albino one), Zebras, Springboks, Hartebeasts, Gnu (other name; Wildbeasts), Wort Hogs, Ostriches, Male Lion, and tons of birds. By the time we left the park was kind of already closed (oops!) and it was already dark. I then arrived back at Guinea Fowl Lodge and watched the sundaynight movie while I ate dinner.

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DAY 144

2006-11-18T16:55:00.000-08:00

Today is my last day at the zoo, so after my normal morning routine, I became the papparazzi. I hadn't brought my camera to the zoo the entire month, well now that I think about it I did a couple times, but I hadn't taken that many pics.So I then went around taking a ton of pictures from around the zoo to the animals to posing with the animals myself. I also got to play some more with Monster, Sabatian, and Kimberley, which turned into a major photo-op. I then had an even longer lunch today, spending more time paying with all the Tea Garden birds. When I got back to Guinea Fowl Lodge I spent the rest of the day packing. Even though I wasn't getting picked up till Monday, I was going outtomorrow at 6:30am and wouldn't be returning till 9ish at night. Which at that time all I would want to do is either read,watch TV, or go to bed.

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DAY 143

2006-11-17T16:54:00.000-08:00

This is starting to become a pattern , I got another big project today. Today I gave the Bengal Tigers cage a complete cleaning. Before getting started though I quickly did the tortoises and the iguanas. Then I started on on my project. This time the tigers were still in their sleeping quarters so I didn't have to worry about having to put them away, LOL. I first started by wraking up the stick and large stones. Then I mowed the lawn, and got to use that really cool grass cutter that is two plastic strings that you use to go around trees or rocks. I know it sounds pathetic that I enjoyed it, but I did. Then while all this was going on the pond was being drained. I then got to clean the pond, which actually wasn't that dirty, but you know that if you don't clean it every so often, even if it's clean that it will get really dirty. I enjoyed that because I did this with this other girl that comes to volunteer a couple times a month. So while we were cleaning the pool, ummm.......we sort of started a water fight. This other girl that I was working with today, we bonded instantly, for no other reason than she was also American. Now not trying to be byist or anything but I think the reason why we bonded so quickly, even though she's like 14yrs old, is because we understand eachother. Even though that English is one of the officiallanguages, it's like how British English is not the same as American English. Also there would be times that something would happen and I'd make a refereance to something or make a joke of some sort, most of the time people wouldsort of get it, or not get it at all. This was because I would be refering to things that are in the US and not here so they usually wouldn't get it. But she would get most of them, but I think only because she knew what I was refering to. Alsoit was interesting to talk to her, because the reason why she was here in South Africa was because her mother worked in the American Embassy and they were living here for 2yrs, well they had allready been here since last september, so only one more year. Then she will be moving back to Washington, DC, well that's what she hopes, since her mom could technically go to another country, but she wants to live in the US again. Anyways, now that I've completely gotten offtopic, we then put the hose on and filled up the pond again. but since this pond was MUCH BIGGER than the crocodileor duck pond, it takes a while to fill back up. So since the two tigers were dying to come out, sounding very patheticwith their whinning sounds we looked back up the gate and let them out, to which they were VERY GRATEFUL. WhenI say very grateful, as soon as we opened the door the flung out, like the had been launched, and started playing with the hose and while the hose is flining all around playing with eachother. Well if we weren't already wet, we would have been when we were watching them, because of that damn hose. We then went to lunch and had a very fun time playing with theTea Garden birds. After lunch we both went and skimmed the feathers off the duck pond. This probably took longer thanit should. The reason for this was that the pool skimmer thing was temperarily missing, so we had to use rakes, which are still affective, but do take longer. Then helped out with the feeding and went home and slept past dinne, so as when I woke up my dinner was sitting in the microwave so I could heat it up.

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DAY 142

2006-11-16T16:54:00.000-08:00

After the usual feeding Theresa and I went back to work on the bathroom. We started out by putting on the second coat of paint and also a coat of white on the windowsills. Since it was a little windy today the paint to longer to dry. While we were waiting we went out to the hardware store and got these wooden planks, about 3 or 4 inches wide, with this indent thing on the top so it looked pretty and and plain. When we got back to the bathroom we got to exercise our carpentry skills, which actually were pretty good, if I say so myself. We measured and cut and even had to do some geometry, because we were doing that thing were the ends extend out at an angle so that they fit in the corner like a puzzle. With the paint now dry we took the screw driver and put whole in the wall, were we wanted to put the wood planks. This took some time since, except for the one wall that was painted Just in color, the wood was going everywhere that the two colors met. Even in the stalls. After nailing them into the wall, which took some time since some of the places, we couldn't get a the nail in straight into the cement so we kept breaking the nails or the screw on the screw driver that turns everything (sorry I'm not up on my carpentry lingo). We finally got all the wood in place and then before going further sanded it all, especially the corners. For some reason the nails to make it not look so tacky, put some wood filler over the nails, so it just looked liked a long continuous piece of wood. Then to make it even more pretty we put this really nice dark wood stain on the wood. While that was drying we had our lunch break. There were these really nice head shots of like 5 or 6 animals from around the zoo that had these nice, thin, black frames around them. To finish off the bathroom and make it look complete, we took the pictures and hung them on the one color wall. Those pictures really made all the difference. With there still be time left in the day I went to go help Lawrence with his project that he was doing in one of the owl cages. Well everything was doing fine, until we started moving the large branches. That's because one of the big ass branches fell on my head. At first I blacked out for like a millisecond, then all I could see was silver stars. After the stars went away I thought I was OK so I went back to work. But as soon as I took those few steps forward I got this huge pounding headache, so I put my hand up to the spot that hurt. I felt this huge bump about the size of the circumfrance of a golf ball. The big shocker was that when I brought my hand down, it was covered in blood. OK, maybe not covered, butthere still was a lot
and it took a couple tissues to get it to stop. In the end it was OK and I didn't need anything for it, well other than pain killers. I spent the rest of the evening lying in bed watching TV, since I didn't have the energy, or the will for that matter, to do anything else.

DAY 141

2006-11-15T16:54:00.000-08:00

Today we actually had really good weather, nice and hot. Today I spent the whole day in the bathrooms, and not for the reason you think. Let me explain, the bathrooms are brick and the cemcent part is painted white, so the bathrooms have a very unfriendly and industrial feel to them. So today Theresa and I worked on the bathroom to make it a little less industrial looking and feeling. We first took everthing off the walls like the toilet paper holders and the towl racks. We then went on sanding the whole place, which actually wasn't that bad. First off it's only a three stall bathroom and second we had found this electric sanding in the tool shed, so it didn't takethat much effort, more the time it took to do everything. Afterthis we had to wash all the walls, the worst part was the windowsills, damn those things were dirty. They looked like they werepainted a light brown/creamy off white color, but really they were painted a snow white color. We then go to do the fun part, after painting the wall, the one that had nothing on it just a painwall this pretty med-dark rose color. We then took this color and painted the rest of the walls, including inside the bathroom stalls, and only the bottom half. While the paint was starting to drywe took some of the color and mixed it with some white, so as to make the same color, but just a couple shades lighter. We then applied this color to the upper half of the walls, and with only a couple little spills, thankfully we still had to put on another coat so it was fine. Since it was so muchspace that had been painted, it took a while for it to dry. One thing that did happen while painting in the stalls, was that we couldn't get the ladder around the toilet, because of space, so it wasn't that stable. In the mist of painting the top corner of the stall, which ment that all my weight was at one end of the ladder, I had a almost fall, but saved myself by putting my hands on the wall. Ofcourse this was the wall that I had just finished painting. Which ment that I got paint all over my self. It definately made for a good laugh. I spent so much time in the shower trying to get the paintoff. By the time I got out I looked like a raisin, LOL. After dinner I watched In Justice, which is like a combo of CSI and Law & Order put together; very good show.

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DAY 140

2006-11-14T16:53:00.000-08:00

ok, so the weather is slowly but surely getting warmer and I can go backto wearing flip-flops and only wear a light jacket instead of a heavy down one. well after doing my usual tasks of feedingthe tortoises, crocodiles and iguanas, I went and cleaned the iguanas cage. Suprisingly this wasn'tthat bad because they didn't really make a mess. I basically swept their carpet and then changedthe newspaper at the bottom of the cage. afterwards I was given a task that would take up most of the morning. i had to clean out and organize the walk-in fridge, now your probably thinking UGH! why on earth would she want to do that. Well no matter what you might think this is the type of stuff that I love to do. I had actually asked Renee if there was any work that I could dothat included cleaning and organizing, because I just get a natural high from this like this. SeeI will sometimes clean and organize my room because I'm bored even though my room already looks like a museum. I started by throwing away any bad fruits and vege's and then putting the rest and the baby chicks on the table out side the fridge, only leaving the hanging horse meat in the fridge, since they are quite heavy and all bloody, etc... When I was taking out the watermelons one dropped in the tub of ice cold water under the cooler, and some of the water splashed all over the side of my leg. Between the loud sound of the watermelon dropping and thetemperature of the water I made a blood currdling-like shriek. Of course Lawrence was standingright there ans saw this whole thing happening. Then because it was sooooo funny (this is said in sarcastic voice) it became the funny thing for the rest of the day, LOL. Anyways after cleaningthe fridge out, which took a while since there was some horse blood on the floor that was very stubbern and took forever to get off. I then put the food back in nice organized manner.When everything all organized, I realized that we actually didn't have that much food left, so Iwent and got the list of everything that was supposed to be in there, and then gave Eddie the list to go get the things. With a little over 30min before lunch I spent that time sorting the chicksfor the crocodiles. At lunch today we had quite a laugh. This little Tea Garden bird, Squacky, and appropriately named at that, has this problem of pulling out his feathers. Now when birds do this it is usually because their scared and then they start pulling at their feathers. Well Squacky had just come from an inviornment that must have made hime scared since the only feathers on his body left were on top of his head and his wings. So to help him regrow the feathers on his bodywe put one of those plastic cones around his head, you know the ones you usually see on cats and dogs after they've had an operation or something. This new look of Squacky's was a very pitiful sight, but a very cute pitful sight at that.It definately made for and amusing afternoon. Afterlunch I put the load of fresh produce that Eddie had just came back with, filling up the walk-in to the brink. I then cut up some fruit and when all the produce and meat was cut up and put intothe right bowls; I helped feed the Chacma Baboons, some of the birds, both the Ringtailed and the Ruffed Lemurs and then the Bengal and Siberian Tigers and then gave the biggest ribs I have ever seen to the Lions. When I got back to Guinea Fowl Lodge I took a nap and later watched CSI: Miami and Without A Trace.

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DAY 139

2006-11-13T16:53:00.000-08:00

Today after doing my tortise, etc... duties I started on today's project. I did gardening today. See there are spaces in between the animals cage and the fence to keep people a certain distance from the animals. In this space they have little gardens. So my job today was to weed the plant beds. The gardens that alredy had flowers and plants in them I just had to make them look pretty. Then the one's that didn't have anything or the plants couldn't be salvaged was given new flowers and plants to put there. At lunch I played with the Tea Garden birds, what's new, LOL. Then kept on working till 4:30pm where I was dropped off at Guinea Fowl Lodge.

DAY 138

2006-11-12T20:10:00.000-08:00

Before I go any further I would like to wish my daddy a very happy birthday, with many hugs and kisses. So before going any further please sing along (you can sing in you head if your to embarrassed)
HAPPY BIRTHDAY TO YOU! HAPPY BIRTHDAY TO YOU!
HAPPY BIRTHDAY DEAR DADDY! HAPPY BIRTHDAY TO YOU!!!
Today I went to MuseuMAfrica, Constitution Hill, and the Apartheid Museum. MuseuMAfrica is a museum about everything and anything to do with Africa. We start at this one exhibit that has a video and then photos of the birth of Johannesburg. From drawings of the first settlements, to a town that looks like it came from an old Western, to a little bit more civilized town and how it all revolved around the market were the cattle were sold. I think that’s funny a whole big town revolved entirely on cattle. Then how it just kept on growing to what it is today. The pictures in the middle were really cool looking and then in the middle of the room where photographs of different places and people taken around Johannesburg and its suburbs, these photographs were amazing, they were so beautiful, had with lots of impact. Then there was also this exhibit on some of the South African tribes. That was really cool since they also have some of the artwork of these tribes. Then the rest of the museum was just other exhibits of different African things, but the aforementioned were my favorite. The next place we went to was Constitution Hill. Here besides the obvious, things like the court house, etc… there is also a prison there, both a women’s and a men’s prison, all here in the middle of the city. Though they aren’t used anymore, they are now open to the public. Now you probably wondering why on earth would someone in their right mind want to go to a prison on their own free will. Well here is your answer: there have been many politically famous people who have made these prisons there home for a while. One of the more famous of the lot was Gandhi. It was really neat I got to be in the same room that Gandhi made his bedroom, were he ate and were he went for his daily dose of fresh air. IT WAS AWESOME! On the was up to see the courthouse, which I was looking forward to seeing, since apparently it has a really pretty interior, but it was closed, we saw something that we were totally not expecting. So my guide and I were walking around the corner and we saw 7 or 8 men all dressed up in very nice suits standing face towards the brick wall and a small group of people taking their picture. You could tell that this was a professional shoot, because of the camera equipment that the photographers had. But there was just one thing that was off; all the men had their pants dropped. So when I tell you that what we saw when coming up to the courthouse, you now see why. My guide said that the picture was probably some sort of modern interpretation or something of what happened to the prisoners. See one of the things that happened in the prison was that everyday the prison guards would have all the prisoners line up against the wall, butt-naked and then one-by-one have each one do something embarassing, well even non-embarrassing things become embarrassing, when your but naked and being humiliated by the prison guards. Well after finishing the visit, we went to our last stop of the day, the Apartheid Museum. Well this one one of the coolest museums ever. After paying we get two cards, my guide, who's black get the card that say European (white), and I being white, get the card that says Non-European (non-white). Our first place we go to there is a security gaurd that looks at our cards and shows us which door to go through. This was done so that you could get a feel of what it felt like haveing to go through seperate doors just because of your skin color. Now even though we had to go through seprate ways through the first exhibit, they were the same things that we saw. We then went up this large ramp with the huge, life-size mirrors, with people on them. These people are people who were around during the Apartheid or ar decendents of people who were alive during the Apartheid. Oh, forgot the first part was inside and the ramp was outside. We then take these spiral stairs down one floor and into the main museum. We walk in and go to our right, well we can't go left because it's blocked off, so our only option is to go right. We entered this small circular room that had about 20-25 posters. Each poster was hanging from the ceiling in an outside circle and then an inside circle. On each poster would be a picture of a white, colored, or black woman on it with a brief story of what she did to help stop the Apartheid where she was. If you hadn't already guessed, all these women were some how in politics, either it be themselves, a spouse or family member, or even a friend. In the next room over, which was much bigger there was a picture gallery of the Apartheid. Through the years, throughout the countyr, and in all different points of view. The part that I thought had the most impact was the different points of views. You would see pictures from the blacks and colored's point of views and the next to it would be the same issue but in the whites point of view. After this we went into this small auditorium and watched a brief movie about the Apartheid. From there we went to the rest of the museum,which is a whindy pathway in and out of different rooms. This part of the museum, had pictures, movies, 3D sculptures, and even real artifacts from the time. The neat part about this was that it was like walking down a timeline. After this experience, there was this one last little room with recent paper clippings, from all different types of newspapers from South Africa. All these paper clippings were from things that happended that has some link to the Aparthei or is Apartheid-like in nature. When I ssaid that these were recent clippings, I wasn't kidding, they were todays papers. At first I saw the date and said, wow look it's the same date as today, November 12 isn't that cool. I then blinked and said "Wait a second, that's also the same year. Holy shit, these are today's papers!" This room led into this small, but very tall room, that had these huge boulder-type rocks and then on the wall had a huge South African flag, and on the opposite side of the room a large glass wall, with some peace poem in frosted letters. After this I was taken back to Guinea Fowl Lodge.

DAY 137

2006-11-11T21:37:00.000-08:00

Woke up this morning not wanting to get out of bed as if I had had a very long night out partying or something. Well I finally get out of bed and out the door and arrive at the zoo. After doing my normal first-thing-in-the-morning routine I then helped out whoever needed some extra hands. See today everybody was doing a little spring-cleaning and everybody was very busy, not that they’re not normally, but today everybody was more. My only job today was helping out with the pruning. What I had to do was go to every cage and weed out all the plants that were dead and take the sticks that had fallen from the guys pruning the trees out to the organic recycling, and stuff like that. I played with the Tea Garden birds at lunch and had ½ of one of my sandwiches eaten up by a group effort, by Sam, Rex, Scarlet, and Basil. Later dinner I watched Taking Lives on the TV, you know the one with Angelina Jolie and Ethan Hawke.

DAY 136

2006-11-10T20:56:00.000-08:00

I woke up at like 4:45am this morning, not because I wanted to, it was because I had forgotten to close the windows last night. So when I had moved and some of my leg had gotten out from
underneath the covers I got this huge burst of chill. It was this intense, sharp chill that quickly crept up my spine and waking me up completely. Since I still had a while till I actually had to get out of bed I just staid in bed and did that weird half sleep when you wake up a couple minutes before your alarm and you can’t get back to sleep since you know it’s just about to go off and are just waiting for it. It was sooooooo cold today at the zoo. I had on pajama pants underneath sweatpants, then on top had a t-shirt, sweatshirt, and then my Barbour jacket; then lastly on my feet I had on a thick pair of sock while wearing my UGG boots. Now that’s what I call a cold spell. This is supposed to be Africa man, WTF!!!! So today was filled up by gardening. Around all the cages there is a fence that goes around the fence that keeps the animals in, and then in that space between the two fences are small gardens. My job today was to make them pretty. I first had to run around to all of them taking out all the weeds and dead plants. Some of those weeds took a while since they were thick and deeeeep. Then had to nicely take out some of the plants that would be moving into some of the cages. After which I made the space nice and pretty straightening out the rows or planting new plants in the blank spaces. By the time lunch came around I had just finished. So I stopped for lunch and enjoyed the time with Theresa and Cheryl and of course Tea Garden birds. After lunch I finished with the gardens and then went around with the plants that were going to be replanted in the cages, and planted them. I then helped feed some of the animals and went back to Guinea Fowl Lodge.

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DAY 135

2006-11-09T17:18:00.000-08:00

Basically did my usual routine, feeding the tortoises, and a couple days ago started feeding the iguanas as well. Plus cleaning the pen that the Black Swans, Sacred Ibis, etc… this included shovelling the mud that had formed at the shallow end of the pond and catching the stuff floating in the water. Thankfully, they had one of those nets that are used on pools, so it wasn’t that difficult to do. I also raked the area, which surprisingly didn’t take that long, well at least not as long as I was expecting to take with the amount of area that I was raking. When finished I went and got some baby chicks to feed to the crocodiles. This is very fun to watch. You throw a chick near them and then with a swift turn of their head and a snap, snap motion the chick is completely gone. One thing that I think is cool is how, up to a certain size of course, they can swallow the entire thing without chewing or anything. The best part of feeding them today was what happened when two of the chicks fell on this one crocodiles head. The first time it landed on his head I don’t think that it realized that the chick was there. Anyways, one of the other crocodiles saw it and in a quick, swift motion turned its head snapped it up and swallowed it. The second time this happened the first crocodile was not going to let this happen again, so as soon as he felt the chick fall on his head he threw his head backwards, so that it would be in the air. Then tipped his head sideways and then waited for the chick to fall, then the “snap,snap” and then went back to as if nothing had just happened and that he had been lounging in the sun the whole time. Of course this whole spectacle was not without all the water thrashing and what not.

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DAY 134

2006-11-08T22:34:00.000-08:00

Today was the second of my 2 days off. Even though we only one thing, well actually it was one ting with two main parts. It still took the whole day, and didn’t get back till right before dinner. Today I went to the Cradle of Humankind. This attraction is distributed throughout the province into, I think, 7 parts. We went to the two of the main spots, which were also close to each other. It took about 1½hrs to get there, and we momentarily got lost. Not because my tour guide didn’t know how to get there, but because we had a slight detour, so naturally not being from the area only knew the one route. The first place we went to was this cave called Sterkfontein. This cave is in an area of 290m²were they have found fossils of hominids and other animals that are all around 4million years or younger. The two most famous being Mrs. Ples and Little Foot; the first being 2+ million years old and the oldest recorded fossil being the closest relative to modern human beings, and the second (closer to modern monkeys the humans) being the oldest, 4-3million years old, full skeleton, everything from skull to the tip of the toe bone, nothing missing. Both were found in the Sterkfontein cave. This area is a big Lyme mining area and miners wanting to mine there found the cave in 1860. At random parts of the cave there are holes or openings. This takes millions of years to do, since to make these holes or opening the ground below has to sink, which in turns makes the topsoil sink making these holes or openings. They believe the reason why Little Foot was found all in one piece was he was going through this area and didn’t see the hole and fell in. In turn dying and over time being fossilized by the ground, this is over millions of years, falling on top of him. The first of the two fossils to be found was first, through resent study; they are now thinking that Mrs. Ples is actually a Mr. Ples. She, or he, was found by chance by some of the miners who were working in the cave. Little Foot skull was found in 1936, and not till 1947 was his body found. The cave is 60m down and 500m long, going in a crescent type shape, and is thought to be 22million years old. There are lots of stalagmites and stalactites in the cave. One thing that I think is cool, is one of the rocks down there, in one of the thinner parts, has a hole shaped like a heart. So with the help of a light making a shadow, there is a heart on the wall, naturally :) Right before heading back up to the surface there was this lake, well it was called a lake but it didn’t look any bigger than a pond. The whole look of it could have come straight from the movie The Cave, it even came with a underwater tunnel that led to another “lake,” and had albino shrimp……. Just like in the movie, ummmm… kind of creepy, if you ask me. We then walked up to the surface and walked on this boardwalk back to the parking lot to drive over to the other place that we were going to today. Oh, I forgot to tell you something. As part of the tour, before entering the cave, there was this millennium sundial thing. It works the same way as the time clocks, working with the sun. Besides the time, it also has the month and day. This is how you can tell the time; you find the month and then put the metal stick on the day of the currant month and then the sun does the rest. The really cool thing was that it actually worked. The shadow said it was 11am and it was like a minute or two before. Ok, now back to the tour, so after the cave we drove over to Maropeng, this place is more hands-on museum, and all under ground. The top part, this means not underground, looks like a large grassy mound. The building on the inside though is much more. The ground floor is part of the museum, which then leads down stairs. Then the second and third floors are conference rooms, the fourth floor is a restaurant, and then the roof was made into an observation deck, which can I just say has amazing views, completely breathtaking views. Anyways back to the museum underground. So we walk down this winding ramp, with all these different facts about the human race or something to do with evolution, and how humans share 99% of our DNA and despite our physical and cultural differences we are in fact one species that share the same thoughts and concerns, etc… One thing that I did remember is that there are 6,800 known languages in the world, which is crazy. This ramp takes us to a little boat ride. On the ride we go through the four life-giving elements that combined shape the world. After the boat ride we go to this room were we get an audio-visual of the evolution of the earth and how it started with the gases, etc… turning into Pangaea, turning into what we know today. Then we go into this interactive room where cave formation and evolution as a science are introduced via various hands on interactive displays, audiovisuals and graphic panels. We kept on going and entered the main room where the first thing that we came to was this thing called Pathway to Humanity, where it explored the evolution of humans on visual displays, graphic panels and life-like recreations of species based on the original fossils and environment. Next was “The Sustainability Wall” the wall explores human impact o the environment and how, as the first species to control the environment, we are impacting on the world as we know it. Walking further along the corridor, we arrive at the “What It Means To Be Human” exhibit. This explores the 9 characteristics that make us human, and explored with the modern world and then the gradual build up of human/environmental interaction over time. Last, but certainly not least we arrive at the coolest part of the museum. This room, and we have to go through a metal detector and get out bags checked first, has a large display of fossils. These are original fossils on loan from different scientific and educational institutions that lets us have the privilege of viewing them and learning from them. Afterwards we went up to the restaurant and had a late lunch with the most amazing views. Afterwards, we went up to the aforementioned observation deck. Then drove back, to where were arrived at around 4ish. Spent the rest of the afternoon at Guinea Fowl Lodge.

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DAY 133

2006-11-07T19:46:00.000-08:00

HAPPY ELECTION DAY!

Ok, so my day off is usually Sundays, but see since Renee or Flea takes me to the zoo when they don’t go, neither do I. See Renee and Flea’s schedule goes work for 7 days, off for 2 days. Which means every once in a while they both have the same 2 days off. Which means that this week I have today and tomorrow off. Tomorrow I have a full day a head of me, but today I’m just staying at Guinea Fowl Lodge. Because of yesterday I slept in till like 11am or something and then had a nice long hot breakfast, not the usual fast, cereal and juice. I then, being the OCD person I am, cleaned and reorganized the already organized room. Besides that I just hung out around the Lodge. Spent a long time talking to the fam and friends, and took a nap, stuff like that. I also sent in my absentee ballot. Now you might be thinking why would you send in the ballot on Election Day. Well the answer is, the ballots are accepted a couple months before and up till the day, but it has to be postmarked no later than the day of.

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DAY 132

2006-11-06T18:52:00.000-08:00

Did another cage change today, this time though a bigger change, 2 different animals. The cage was going from two separate birdcages, to one big cage for the caracals (they’re a type of cat, if your wondering). While some of the guys were knocking down the brick wall separating the two cages, I had the task of taking out all the plants. But I had to be gentle since I would be replanting them later. While the guys finished with the wall I got to design the new cage, well help design. It was fun deciding were there house should be, were the trees and plants, etc… should go, were the big rock should go and where their tire toy should go as well. To no surprise, this took the whole day; actually we didn’t finish till 5pm, and hour later than normal. I had no energy by the time I got back to Guinea Fowl Lodge; I kept almost falling asleep while taking my shower. After getting clean I slept till dinner, woke only for the 45min it took to eat and then went to sleep for the night.

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DAY 131

2006-11-05T17:31:00.000-08:00

Today’s Sunday, which means my day off. I spent the day with Marnie helping her out with all her errands. Now this may not seem like a very productive way to spend my day off in a foreign country, but actually it is if you think of it. See now were most people who visit South Africa only get the tourist perspective, I also get the local perspective. See I’m doing normal things that I would be doing in Miami, but with an African flavor. Which just makes it all that much better, there are also some things that you don’t automatically notice. Things like, in the grocery store there are things that you don’t even notice are different but they don’t have in Africa. Like I wanted to get cinnamon applesauce…… well that doesn’t exist in Africa, well at least not in South Africa. Like in the States they have like 10 or so different flavors of applesauce, but here it’s just plain old applesauce, and if you want cinnamon applesauce, like me, you have to add the cinnamon your self.

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DAY 130

2006-11-04T22:00:00.000-08:00

Nothing out of the ordinary happened today, except I kept falling asleep, because of all the alcohol that I had last night of course. One thing was nice though, well I don’t know about the actual task, but the fact that I got to sit down for it. For a majority of the morning Lawrence and I had to sort through baby chicks. Now this doesn’t sound bad, and it isn’t that bad, but still isn’t the most exciting thing to do. What we had to do is take the baby chicks from one crate and separate them into two crates, bad and good. Oh, by the way they’re dead if you’re wondering. The gross part was, how we knew if they were bad or not is if they’re green, but you have to check by looking at their butts. So basically I got to stare at baby chicks asses for a couple of hours. Now when I say they are bad they aren’t actually rotten or anything, they just cant be feed to the animals. Except the crocodiles, so the chicks that are labelled “bad” are actually the crocodile’s food. Another thing that happened today was that the crow was much more talkative today then usual. Yes actually the zoo has two crows, one that is a Black Crow (which is the kind we have in the US), and a Pied Crow, which I think is from around here, but I could be wrong. Anyways, the Pied Crow talks more than the Black Crow, though he does his fair chair himself. The Pied Crow says (and this is spelled phonetically) Ah-Wa, which means “ NO!” in one of the South African languages. There are actually 11 official languages of South Africa, the 3 main ones being, English, Afrikaans, and Zulu. Both the crows are actually very good at impersonations. There best one is this one that sounds like a mother telling her child that they have to go and the child starts whining, not wanting to go. The best part is that they can make it sound like the two people are getting farther and farther away, like there leaving the zoo or something. The first couple times I heard this I actually thought it was happening and would look up from what I was doing to look for the mother and the child. They can also talk to you, like real conversations. Apparently crows, like cockatoos and parrots have a brain as advanced as a 4-5 yr old, so if you walk past their cage they will come up to you and say “hello”, if you say hello back, they will say “what you doing,” after you tell them what your doing they say “how are you,” you answer them and then ask them how they are and they will either say “bad” or “good” depending on the day, sometimes they will both say the same thing and sometimes they won’t. But the best part is after they say good or bad, they will then say “thank you,” and if you say thank you after you say good or bad, they say “your welcome.” So they’re actually very polite crows, they will also say “thank you” after you give them something to eat. They hole thing is actually quite amusing.

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DAY 129

2006-11-03T19:30:00.000-08:00

Same old, same old. Now it may seem like I’m not enjoying myself or bored or something, but au contraire my dear friend. I’m completely enjoying myself, not bored and having a blast. Its just that I would get very tired and bored if I had to write the same thing over and over again, and I wouldn’t be surprised if you would feel the same way about reading it. There is something that did happen today, after the zoo though…… I’ll start out by saying that Marnie and Jeremy took me out to dinner. We went to this place called Primi Piatti, which is this fun restaurant that has this work men/construction feel to it. Like the waiters and waitresses were these orange work men clothes as their uniforms, and instead of the aprons to hold the checks and pens, etc… they had those work man belts, you know the one that holds the hammers and nails and leveller, etc… then there is the actual interior of the restaurant that has a very industrial feel to it, like with work signs and stuff. Oh, and our menus were put on clipboards and we had to check off what we wanted. After dinner is when the real fun began. Now keep in mind that I’ve already had a couple Sex on the Beaches to start me off with, and I would just like to add that the barman who made them must either have an unsteady hand or just likes to give away to much liquor, because there was a lot more alcohol then in normal Sex on the Beaches. Marnie decided that we needed to do some South African shots, the four different shots that we did were Springbok, which is the mascot of the national South African sport teams (consisting of: Peppermint Liquor and Cape Velvet), the Sowetan Toilet, Soweto is a suburb of Johannesburg, if you get my drift (consisting of: Banana Liquor, Nachtmusic, and Triple-Sec), Liquid Cocaine (consisting of: Jägermeister, Bacardi 151, and Goldschlager Cinnamon Schnapps), and Black Mamba (consisting of: Amaretto, Southern Comfort, and Jack Daniels). We both, Marnie and I, Jeremy can’t drink because of a liver problem so he was the designated driver, had a couple shots of each one, but I then had some more of the Black Mamba……those are amazing. It actually makes me cry, not even one glistening tear. Immediately after taking the shot I start balling like a baby or like after you cut like a million onions, and I got this immediate heat in the back of my through to. Then there is this whole story/dance thing that preludes to drinking the Springbok, that just gets funnier the more drunk you get, both in watch it and doing it. It’s this whole thing with how the Springbok, like an antelope, gets thirsty and goes to get something to drink. Before the story starts you have to put your hands on top of your head so it looks like antlers. So the story goes; The Springbok goes to look for something to drink (put on hand over eyes looking for something movement), gets lost (put hands back on head for antlers and paw ground with one of your feet, b/c your lost, your frustrated), finds something to drink but another Springbok finds it first so you fight over it (you and another person doing this “play” put your heads together pretending to fight like Springboks do, with the antlers), after fight you find another drink so now both of you have a drink, the next step is (still having you hands on top of your head as antlers) take the shot glass in your mouth and then tip you head backwards. Now the first time you feel silly doing this, but when you do this a couple of times (it also helps when you have a couple shots of something stronger too, like in my case Black Mamba) not only does the story get funnier to do, but then you start not being able to keep all of the shot going into your mouth, so some of it dribbles done your face, then you start laughing even more than you already are.

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DAY 128

2006-11-02T21:29:00.000-08:00

Went to the zoo today, but alas nothing to report about today’s happenings. Although, I did get to spend more time playing with the Tea Garden birds today. This was because it was raining, and not just lightly either, like cats and dogs. Now the reason why we weren’t working in the rain was not because we are wimps or something. See we do work in the rain, but when it rains in the bucket loads that it was raining today, it is very hard to do anything else. We couldn’t even feed the animals either. This was because even if did decide to feed them they wouldn’t eat it and then the meat would go bad and it would be a big waste. So I did as much work as I could do in the rain, like washing dishes, cleaning the fridge, stuff like that. And then I had like a 3 hours for lunch. To top the day off, if that could happen, there was a school group of children, who were probably in like the 3^rd or 4^th grade. Now I know that large (let me reiterate this, there were 100 kids that came, yes you read right, 100) school groups book ahead, but still you’d think that they would cancel or rebook, with weather like this. But, noooooo…they still had to come. So we had a zoo outside, and a circus inside (were the covered picnic tables are)……what a combination, LOL… oh I forgot to say that there was also lots of loud thunder, and even the occasional lightning.

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DAY 127

2006-11-01T20:34:00.000-08:00

Rabbit, Rabbit, Rabbit…….don’t ask…… if you don’t know, don’t ask, you won’t understand. Nothing really to report about today. Did the usual things. Though one cool thing happened, I got to so some gardening next to the Eurasian Lynxes and the Leopard. Well actually the gardening wasn’t the exciting part, it was the fact that they let me pet them. I even gave Shazeem, the Leopard, a belly rub, which was SOOOO COOL!!

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DAY 126

2006-10-31T18:05:00.000-08:00

HAPPY HOLLOWEEN
Now I know that Halloween is not a Jewish holiday, but even though it started as a Pagan holiday, turning into a Christian holiday, it had become so commercialized that it really has no religiousness any more. Anyways, I did all my usual stuff, everything the same except for the crocodiles. This is where I felt like I was starring in an episode of the Crocodile Hunter. My actual task was cleaning their little pond that they have, but before doing so, had to put tAhem into their house. This was the part that I felt like I was on the show, trying to get them into the house, since it was a beautiful day they didn’t want to budge, so it was a little bit harder than just nudging them with a broom, like normally. After we got them into their house I first drained the pond after which I took a scratchy broom, you know the one where the bristles are made from plastic. There was this dark green slime that covered every inch of the pond. Since the bottom of this small pond was cement it was actually no that hard. I basically took the broom and scrubbed everywhere, this loosened up the slim. I then took the hose and sprayed over everywhere, so most of the slime went away and all that was left was the slime that was in the cracks. So I then went back with the broom and went to all the areas that still had slime and scrubbed away. I then rinsed the broom off and also the pond, which now looked so much better, being now grey and all. I left the hose running to fill up the pond and then let the crocodiles out, and who were very happy to do so.

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DAY 125

2006-10-30T19:27:00.000-08:00

Today I had another big job, thankfully not as bad as the crates but still big. After feeding the tortoises I started on the project. My project today was converting this particular cage from Tea Garden type birds to baby owls. Now this doesn’t seem like it would be that big of a task but it was, more because of the little details and also getting things sometimes meant walking across the entire zoo. This is what I had to do; first I had to look for wire cutters, which took longer than it should of. When I finally found some I went around the whole cage, thankfully not that big of one, and cut the wires holding up the toys, sticks, and logs around the cage. Then I untied the bird feeder, which took a little time since the three knots were tight and they were just above my reach, on a chair. After clearing everything out of the cage I took the toys into the back and the wood to the organic recycling at the far end of the zoo. After which I then raked up the ground and went on a search for nice wooden stumps. I found 4 nice stumps and small logs. I then placed them around the cage with one corner with nothing in it for the carrier that was going to be there for their home. And then found this large red feeder and put some water in it. After lunch and playing with the Tea Garden birds I went to the Cold Room and washed the animals dishes, after which I helped cut up fruit and meat before distributing it throughout the zoo. I got to feed the Spotted Eagle Owls again which was fun. I went back to Guinea Fowl Lodge and did some laundry, and took a nap while my clothes were getting clean.

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DAY 124

2006-10-29T21:25:00.000-08:00

Today was my day off, so I didn’t go to the zoo. Instead I met up with Marnie and this other volunteer, Jenny. Voluntours has a handful of projects around South Africa. Jenny was on the project that the volunteers work at this primary school in this rural town a couple hours outside Johannesburg. She had spent the night at Marnie and Jeremy’s house last night, since she was going back to the UK this evening. Well just because she was leaving tonight didn’t mean that she couldn’t do anything in the morning. She wanted to get a couple last minute souvenirs for some family before leaving, so since I didn’t have anything to do today and they were going to go to Sandton City to do this, I went with them. Sandton City is its own city, and actually quite large, but is still considered part of Jo’burg. After parking the car we went to meet Jeremy at work. Well not exactly, Jeremy’s main job is a real estate agent and they were having to some of showing in the Nelson Mandela Square. It was this big tent with pictures and info about every property that they were selling. Plus most of the real estate agents who were selling them were there. So basically it was a slight mad house. While waiting for Marnie to get what ever she needed to get from Jeremy I looked at some of the properties that were up. Since this was the best and one of the most prestigious real estate agents in the country they had some really nice houses, though they still had there fair share of the average houses there were some NIICCCEE… houses. Like there was this one property that was this large house with quite a bit of land, a 6 stall stable an outside ring and a small pasture, and some other small building, and all this for like 6.2 million Rands. But the even cooler thing about it is is because of the exchange rate that price is only a couple thousand above 8 hundred thousand, so basically not even a mil. We then left and went to Rosebank Local Market. Which is located in the 2 story covered garage of some mall. Every Sunday the parking garage becomes a place were local artists, etc… can come and sell their things. Before going to the market we had to stop in the mall and go to the pharmacy, I had gotten some fever blisters on my lips and they were getting bad enough to need real drugs, the ones that you have to go to the pharmacist for. We then headed out to the parking garage and walked around looking at all the different things that people are selling for a couple of hours. They range from beaded artwork, woodwork, jewelry; things made from jade, etc… all that come from indigenous South African tribes. By then it was time for lunch and I was getting kind of hungry. On our way over to the food area part of the market we passed this man who had made guitars out of used oilcans and were now selling them. They sounded exactly like a normal guitar and they were really cool looking. After listening to him for a couple minutes we continued on our way to the food were we stopped one more time before getting there. This was because this one particular stall was selling random memorabilia and they had some US license plates for sale. One of them was a Florida plate so of course I had to take a picture. For lunch I decided I wanted Thai, which was a good choice, one thing that I did really like from my lunch was these fried banana pieces with poppy seeds, that you dipped in a coconut syrup thing. It was sooooooo good. I then got a fresh fruit smoothie from this other stand before we continued on our adventure though the craft market. After spending the whole afternoon at Rosebank we went back to Marnie’s and had dinner there. Before it got to late, Jeremy drove me back to Guinea Fowl Lodge.

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DAY 123

2006-10-28T19:10:00.000-07:00

Not much to say today… Did the normal feed the tortoises, clean this or that, feed this animal and that animal, and of course play with the Tea Garden birds during lunch. I also got to check my emails, etc… this afternoon when I got back to Guinea Fowl Lodge. I don’t even remember the last time I hadn’t checked my email like every day. There have been times were I didn’t heck it, but that was because I didn’t feel like checking it, but this was because I didn’t have access to a computer let alone the internet.

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DAY 122

2006-10-27T22:45:00.000-07:00

READ BEFORE GOING ANY FURTHER: PLEASE NOTE THAT THE CONTEXT OF TODAYS BLOG IS SAD, EMOTIONAL, AND GRAPHIC. IF YOU HAVE AN EXTREMELY LARGE HEART FOR ANIMALS AND/OR HAVE A WEAK STOMACH PLEASE SCROLL DOWN AND READ THE STARRED SENTENCE AT THE BOTTOM OF TODAYS BLOG. THANKS, ALEXIS

Today was a sad day, it might not come out as if today had an impact on me but it did. Well it started out, as a good day, me finishing the crates, couldn’t put them in the shed till the afternoon, since it was still being built, but still finished the cleaning part of it. Well about an hour before lunch Eddie, he and his wife own the place, told me we were going to get the horsemeat for the animals, since we were running low. Now keep in mind that I realized that they cut up the horses there at the zoo so it could be the freshest possible. But what I was about to experience was something totally different. Eddie and I drive to the vet’s office and drive in the back entrance with the truck and flat bed trailer in tow. When we arrive the vet is still inside so I say hi to some of the horses and give them some love, the vet then comes out with a stable hand and a horse, I turned my back to them and gave my attention to the horse that I was presently petting, when all of a sudden I heard the most loudest and most rattling sound ever. I went momentarily deaf; it was only for a couple of seconds, but still. This was made, if you couldn’t already guess, from a gunshot. Now I know guns are loud and they’re still loud on TV or on the news, but in real life, OH MY G-D, is that fucker loud. After which the second, and thankfully last horse came out and the same thing happened. Now the vet reassured me that these horses needed to be put down and that they wouldn’t kill them if it didn’t absolutely need to be done. I didn’t want to go into detail with him with what was wrong with the horse, because then it would get to personal and I would then burst out crying. So I left it at that, so there would be as much emotional distance between the horses and me as possible. I have this thing that I can’t cry in public, not that I don’t want to, it just doesn’t happen, but as soon as I’m by my self, Niagara Falls comes out. There is though, once in a very rare blue moon that I will cry, but that something has to be something huge. This was one of those times that I cried. Well actually I didn’t, but because I made myself not cry in public, not because it wouldn’t happen naturally, like normally. I then had to help load them onto the flat bed. I would just like to say that a horse’s head is heavy in the first place, but when it’s dead, whew, well that’s just another story…… When we were loading the first horse the second horse’s leg was still flailing and the stomach still going up and down. Now I know for a fact that when any living thing is shot at close range in the brain that they die instantly, with little or no pain. I also know that after that living thing is shot it dies, but the muscles and organs, still work for a couple of moments. Even knowing this you still momentarily forget that and think that they’re still alive and suffering. Another thing that was more just plain gross than sad, was what happened after they died. Everything came out their noses. There was still a lot of blood that came out of the mouth, eyes, and the where the gunshot was, but let me just say the nose is where all the action is. Besides a couple buckets worth of blood, both liquid and more compact, there was also some white thing, well it was mostly red, but that was from all the blood, you could tell that its original color was a light grey/off white color and this was all coming out the nose. One thing that really got me going and that it took more then ever not to cry, was the look in the horse’s eyes. Just staring at you looking so innocent and desperate, so before going any further I had to go to both horses and close there eyes, even though I still knew that they were dead, it defiantly helped. Before loading the first horse the vet did something. The one thing that I did know about the first horse was that he had some injury on top of why he was being put down for. So before loading him onto the flat bed the vet did an autopsy, and since they didn’t need any aesthetics or clean cutting instruments, since the horse was already dead, he did the autopsy right there on the grass in the back of the building. This part I think I was more fascinated then anything else. Not in a morbid way, but in a vet student or something way. So apparently the injury was in the area of where the left shoulder meets beginning of the stomach area. See I don’t know where exactly but that’s where the vet was cutting. Anyways so he cuts through the skin and, what seems like endless, layers of fat and muscles. To where he starts looking at something, but in the process I see the different layers of the muscles and some kind of organ, well I think it was more than one, but still I was looking at the inside of a horse. I mean I’ve seen the inside of a horse before, but in like vet books and some of my riding books, and then maybe on Animal Planet or something, but never in real life, which besides the sad factor of the horse being dead, it was really fascinating and I was all into it, but of course not in a morbid way or anything like that. Anyways back to today, after loading the horses and washing off my arms and legs of blood, etc… Eddie and I headed back to the zoo were there was some of the zoo people waiting for us so that they could cut up the horses and put them into the walk-in fridge. Since I had missed my lunch hour, I spent the next hour on break, but as you might expect didn’t eat my lunch. I spent the time playing with my new friends Sam and Rex, who by the way are cockatoos and are Tea Garden birds. After my lunch break I put the now clean crates into the finished shed, with about 40min left in the day helped with the feeding. I feed some of the vultures the crocodiles and the Spotted Eagle Owls. Those were fun to feed, because they were at the stage in their life were they are learning to fly. So what Laurence and I did (oh before I forget he works here at the zoo) was we stood at the opposite side of the cage were I would hold out my arm and then Laurence would hold a baby chick (and yes, the chicks are dead) near my arm and then start calling the owls over. Then one by one the owls would fly onto my arm get the chick and then fly back to the perch that they were sitting on. After each of them, I think there were 6 or 7, had gotten one chick we scattered some more around the cage and then left. Before leaving for the day I put the crates into the finished shed. I went back to Guinea Fowl Lodge and spent the rest of the day watching TV all curled up in bed. I know this doesn’t sound very productive and not something you would do when visiting a foreign country, but if you read everything above you would know why. I then, with no dinner, went to bed after watching TV and everything was just mushing into one.

******SUMMARY FOR PEOPLE WHO HAD TO SKIP TODAYS BLOG: I FINSHED THE CRATES AND PUT THEM AWAY, 2 HORSES DIED, I HELPED HAND FEED SPOTTED EAGLE OWLS.

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DAY 121

2006-10-26T19:30:00.000-07:00

Woke up a little tired today, but nothing a little caffeine couldn’t help. I arrive at the zoo and get put in charge of a lovely task -1 word- crates… Ok, so let me try and explain this. In the back they have a small snake room, a rat room, and a place where there is an area to wash the bird bowls. Then the rest of the area is cages of all different kinds of small birds (the tweet, tweet types), and then there are a couple of other types of animals back there that are only temporarily at the, because there normal cage is getting something done to it, or their mating and so their put in the back so there is no disturbances. The rest of the space it taken up with all the different crates that the animals come in just lying around in no particular order and some still have the straw in it from when the animal was in it. There was this one area that was not being used so they were in the process of putting up metal beams and then putting up metal sheets for the sides, roof, and doors. This was going to be the new home of all crates. So my task was to wash out all the crates and then when the new shed was completed to but them in an orderly fashion between plastic and wooden and large and small into the shed. I did this till leaving at 4pm and still hadn’t finished. This was because even though most of them didn’t really need anything more than a wash down, I would occasionally come across a bad one that would take a while to get clean. Plus on top of that there were an abundance of crates in the first place. At lunch today I met these two other ladies that volunteer at the zoo, but volunteer in another way. See both these ladies had donated one of their birds to the zoo, but still were attached to them and wanted to visit them. So they would both come every day or every other day take the Tea Garden birds out of their cages and onto the different perches in the Tea Garden and play with them. They started coming during the summer, both not knowing the other, but since coming to the zoo and volunteering with the birds had become friends and now came together to play with the birds and even sometimes would buy things like rope or plastic chains, etc… for the birds to play with. Oh by the way their names are Theresa and Cheryl, since I’ll probably be mentioning them many more times throughout my stay here. After lunch I continued with the crates till it was time to go home. I then spent the evening watching some TV, CSI: NY to name one :), and also took a little nap before dinner.

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DAY 120

2006-10-25T21:00:00.000-07:00

Now I feel like I’m back at school again, I mean in the way that I’m having to get up at 6am and not only be up but be ready to work. At 7am Renee came to pick me and take me to the zoo. My first job this morning was the tortoises. Apparently I will be taking care of the tortoises for the rest of my time here. I will start with the tortoises then move onto whatever other takes that I need to do for that day. Ok, this is what I do as my tortoise job. I first go to both eating spots and any food that is still there I put in the bucket. I then empty the water bucket and take it over to the hose. I then throw away the food that’s in the bucket and go back to the water buckets and clean them. After filling them back up with water I then go to the cold room (this is, if you couldn’t guess from the name, where the walk-in fridge is) and get the scraps of fruit, left over from cutting up the fruit for other animals food, then distributing it around the two areas were the water dishes are. Then, of course, if I see a tortoise while walking to each area I will stop and give it a couple scraps. Now if your wondering why I would have to find the tortoises, that is because they don’t live in a cage they roam free throughout the zoo. See even though the zoo is still a big size it’s still a small local zoo in the end, which means that there are only so many people that come per day and that it is not as chaotic as a larger, mainstream zoo. Which in the end means that the tortoises can roam free around the zoo. I did some random odd and end jobs around the zoo, you know racking up this, fixing that. Then at 1pm we have our lunch hour. While eating lunch I played with the Tea Garden birds. The Tea Garden birds are the Cockatoos, African Greys, and other small birds that used to be owned by people and lived in homes. These birds where then donated by their owners because of many reasons, but all the reasons boiled down to they couldn’t keep them any more. Be it, the were moving out of the country, they now didn’t have the time to feed or play with them because of work, etc… either way all the Tea Garden birds all came from pet shops at one time or the other. After lunch there is only two more hours in the day before going home. I spent those two lovely hours doing a little weeding in one of the flowerbeds next to the lion’s cage and then cutting up some horsemeat for the carnivorous animals and then helping Renee feed some of the animals.

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DAY 119

2006-10-24T22:07:00.000-07:00

I woke up, w/o an alarm clock I might add, and had a nice leisurely breakfast. It was so nice walking up at whatever time I wanted. While I ate breakfast Marnie goes over the orientation papers concerning everything and anything about the project. Afterwards I quickly pack up the couple of things that I had taken out of my bag and then Marnie and I head over to Guinea Fowl Lodge. Guinea Fowl Lodge is the name of the place that I will be staying at for the next month. Now I know the name makes it sound all grandeur and all, but it’s not all that. Ok, now I’m making it sound like it’s a piece of shit. Ok, here it is, there is the main house with sort of a mother-in-law apartment attached to it, (which is where I stayed). Then across the driveway there is one large room, separated into two smaller ones, which is the laundry room and storage. Then if you walk a little away there is another building, which is like two small houses attached to each other. The place runs like a small B&B and usually the guests that come through are business people who are attending a conference or something. You will get the occasional tourist like me, but that’s like once in a blue moon. Anyways, after dropping my stuff in my room Marnie and I head over to the zoo. We arrived at Lory Park Zoo around lunchtime. After meeting Renee, who she and Flea would be the two people looking in on me, I sort of shadowed her for the rest of the day (being all 3hrs of it). Helping do this and that, and feeding some of the animals, etc… At 4:30pm we were done for the day, at which point Renee took me back to Guinea Fowl Lodge. I then spent the rest of the afternoon unpacking and organizing everything till dinner. I ate dinner with the owners of the place Moira and Derek. After which I watched a little TV (cough, cough, CSI: Miami and Without a Trace, cough, cough) and then went to sleep, since I had to wake up at 6am the next morning.

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DAY 118

2006-10-23T20:21:00.000-07:00

I had to wake up really early this morning to catch the shuttle bus back to the airport. I went down had some breakfast and then went to the front desk to check out. Another really cool thing that happened, at check out not only was dinner free but also breakfast. So I got to stay in a really nice hotel 100% free, can’t get any better than that :) I then took the shuttle back to the airport, took my bags up stairs to check-in and re-check-in my bags. It was nice; since it was so early in the morning I didn’t have to wait in any lines or anything, just walked right up. With the rest of my plane, I took the airport train to our terminal and then waited at the gate for like 1½ hr. The trip from Madrid to Johannesburg was 10hrs OH MY FUCKING G-D!!! See if it wasn’t for my day yesterday and everything that happened then the 10hrs would be fine. Ok, maybe not fine but still bearable. Unlike now, were all I wanted to do was get to South Africa with no more problems and no more waiting. I am thankful that the person sitting next to me was nice and pleasant to talk to and didn’t have any of those annoying habits that you hope your neighbor won’t have. They showed 3 movies on the fight down and then also had one of those pictures where you can see where the plane is at that moment. The movies that we watched were; The Devil Wears Prada, The Break Up, and some Spanish movie about this woman who becomes blind and how that affects her, her family, and her life, both positively and negatively. I thought 10hrs on a train was bad, it’s even worse on a plane. Because at least on a train the scenery changes. On a plane it’s like… look a cloud… another cloud… another cloud… and… oh look…… another cloud. At a little past 5pm we finally landed in Johannesburg. I get my bags, which are thankfully one of the first, so I don’t have to wait long. I go through customs with no problems and didn’t have to wait long since the only people in line were from my plane and they had 10+ lanes open. I get out into the main part of the arrivals hall and look for Marnie. Marnie is one of the people who own and run Voluntours. See it’s a very small business, nothing like Earthwatch. For example their office was once a spare bedroom in their house. I wait for Marnie for a couple of minutes and then decide to give her a call. They probably don’t know when my new arrival time is, since I had to leave it in the hands of my mother to call or email them the new information and apparently it didn’t get done (no offence Ima, love you still). Well I can’t find any payphones and I’m like how can an airport not have any payphones. I then realize that it is because they have a pay phone store, sort of like the one that I went to in Marrakech. I then was able to call Marnie and tell her that I was here. She told me she was at home and about 30min away. While waiting for Marnie I stay at the phone place and call some people to chat and say hi while I’m waiting. I find Marnie and we walk to her car, which is a lime green Renault. It sounds bad, bat actually it fits the car, it’s like how some colors that look really bad on other cars looks good on the VW Beetle, same idea. Since it’d be to late to bring me to the B&B that I will be staying at while at the zoo, I go home with her and sleep in there guest bedroom. We have a quick dinner and then hit the sacks……

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DAY 117

2006-10-22T21:20:00.000-07:00

I got to sleep-in since my hotel that I stayed at was in the city and it was close to the airport and it wasn't till 2pm anyways. I wish I could say that my morning was smooth, but it wasn’t. So, I’m at the front desk trying to pay and my card won’t go through. I’m like shit… I have to be on a plane in a couple of hours and now my card won’t go through and it’s not like it’s something that I can just put back on the counter and leave, I sort of have to pay. I then have the ingenious thought that it’s not working because there is little or no money left on the card. See for security purposes I have most of my money in my savings and then only transfer a couple hundred over at a time. I remember that I hadn’t transferred money over in a while so I was probably just in need for another transfer. This is where the fun began….. I first had to find an internet café that was open this early on a Sunday morning, LOL, that’s a joke. I ended up just going to one of the bigger tourist hotels and using their internet that they have for guests. I then went onto the bank’s website and transferred some money over and headed back to the hotel. I get back to the hotel and give them the card to try again. No such luck. It still wouldn’t go through, ugh… SO ANNOYING!! They tell me that the card isn’t going through, and that it’s not saying that I have insufficient funds like the last time. So I then get the ingenious thought of just going to an ATM and getting money out, since sometimes I can still take out money from the ATM even when I can’t use it at a store. So I walk next door to the train station and tried at both the ATM’s. Well with no avail I went back to the hotel to think of something else. I then try and call both parentals, NEITHER OF WHOM ANSWERED!!!! I then called Raviv, SINCE HE ALL WAYS ANSWERS!!! to see if he could think of anything. To make a long story short, we ended up just having Raviv pay with his credit card. PHEW, SO GLAD THAT’S OVER WITH!! THANKS RAVIV FOR EVERYTHING!!!!! I get to the airport and find the ticket counter the TV is displaying my flight and wait in line, which was thankfully not that long, so I got up to the counter quickly. When I got to the counter everything went fine and I got my ticket from Madrid to Johannesburg, but not the one from Marrakech to Madrid. This was because for some reason I had to wait for like 20min then come back to get the ticket. Though when I came back I wouldn’t have to wait in the line, just go up to the ticket counter and pick it up. Which I thought was kind of weird, but whatever. Since I had all this free time I decided to walk down to the end of the terminal. The whole 5min it took me to walk down. There was this little café and I was a little hungry from this mornings events. After sitting at my table with my Fanta and Pain au Chocolat and looking at everybody checking their tickets or eating something or talking to their friend, etc… I got up and started on my journey down the corridor, remember, all 5 min of it. I passed this little souvenir shop and bought this little wooden camel and a salt & pepper tajine. I then continued down and went back to the counter, picked up my ticket and then walked to the other side of the room, filled out my customs forms, gave it to the customs man, and then went to wait in the boarding hall. While standing in line, looking at my ticket, I noticed that it said business class on it. YEA!!……THANK THE LORDS, at least one good thing has happened to me today. Even though the flight was only 2hrs long, I was still happy that I got to be in business class. I arrive in Madrid and go check the monitors to see which gate my flight to South Africa is leaving out of. When I find my flight on the screen it says new time leaving at 9:00. My first reaction was yippy; my flight’s leaving early….. then I remembered that outside the US they use the 24hr clock. Which means 9:00 is 9am, not 9pm. Which means instead of having only a couple of hours to wait now I have to spend the night. I walk over to the customer service counter and ask them if their putting people up at a hotel or something. They said yes they were and sorry for the inconvenience and then gave me this special piece of paper that I was supposed to give to the hotel at check-in. I then asked if I could get my bags since I had been in the same clothes for a couple days and I didn’t want to be in them any longer, let alone another day. They said to go down to Lost Luggage and that they would be able to help me out. I go down to Lost Luggage and explain my situation; the lady said that it was possible to get my bags but that I would have to wait an hour to get them. Well I didn’t care, it’s not like I had anywhere else to go. So I took the slip from Lost Luggage to give to the security so I could get through. While I was waiting next to the luggage carousel I called my folks just to say hi and see what’s up. When an hour had come around the carousel they said it would be coming onto starting moving. Then a couple minutes’ later people started arriving. Thankfully my bags were one of the first to come off, so I didn’t have to wait long. After getting my bags I quickly go to the restroom and use the wheelchair stall to change and freshen up a bit. I walk outside and look for the shuttle bus to take me to the hotel were I would be spending the night. I wait a couple minutes and then it appears. I arrive at the hotel with everybody else on the shuttle being from my plane. I check in and head up to my room. Iberia definitely knows how to hook you up……. This was a damn nice hotel; I read in one of its pamphlets that it was a 4½ star hotel, HELLS YEA!!!! I take a nice long nap and when I wake up I watch a little TV before going down stairs to dinner. I go back upstairs, and as soon as I hit the pillow, I’m out like a light.

DAY 112

2006-10-17T21:21:00.000-07:00

Today we didn't have any cooking lessons because we went on a little excursion that took most of the day. Today was a gorgeous morning and the sun was out and gave us that right amount of heat while we sat by the pool and ate our breakfast. A little bit after lunch we got in the car and drove about 1 1/2 hours to the Atlas Mountains. At the base of the mountains there are all these little villages, we went to the village of Tahanoute, where they had a very rual Souk. Here we saw everything being sold from clothing, to things for the house, to toys, then there was also the food, there was a vegetable and fruit section, a section just for grains, then there was the meat section. I was OK with seeing all the meat and the hooves and the skins, even the heads, the only thing that kind of bothered me was this one head of this sheep its eyes hadn't glazed over or anything, and it was looking straight at me. KINDA CREEPY, if you ask me. There were even barbers, there was this one stall and this little boy was getting his hair cut and he had this look on his face like "I better be getting a REALLY big present for this torture" and then the other kid, I guess his brother, was sitting on the mom's lap crying. This one place that was trying to sell stuff completely did over Jeff and Sam so the both looked like they should have been extras for Lawrence of Arabia, it was a good laugh. One of the big transportations is the Mule, even in the city you see them everywere, even when your stopped at the stoplight they're right there next to you parked. Anyways since that's most peoples way of getting around especially this rually, is by mule at this Souk there is Mule Parking. It's really funny looking, and it looks like somthing out of a western movie, excpet mles instead of horses, but the same idea. Well after the Souk we kept on driving till we reached this Berber village, called Imil, that we had to park the car. This is because at this point the mountain does not have a road anymore, there is a worn in path, but not any bigger than a person and a half wide. Our final destination was this restaurant, that's also a small hotel, named Kasbah du Toubkal, that is at about 13,000 feet. This area were we were going is the setting for the 1996 Martin Scorzese movie "Kundun." To get to this place hpwever we had to ride mule up the mountain. This gave me an instant flashback to when I was younger and used to go on those donkey trips were we would go out for a week and trek though the Cascade Mountains. When we got to the place and we were greeted by the guy who had us do some ritual thing before going up onto the roof balcany for lunch. He took the silver, baster looking, thing, which was filled with orange blossom water, to "cleanse" our hands. He took the "baster" and sprinkled a couple of drops on our hands and we had to rub it in. Then we had to take a date, dip it in some kind of milk, and then eat it. After this we were led up to were we were eating lunch. The view alone was amazing, it was one of the most breathtaking views ever. I can only just imagine what it must look like in th winter when there is some snow in the peaks. After eating with the most amazing view we took the mules back down to the village and then starting driving back. About half we stop at this place that had some really cool looking fociles, that were found somewhere here in Morocco. We then had alot of free time when we got back to the house. This is mostly due to the fact that there is only 3 of us, so things just don't take that long like they would in a larger group. We then had dinner, all read a little bit afterwards, then headed of to sleep.

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DAY 111

2006-10-16T20:10:00.000-07:00

I don't know why I was so famashed, but I ate so much at breakfast that you would have thought that I was fasting for Ramadan as well. Even thought I had a large dinner last night. Today we have to cooking lessons, the morning one we made Kebda M'shermla (Liver Salad), Briouate Bel Crevette (Prawns Briouate)but we made a special cheese one for me, Tangia (Marrakechi speciality), Qotbane bel Kefta (Mince Meat Brochettes), Baghrire (Moroccan-style pancakes). If it wasn't for the prawns the Briouates looked so good. In the Biouate's there was green and red peppers, Haritha (or hot sauce), paprika, cumin, lemon, garlic, parsley and coriander, and then sunflower oil. Since I couldn't have that we made a special cheese one for me, made with eggs,flour, milk, and Laughing Cow. The Tangia is a Marrakchi speciality, it is a speciality more for the way it is cooked than what being cooked, even though that's still very important. What happens is we have all the ingredients and we put it into this urn looking pot and then seal it. It then needs to sit inside the hot coal for 5 hours before it's done. So after our cooking lesson we got into the car and drove to the center of town where there is one of these special "ovens" that is for public use. The nice thing is that since it is now Ramadan, most people won't bring their Tangia's till later, so our was the only one. We had a little free time before we sat down to lunch. While eating lunch outside the trash man came around to pick up the trash. Except their trash man was this older man with a donkey and a flatbed cart. Though it really was the official, if you could call it that, trash man, since there was the some official looking symbol, then all this stuff in French and Arabic, saying that is who it was, painted on to this piece of wood that was hammered onto the side of the cart. Now i'm thinking that they must have a more modern trash removel service in the city and that this was ours since even though were only a couple minutes outside the city, were still in the middle of nowwheresurronded by palm trees and lots and lots of sand. After lunch however we spent the afternoon camel riding, WHICH WAS SOOOOOO MUCH FUN!!!!!!! Besides the actual ride the view was great, we either had the Atlas Mountain Range or an endless desert. There was actually at one point when we came across a skull, next to this cactus, that looked like a camels head. After out trek throught the palms and a little bit of desert we headed back to the house. At which point we had our second cooking lesson of the day. This lesson included Shlada Matecha (Tomato and Onion Salad), Khobz Maghrebi (Moroccan Bread), Smen (preserved butter), Laymün bel-Qerfa (Orange and Cinnamon Salad). We had dinner and then stayed up just chatting till sort of a late time, then a little bit after the staff had left we all were kind of tired so we decided to go to sleep.

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DAY 110

2006-10-15T20:32:00.000-07:00

Sunday we woke up early, well 8am isn't early, but compared to the time that I had been normally been getting up, it was early. I went down to the outside terrace to find Jeff and Sam all ready there, but apparently just, because they were still waiting for the food to come. After breakfast we had a little time before we had to be in the kitchen for our morning cooking lesson. Today we made Shorba (Moroccan Soup), Tajine Berbère (Lamb Tajine with vegetables), M'ssillare (Preserved Lemons), Ghreybet Essmida (Semolina-based cookie). The Moroccan Soup is basically a vegetable soup and made also with lamb bones, but taken out before being puréed. Even though the Preserved Lemon is just lemons and salt, we learned the real way to do it, since preserved lemons are a big part of the Moroccan food culture. The cookies were really good because one of the ingredients is orange blossom water, which just gives it that extra something. A little after lunch We met the driver who would take us into town to meet our tour guied. While out and about in Marrakech, more specifically, Medina, we started with the Palais Bahia and then went onto all the different Souks. The Palais Bahia is 111 years old and was where the current Prime Ministers lived. The palace didn't have any furnishing and wasa little run down, but from what our tour guide was telling us about how the place was finished and all the other things, this was probably gorgeous and a real col place. I mean the place was still gorgeous and it had nothing in it and was run down, can you just think how it was when it was still a working palace. Anyways the tour guide also said some interesting things about the last Prime Minister. He had 4 wives and 24 harlems. The best part is that they each had there own mini suite. So you can just imagine the size of this place. There was also an abundance of cats and kittens. See in the muslim culture cats are thought of highly, the are considerd a "pure" animal. It's sort of the same (but not at the same time) like cows in India. In this palace in some of the doors they carved out a little hole at the bottom of the door for the cats. After the palace we went to the Souks. The Souks are another name for marketplace. We first went to the main Souk, which had this huge square in the middle. Then we went to the smaller, more specialized Souks. First we went through the animal one, and we saw everything from chickens, to rabbits, to turtles, to other simular animals, basically looked like a very big pet shop. Except these animals were for food not as pets. So instead of getting your chicken from the grocery store they would buy the live ones and then bring it home. Well you can't say it would be fresh :) We also passed by some clothing Souks, and then the spice Souk, which was really cool and smelled amazing. There were a couple of the Souks that I felt that I was back in the Old City in Jerusalem. One of the last places that we went was this rug dealer. The only sell REAL traditional Moroccan rugs. The reason why I have real in caps is because you can't get real traditional Moroccan rugs outside of Morocco, if you do they are probably fake or the person is crazy and cameall the way here to bring them back home. The man not only showed us around, but gave us a brief history of the traditiobal rugs, like where the styles came from, what was the reason or significance of a paticular design, etc... The last place we went to before getting picked up by our driver was this shop that was part of the spice Souk. The thing that I really liked about this place was not only did this guy sell the spice and the medicinal herbs, etc... But he had a special room, which we got to see. This room is were he kept the ingredients for Black and White Magic. I'm like this is so cool, all the times I would see place like this in movies and such and now I get to see it in real life and this guy is totally in to it. I say this because Sam asked him if he did any Black or White Magic and he said yes, but in the wierd "yes and I have a voodoo doll of you in the back, would you like to see it" kind of way. After getting picked up we head back to the house were we have some down time till cocktail hour. Tonights cocktail hour was really cool though. We were entertained by Morooccan musicians playing traditional G'naoua music. Something that was cool was that after playing for a while they had us get up and taught us how to do some of the dancing. They looked good, we looked like ADD chickens with thier heads cut off. This was due mostly because of the really fast and intricate foot work. After cocktail hour we moved down stairs to the dining room, where the musicians stayed and played through out dinner. Not only did they stay through out dinner, but long g after that, but it didn't really matter, because not only was it nice but we were staying up chatting anyways. After this I went up to bed and fell right to sleep, because even though I hadn't down much, I was still very tired.

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DAY 109

2006-10-14T18:50:00.000-07:00

I woke up again late, but this time more aroung lunch time. It was wonderful to just wake up naturally and not by an alarm clock or something. I then went down stairs and through the kitchen to the patio were I had breakfast yesterday and sat down to Josef just 5sec behind, sort of like a lost puppy, with my orange juice. Something that I didn't realize till later was that until the two other people came that afternoon, that I had the whole place to my self (the previous people had either left last night or very early this morning), well by myself in the since that I was the only guests. There was still the staff, grounds keppers, and the gaurds, but still... Then around lunch time the second person came, Jeff. Something that I think is funny is while talking with him at lunch I had another small world episode. So he currently live in New Mexico, but before moving there a year or so ago, he lived in Seattle. But that is not even the best part. OK, so he is a doctor, more specifically an OB-GYN, who worked at Swedish hospital. Not only did he work at Swedish but with Dr. Thereasa Burdick. Dr. Burdick not only is one of my best friends mother, but she delivered 2 of Erin's kids. So when I had asked him if he knew her and he said yes, I silently freaked out. At around 5:30pm we had our first cooking lesson, it was only Jeff and I since the other person had had some problems with airplans and hadn't arrived yet. So here's the story. We usually have 2 classes a day, the first class we make our lunch, and the second we make out dinner. Tonights reciepes are; Khizü (Carrot Salad with Pepper and Cumin), Btata M'shermla (Potato Salad), L'ham bel'Kouk ou Jelbana (Lamb with Artichoke Hearts and French Beans), and Seffa (Sweet Couscous). The one thing that I love about Moroccan cooking is all the spices that they use... oh, and also 90% of the time there is cumin in the dish. Another thing that I learned is that the take the core out of the carrots. The reason for this is that in Moroccoan culture since the core is harder than the res of the carrot, if you serve it with the core it is a VERY big insult. That is unless your puréeing it or something where its going to be a orange thing anyway. Going back to the reciepes, the carrot and potato salad where mainly spiced with the cumin and the normal salt and pepper. The Lamb dish however was spiced with salt, pepper, cumin,ginger, and saffron. Now the Seet couscous is insteresting, but soooooo good. what it is is your make the couscous, but it had to be the very, very fine couscous, the one that lookes like fine grain sand. Then you serve it with the sauce, which is made from butter, finely ground almonds, honey, icing sugar, and Argon Oil (which is the most expensive oil in the world since it only grows in Morocco and no where else on the planet). After out cooking lesson we just hung out around the house till almost dinner time. A little bit before Jeff and I went onto the roof terrace for before dinner cocktails, our third and last person, Sam, arrived. Well, during cocktail hour Sam gave us the very interesting story of how he got here and why he had been so late. To make a long story short, he was supposed to fly direct from Boston to Casablanca, then Casablance to Marrakech. He ended up, because of some plane malfunction or something, flying from Boston to JFK, waiting forever at JFK, then JFK to Paris, Paris to Casablanca, where he had to wiat for a couple of hours, then Casablanca to Marrakech. This is on top of the fact that they had lost his luggage and when we finally tracked it down, it had apparently never left New York. We then headed down stairs to the dinning room were we got to eat the yummy thing that we had made. After dinner I hung out down stairs in the solarium type room, just off the dinning room until I couldn't stay awake anymore.

DAY 108

2006-10-13T16:53:00.000-07:00

I wake up about 8:30am or so and lazily get up and head out on to my private balcony. While I am there I see this little kitten in the garen just to the right of the tennis courts. So I went down stairs to try and pet it. Well to make a short story long the kitten was a little shy and the closet it would get was like 2 ft away. Though the cutest thing about it was that when it meowed it eyes squinted up like an oriental person. It was very cute. Anyways on my way back inside Josef (he's not an official butler, but he does lots of butler-y things) asked me if I would like to sit down for breakfast. I thought sure why not, I mean what better place then at a table by the pool, with the sun shining and the birds singing. I had the Moroccan version of pancakes and some eggs, and something else, but I'm not quite sure. I then went up to my room and spent most of the day on my private balcony reading and resting in the chaise lounge and then being brought little nibbley food later on in the day by the servants. I hate to call anyone servants, but there is no other way to explain what they do. I mean the wait on you hand and foot and they won't even let you do anything, which is nice in the beginning when your tired and the last thing you want to do is get up. But after a while it kind of gets annoying, because they won't even let us throw anything away, we have to give it to them to put in the waste bin. I then had a light dinner listening to some local traditonal musicians play for us.

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DAY 107

2006-10-12T17:21:00.000-07:00

Today was a big traveling day. I woke up about an hour or so before th train arrived in Madrid. I arrived in Madrid when it was still dark outside so it was a little hard to get around, but not that made. I carry all my things down a very long staircase, know normally this would not be a problem, but know that I have all my stuff it's not that much more annoying, just a lot heavier.I get all my stuff down the stairs and then for any signs for the main part of the station, and not just the tracks. Well since nobody is in this long hallway and I can see to the very end of both sides, I don't have a problem leaving my bags and walking down the hallway a little ways both directions to find any sort of inclination of the main station. A couple of minutes later I see a couple of guys heading up this one stair case, so I think maybe that's where I should go. I then go back to my stuff and roll it down the n-e-v-e-r ending hallway. Then I had to carry all my things back up this staircase, to were I found my self just on another platform. I'm like great I just had this insane work out carrying my bags up and down the staircases.Then when I about to give up, I see the most lovely sign ever created, "Main Termainal", though of course it was in Spanish. I then took the elevator, yes I know I said elevator, which I now beleive is the single most coolest thing ever created by man, it would only be beat if someone created a "Mary Poppins" bag were it wouldn't be any bigger then your normal weekend bag, but could fit, everything you wanted in it. Anyways I get to the main terminal and head outside, after quickly getting something to drink first. I cross the road, well no really a road it's more like 4 lanes, 2 for loading/unloading, the other 2 for driving vehicles. Anyways I cross it and go into the area where they have those lockers that you can put your stuff in for the day. Afterwards, I go and take the metro to the internet café that I went to last time that I was in Madrid, which actually happens to be only to be a week ago. Gosh such a jet setter,LOL. I get to the place and it say that it doesn't open till 11am, it's now a little bit before 9am.Well I'm certainly not just going to sit around for 2 hours, especially when I'm hungry. So I walk back towards the metro stop, there are lots of little shops and cafés around it. I find this café that was opened and appropriately named Café&Thé. I then had a long, enjoyable breakfast, while also updating and organizing some things on my BlackBerry that I have been meaning to do fo a while now. I then went back to the internet café at 11am and was there for a couple hours before heading back to the train station. Even though I was in no hurry, I quickly got my bags and took a taxi to the airport. Now when I go to another country I am always a little excited, but I am really excited because today I am not only going to a new country, but also a new CONTINENT. Since being on very long train rides the 2 hour flight from Madrid, Spain to Marrakech, Morocco felt like 20min. It felt like we went up into the air, got served our drinks, then got ready to land and then landed. I love time zones and what happens when you fly in the opposite direction. See I left Madrid at 7:10pm and then arrived at 7:10pm, and on the same day. See my flight was 2hours and so was the amount of time zones that I was going through. So on paper I was doing a little Harry Potter stunt. I get through customs with no problems and wait for my luggage. I had totally forgotten the whole wait for your luggage/airport thing. I have gotten so used to the train and also going to different countries and not doing customs or border control that I had forgotten what it was like. I get my things and head outside. I then have a sudden realization, that I have no idea what the name of my hotel is or anything about it, like the address, telephone number, etc... I mean I have all that information, yet it is, so not, conveniently tucked away in an email on the great World Wide Web. I ask this guy, nobody sketchy of course, he worked for some tour group and was waiting for some people, and asked if there was any payphone or something. To make a long story short, there are no payphones,internet, or even a phone book at the airport. So I asked him what he thought I should doI should take a taxi into the center of town where there are many payphones. So I went out to the taxi curb, well more like a road with lots of palm trees next to the fort door of the airport. I am so glad that my taxi driver spoke English, well I had to speak v-e-r-y slowly and always got a delayed moment, but if that's what it took to speak and to completely understand me, than so f**king be it. It's not like I had any pressing engagement that needed my immediate responce to. My taxi driver takes me to a shop of payphones and waites outside for me to call. Well since nobody was picking up, not to mention any names, (cough, cough) Ima, Daddy, Raviv, Erin (cough, cough)I ask the driver what we should do, the guy at the front of the shop said that I should look it up in the phonebook. He then out the phonebook and gave it to me, I then made this laugh/cough noise, becuse he had given me the phone book that is in Arabic and the only thing that I understood was the numbers, he then was like whoops... sorry and then gave me the French one. One nice thing about Morocco that I like more than Israel is that in Israel if it's not in Arabis it's most likely in Hebrew, where as in Morocco if it's not in Arabic it's in French. So then I can sort of get around. Well I still couldn't find the hotel in the phonebook, so then we were stook again. Then the guy at the front had another brilliant idea, go to an internet café. He then told the taxi driver were it was and then I was driven just down the street to this little internet café. Where I found all the information that I was looking for. I then gave it to the taxi driver and he then went on his way. There was a couple times where he had to ask where a certain road was. But we never got off track though. Then at some point we left the actual city limits of Marrakech and were on this dirt road, and of course since we are in the middle of the dessert it is very dark. That is except for the cluster of houses ever so often, that had this picturesque look that if the Torah was a picture book, this would certainly be in it. We then went on a little bit farther and past this little family walking on the side of the road, coming towards us, with some nap sacks, if I had taken a picture (wante to but to dark) you would have thought that it had came straight out of a National Geographic. We finally got to the entrance, it was this large, i'm talking 40-50 feet high dark green door with the hotel symbol on it in gold, and then then handles to gold lion heads. I'm thinking to myself, OMG what am I going to the Queen's summer palace or something. We then see this guy come out of the door (it was one of those doors that is on the bigger door but only the normal 7 or so feet door)after we told him who we were, etc... he then went back through the little door and then we had to wait a minute or two so he could open the main doors. This was like watching the doors to some great fortress be opened or the doors to troy when they let in the horse. We then drive down this little stone path that is lined with bamboo trees and every so many feet a little Moroccan lanterns. I arrive at the hotel, which I shouldn't call it since that gives a false idea in one's head. Think of a large mansion but Moroccan themed. The taxi stops and parks, where this man is staning reay to great. I then get ut of the car where the taxi driver says that he will have to charge me 200 Dirhams (the Moroccan curancy)but he said this in a way like he was saying I'm going to have to charge you $200 and that it would make a dent in my wallet. (Well first of all I had a couple thousand Dirhams in my wallet, well actually most in my bag and only some in my wallet, since I couldn't fit all the money in my wallet, besides trying to close my wallet, I couldn't even put it in the wallet to begin with.)I later found out that 200 Dirhams is $22.70, I later just had to laugh at that. I then was shown my room and my luggage was brought in shortly afterwards. I then walk down this little pathway with a trough looking water structure with eluminated fountains at either ends. I walk in to the "mansion" and walk through two doors and a little hallway into the main court yard inside the house. In this inside courtyard, there is a fountain in the middle, with chaise lounges and little tables, etc... all around. I then get lead up to my room, or should I say little suit.Let me just say that I feel like some sort of Arabian Princess in my room. Ok, let me just try and explain this. Well here goes my explaination of my room, though you will have to look at the pictures to really get it. You open the door and the first thing that you see is, of course, the main room. In the main room there is the bed, which I will get back to later, then next to the bed is the big closet and a couch. Across from the closet is a fire place with two chairs and a coffee table, and yes you read correctly, a fireplace. Where just next to is a little writting desk and a mirror. Then if your standing at the front door again and go to your right you will into the bath room, or more correctly bath suite. No joke, I actually got lost in the bathroom. When you open the door to the bathroom you come across the toilet, then you go straight and around the corner, yes corner, where on you left is this really big tub and then on you left is a couple sink, you know where there is two sinks one for the husband and the other for the wife. Oh, I forgot before you turn the corner, there is a little fireplace, yes again you read correctly, there is a fireplce in the bathroom (or as I like to call it, bath suite). Plus two big mirrors over them and some shevles underneath. Then if you go even further, down the sort of miny hallway, yes there is a sort of hallwat in the bath room, you will then come across the shower and this little area next to it were there is a little sitting area. Now going back to the bed, which I had mentioned earlier, the bed is in its own sort of room it's self. What it is is the California King size bed, with a Moroccan themed wood paneling going around the whole bed with about a foot and a half boarder between the bed and this barrier. Then there are these tissue paper thin drapes that swoop from ceiling to floor, going around the entire of this wooden frame. Then on both sides of the bed there is a little opening, where there are three stairs up to the bed, and yes you heard me right, stairs, this is beacuse the bed is on another level then the rest of the room. Then to complete it there are two night stands on eitehr side and then a little window right off the bed chamber that looks down into the little coutyard in the middle of the house, the one that I mentioned earlier. I then was brought some orange juice and a light snack before going to bed.

SOME PICS!!

DAY 106

2006-10-11T20:23:00.000-07:00

Didn't do anything today. I slept in and had a late breakfast, which was really nice. Then had to check out of my room, but it was still to early to go to the train station. So for a little bit I was on the computer, just checking my mail, etc... Then I went on to the train station, where I waited for my train, thankfully my train was on track 1 so I didn't have to deal with going up and down all those stairs with my heavy luggage. Nothing else really to say. I spent the rest of the day on the train of in a train station waiting for my next train. I got a lot of reading down with all the time I had on my hands though. I then spent the rest of the day on the train, doing what you alwaysdoon trains? read, sleep, listen to music, etc...

DAY 105

2006-10-10T20:48:00.000-07:00

I start my morning making sure that I have every thing packed and that the things that I'm leaving with Hélène in a neat little pile so she can have an easier time sending off. I then take a taxi to the train station to catch my lunch time train to Cahors. I arrive in Cahors in the early evening, don't remember the exact time. I then walk to my hotel ( the same one that I stayed at last time I was here). I then took all my stuff up to my room, went to the bathroom, then left. This is because I had dinner reservations at La Récréation. This restaurant is actually in Les Arques, but since it is such a small town the only places to stay there are houses, and I'm not going to rent a whole house for one night by myself. The area of Southwest France that Les arques is in is "the land of the Three Musketeers, of the prehistoric cave paintings at Lascaux, of Simon de Montfort, Richard the Lion-Hearted, and the Hundred Year's War." This restaurant is owned and runned by Jacques and Noëlle Ratier. Jaques is the chef of the restaurant and also a 3 Michelin Star Chef, which if you don't know is very hard to get and sort of rare, since the scale is only 1 to 3 in the first place. I take the taxi, to Les Arques, let me just tell you I am so, so very glad that wechad a navigation system in the car, because other wise we would have gotten very, very lost, especially since it was dark already. We eventually get to the town and find the restaurant, where I am dropped off. Now this restaurant is in an old school house, so there is a front entrance room, which is now the bar and a little table with some chairs, and then two room on either side one the dining room and the other the kitchen. I head inside and this women, who later I would find out to be Noëlle, wh should me to this table. I then sat down and was given the menu and the wine list, that's the best part since I'm leagal to drink in Europe. Anyways, after I order and am waiting for the first course, oh yea, this is a 6 course restaurant, the couple next to me start talking to me asking the usual questions, like where I'm from, why I'm here, etc... I later find out that they're from England and that they live about 10 min away fro about 5 months of the year. While talking to them my first course arrives, which is this cream of some sort of vegtable (it tastes like asparagus) with some sort of mushroom and a dash of paprika and something else (looks like paprika but green). Nomally I don't like muchroom in this way, but the soup was prepared so good that I started scarffing it down, and when I noticed myself doing this I had to slow down. My next course was my appitzer, with was salmon ( but the kind that you would be served with sushi) with some sort of vegetable mixture on top, with some gaucamole in the middle of the plate. Once again I hate this stuff normally, but it was prepared in a way that I not only eat it up, but wanted to order another one, if it wasn't for the fact that I hadn't even gotten to the éntree yet. At this point I know realized who Jauques had now attained the unattainable 3 Michelin Stars. My next course was the éntree, which I had the duck. It was served with this fried egg thing with onions or something, some sort of mushrooms or truffles and some asparagus with the duck and some sauce on top. After eatin all this down the next course was the cheese course. Where I was served a basket with sliced bagettes and then a plate with a small circle of locally made Cabécou cheese, with a cherry tomato and a quater size of of honey next to the cheese. Let me just tell you that I despise goat cheese, or anything from a goat for that matter. But once again, I scarffed it dawn. Next was coffee, even though this is not normally a course, it was apparently here. After my coffee I had dessert, which was just a regular Crème Brûlée. Now when I came to the restaurant at 9pm I was the last person seated, so when I was in the middle of my dessert course I was the only one in the restaurant. In the front room, the one where you first walk into, Noëlle and this German couple are talking and having a smoke. The lady of the couple comes into the dining room and invites me to come and sit with them all and finish my dessert there, instead of by myself in the dining room. I then bring the rest of my dessert into the first room and sit down. At this point I am a little light headed, having just finshed a whole bottle of a local Cahors red wine. I the start chatting away, if you think that i'm chatty normally you should see me when i'm getting tipsy to a certain point of drunkeness. At some point Jauques brought out a couple bottles of champagne and glasses and we start drinking away. At some point we toast to something, I have no idea to what because at this point i'm now a little drunk and can't focus at all. Then a little bit before midnight the taxi cameto pick me up and take me back on the 45min back to Cahors and the hotel. The one thing that I love about small towns like this is that I arrived by myself and just there to eat dinner. I left after eating and then smoozing with 4 complete strangers and laughing and acting as if we had known each other for years. When I arrive back at my hotel I, thank g-d for elevators, go up to, actually more like staggered, into my room were I peacefully fell asleep.

§§ PICTURES COMING §§

PS. If you want to read more, and I highly recomened it, about the area and the restaurant, read From Here, You Can't See Paris: seasons of a French village and its restaurant by Michael S. Sanders.

DAY 104

2006-10-09T17:36:00.000-07:00

Today was a very straight forward day, go into Paris, again, and buy my train tickets, and go back to the Ritz to give my friend the note I needed to give her (and of course say hi to everyone). The Ritz was pretty straight forward, it was the train tickets that ruined the smoothness of the day, not that anything bad happened. I wait my turn in line and finally get up to the counter. Now getting my tickets to Cahors was no problem, the problem lay in getting tickets from Cahors to Madrid. The lady kept saying that it was impossible to go from Cahors to Madrid and that I had to pick another destination. Well I would love to pick another destination, except that is the city that my fight to Marrakesh, Morocco leaves out of so not only do I have to keep the original destination, but I have a strict time schedule. Well she then told me to go to this other person right next to her (because they spoke better English) and that they would help me. The funny thing is is that the other lady, it took her a little while, but...., she found me two train that would take me to Madrid from Cahors. It was going to be long, because the train path is sort of like a snake, but it waould eventually get to Madrid. After this debacle, I took the metro back to Enghien-les-Bains where I just hung out and played with the kids for a while.

DAY 103

2006-10-08T17:10:00.000-07:00

Didn't do much today. I had to go into the city, Paris, and back to my old apartment to get this book that my dad had sent me, but had arrived the day after I had left the apartment. Well since I couldn't pick up the book till later in that evening, because Selma was at work till then, I went to the movies. Ok I read The Devil Wears Prada about a year or so ago and when I fiound out that they where making a movie I got all excited. Except I had to have left a little bit before it came out in the US and so then I had to wait even longer till it came out in Europe a couple of weeks ago. So when I saw that it was playing at my Parisian movie theater I got really excited and was like OK that's what i'm seeing. I then went picked up the book and then back to Enghien-les-Bains afterwards.

DAY 102

2006-10-07T16:56:00.000-07:00

I didn't do anything today. Just hung out playing with the kids and helping out around the house with any random things that needed help with. Just a nice lazy afternoon.

DAY 101

2006-10-06T19:46:00.000-07:00

I wake up and am still hours and hours away from Paris, so I go and get some breakfast from the food car and then go back to sleep. Around lunch time I wake up get some food and then occupy my self with the usual till I finally arrive in Paris. From here I get my stuff and head up to street level where I take a taxi back to Sabine's apartment in Enghien-les-Bains. Here Ispend the rest of the day starting the big packing process that I have to do.

DAY 100

2006-10-05T18:09:00.000-07:00

100th day!!!
OMG, I've now been gone for 100 days. Wow, that's a little milestone :) I slept in since my feet still hurt and I was exhusted from yesterday. A little after lunch time I packed up all my things and walked over to the train station to catch my train back to Paris. I then was on the train for 1 whole day, well if you want to be specific I was on the train for 20hours with a 3hour stop over in this town on the Spanish/French boader, where I was switching trains. I then spent the rest of the day on the train, and then time mostly sleeping, because it was during the sleeping hours, aka night time.

DAY 99

2006-10-04T16:46:00.000-07:00

I woke up today and looked at my VERY large list of places I wanted to go see. To explain this list would be difficult, but lets just say most normal people would have taken out 2 maybe 3 days to do all the things that I did. The first thing I did though was go to this nearby restaurant and have a hearty breakfast for my big day. I then got on the bus and went to my first stop. I would have normally just taken the metro, because it's faster, but today was some national holiday so the metro was not in service and the buses were fewer. As the day would go on I would eventually give up on the buses to since there would be so much time in between them, time I did not have. Well Lisboa I think can officially say that it would win any constest with San Francisco on it's streets. Not only were they steep, but in some places windy, and in all place made either from cobblestone, or a mosaic thing, or the one's that were paved, the pavement was long, long over due for repair. Throught the day I visited the churches, monuments, government buildings, other building, like museums and theatres, etc... By the time I came home it was late and very dark, I had to use my BlackBerry as a flashlight. When I had gotten back to the hostel I had walked for 12 hours straight with the only time I sat down was the few moments that I was on the bus. Me feet hurt so bad that I tried to massage them and just lightly touching them hurt like hell. I then had to soak them in the bath tub for a couple hours almost to the point of numbness so I could even touch them. Anyways, after I finished dealing with me feet I went to bed.

Visit the lovely Portugese country

DAY 98

2006-10-03T18:02:00.000-07:00

Even though I didn't do really anything yesterday I didn't wake up until 11:30 today, well it did help that I didn't back to the hostel, from the movie, till 1-1:30 in the morning anyways. After getting some breakfast I go back at the internet cafe, you just don't realize how long it takes to do a couple hundred pictures and also write the blog to go along with them. I'm at the café till about 2 hours before my train leaves. I then go back to the hostel get my stuff and take a taxi to the train station. The train to Lisboa, Portugal is 5 or 6 hours I don't remember. Anyways, I arrive in Lisboa to late for lunch, but to early for dinner, so I get a light snack from this place at the station. I walk out of the station had a little deja vu moment. When I go up to the taxi driver and show him the address of the hostel, he doesn't know where the street is so he asks one of his taxi buddies, who points in a direction and says something in Portugese. I then put all my stuff in the car and we head out of the station. To get out of the station is kind of wierd since it is a wierd snake-like round-a-bout. But we get out and he then goes down this street that is on the side of the station, i'm in the car for like 2min, when he stops and says this is it. We both start to laugh and then I take my stuff up the stairs to the hostel. I then spend the rest of the day either in my room or in the near vicinity of the hostel/train station area.

DAY 97

2006-10-02T17:36:00.000-07:00

I wok up today feeling a little bit more refreshed from all the sleep that I had gotten. After getting myself I went out to FNAC, which is the French version of Barnes & Noble, to get some books o read, that were of course in English. Afterwards going to get some breakfast, but of course right when I stepped into the cafe the little lightbulb in my head reminding me it was Yom Kippur. You know how hard it is to be in a cafe and be hungry and then have to leave, without eating anything, I'll tell you this much, IT'S VERY HARD. So since I had to finish catching up on my blog I spent the rest of the day at the internet cafe doing so. The only funny thing about today is that the guy at the front desk of the internet cafe kept coming back at lookng at me funny. At one point he asked if I was hungry or thirsty, to which in my head I was screaming YES, YES, I'M VERY HUNGRY AND THIRSTY. Though the thought of trying to explain, to someone who knew very little English, that I was fasting today, and why I was fasting. By the time I was finishing up for the day, after being on the computer 9 hrs straight, he came back and gave me a bottle of water, thankfully I could drink it, beacuse it had been dark for a little it now. Afterwards I got a quick bite to eat before catching a movie. I watched El Viento que agita la cebada, or in English The Wind That Shakes The Barley. It was some movie that one some awards at the Cannes Film Festival and had Cillian Murphy in it :)

MADRID

DAY 96

2006-10-01T17:51:00.000-07:00

Today was lovely, nice and relaxing and not stressful. I wake up at some time, but I woke up naturally and not by alarm clock. Then I hung around my room watching TV and being on the internet until about 1 1/2 hours before check out were I packed and got dressed, I think I could have gotten an award for the amount of time it took me...... let's just say that I took my sweet old time. While waiting for my driver to pick my up I walked around the hotel and outside as well, of things that I had forgotten to take pics of before. I then take the car the 30 min it takes to get to the hotel in Madrid. I take my stuff to my room and plop down on my bed, even though I woke up about 9-10ish I was still very tired, well that's could be due in part to the late night Jeri and I had just talking and saying good bye to each other, so I took a nice long nap and woke up kind of hungry and also I needed to go to the train station to get me train ticket to Lisboa, Portugal. At the train station I go and get my number and sit down and wait for what seems like forever. Well since i'm hungry and i'm only seeing numbers for the internet sales ( the 300's) and domestic sales (the 700's) and no international sales (the 900's) I go to one of these little cafes in the main part of the train station. Well it took forever to get my food and pay, I won't get mad since there were soooooo many people, and it wasn't like they were short handed or anything. Bu even so it took forrrrrreeeevvvveeeeerrrrrrr, by the time I had gotten back to the ticket area they had already passed my number.......funny that...... so I go and get another ticket and thankfully this time there was only 2 numbers in front of me. So I wait for like 15 or so minutes and then get up to the counter. Well when its time to pay I realize that I had left my credit card back at the hotel, and I was like f*** I just spent all this time waiting to get my tickets and I can't pay for them now (if your wondering how I paid for my meal I had a little cash on me but not €30) thankfully, while looking through my wallet, I found some travelers cheques and since this a train station, with things like AMEX boths. I went and gave them my AMEX cheques and then got some € back, it was very exciting, excpet for the fact that the dollar sucks. When I gave the lady $150 she gave me €96.40 back and they didn't even charge me for anything since I was using American Express travlers cheques, that was just a straight exchange over. Anyways, I had to deal with it, so I went back to the ticket counter handed the guy my money, he gave me my ticket, and then I was on my merry little way out of there. Once on the street I decided that I wanted to go to the movie theater and watch a movie on the big screen since I hadn't done that in a while and I was in the mood for somthine like that. So I start walking down this major road thinking eventually I will get to a movie theater. Well after a couple of blocks I decided to just go into one of the many hotels and ask for directions. Well I picked the right hotel too, because not only did the guy at the front desk bring out a map and show me where the 3 closest movies theaters were but also brought out the movie listings from the paper and gave them to me to not only look at, but to keep :) I take the metro to were i'm supposed to go to and then walk to the movie theater were I decided on Click since Ive seen most of the movies already (they came out last month in France). Afterwards I went back to my hotel and fell asleep until about 11:30 and I woke up really hungry, so I put on my shoes and went on a treasure hunt for a fast, cheap place to eat that wasn't like McD's or something. I was hungry, but not that hungry.

See The Town!!

DAY 95

2006-09-30T18:10:00.000-07:00

Did nothing today! Since Jeri was out with Juan looking at the other horse for Jane and Judy and Laura had already left, it was just me. So since the laptop, the ones for guests, was now working, I decided to do the formidable task of down loading all 300, or so, pictures from my camera to the computer and then uploading them from the desktop to the internet. IT TOOK THE INTIRE DAY, no joke!! Then when it was a little bit before dinner time Jeri came back to the hotel and came to my room were we hung out and went on the computer to look up some things about the horse that she, Jane, had just decided to buy, because it was amazing, which is sort of an under statement. This horse not only is goreous to look and and to see move, but is a 5 year old St. George level horse (which for you non-horsey people, is VERY RARE, most St. George level horses are no younger than 7 years old.) and then went to this cute little restaurant around the courner from the hotel.

DAY 94

2006-09-29T19:49:00.000-07:00

OK, so I though yesterday was a long day, HA!!!! that's the understatement of the year. I started out riding Little Banana, since the grey was moving to Los Angeles today so I was just going to ride Little Banana, which was a GREAT lesson, like yesterday. Only this time Juan gave me a little suprise, well big actually, (minus his Olympian horses) he let me ride his favorite horse, the stallion who is a Spanish (that's the name of the breed). Well not just ride it, he gave me a lesson to help with it's training (OMG, an olympian is actuallyletting me train one of their horse, holy shit!) Well I did all the things that I have been doing all week on the stallion, but when I got to the Piaffe, SWEET JESUS!!!!!!!!! that was the most amazing thing I have ever experienced on a horse. First off I actually did a Piaffe correctly unlike on the grey or Little Banana where I could only do about 2-4 steps before they started moving foreward, on the stallion he just stood there doing the Piaffe. I mean it was not perfect and definately not as beautiful as Juan's but I could at least keep him in the same spot for more than 4 steps. After
the lesson Jaun, Jeri, and I took a little road trip to the small town a couple hours south-west of Boadilla El Monte. See one of Jeri's friend, and client, Jane was wanting to get a new horse, except she wanted a Spanish (the breed) horse, so Jaun talked with his horse broker and found a couple horses for us to look at for Jane. We arrived at this stable in the MIDDLE OF NOWHERE, think the open space of Montana. We then spent the rest of the afternoon at this place where we looked at this gorgeous horse and this guy rode the horse so Juan and Jeri could look at it move, then Jeri rode him to see how he felt in the saddle. After saying our goodbyes we started out little road trip back home. Jeri and I spent a couple of hours in one of the front parlors just sitting there talking, because we had no energy to go upstairs, even using the elevator was to much. While sitting there one of the man servents, wow that sounds funny,lol, came by and offered us some coffee and a small plate of those one-bite desserts. That was just fabulous, sitting there shmoozing eating dainty little sweets and having coffee in this gorgeous china. Later, we finally got the energy to go up stairs and get changed. We then took another walk, since it was too early for dinner yet, and even after our long walk we got back to the hotel and realized that it still wasn't dinner time, but we were too hungry to wait so we ordered room service from the hotel's restaurant, yoiu know the four-coursed, whited gloved place. Then hit the sacks.

Horse Shopping, right this way......

DAY 93

2006-09-28T20:22:00.000-07:00

Today was a better day and a very busy one at that, even though I rode the grey for my lesson (it was much better today) I then got to ride Little Banana. Now I don't like to say bad things about people, but the only reason why I rode Little Banana, was beacuse Laura had a bad lesson on him. Well it started out really good, but I guess she just got tired or something, becuse she started get sloppy, and when giving the commands to L.B. it wasn't a strong "I want you to do this now" command, it was more " please do this,....... but only if you want" type of commands. So Juan kind of got angry (actually more just a little) and had me get on and ride L.B. so he would know that he can't get away with these things and also so he wouldn't get sloppy and not improve in his training. Well I think I got more of a lesson on Little Banana then on the grey. Before I got to my lesson though we got a little suprise, and I mean little, Jaun's 1o yr old son, Jaun, jr. was getting a new pony, since he had out grown his other and he was now sharing with his sister and her pony. We all then spent an hour or so taking the pony to it's new stall and sorting out all the things that came with him. He had just come from an 8 day trip from some where in England. After cooing over the pony we got back to the lessons. THIS IS WERE I MEAN A BUSY DAY. Besides doing all the stuff I have been doing all week I also did some the counter-canter (The counter canter is a balancing movement where the rider deliberately makes the horsecanter with the outside foreleg leading. The horse is positioned to the side of the leading leg.), also some Serpentines (series of equal curves fom one line of the center line to the other,changing direction of the turn each time the horse passes over the center line. while traveling across the length of the ring.), a Volte (circle of 6 meters diameter), a Rein back (backward movement in which the hooves are raised and set down almost simutlaneously by diagonal pairs.), Passage (A trot in which the phrase of support of one diagonal pair of legs is prolonged while there is a hesitation in the forward travel of the other diagonal pair of legs, giving a floating, hovering impression. Also called "hovering trot.") and a little bit of a Piaffe (a movement where the horse is highly collected and the legs move up and down in diagonal pairs, like a trot, while the horse does not move forward. The center of gravity of the horse during piaffe should be more towards the hind end, with the front of the horse highly mobile and light in the hand.) My lesson on Little Banana was probably the best non-jumping lesson of my enitre life, well so far. Today though, Jeri and I went to the tack shop near the riding center, before going back into town and the hotel.

DAY 92

2006-09-27T21:20:00.000-07:00

Well there is not much to say about today. Well maybe it's because I'm in sort of a sour mood about today lesson. Well nothing went wrong is was an Ok lesson, except for one thing, I CAN'T RIDE. Well, Ok, actually I can but I was put on this other horse, I don't know his name, becasue he was to much horse for Laura to ride, she's a beginner (well sort of, her original training is Saddle Seat on SaddleBreds, which is like no other riding, it might as well be another sport), so since Little Banana is more quite Jauin put Laura on him. So like I said before, the lesson wasn't bad, but the "new" horse is a Spanish, and there very supple and sensitive. It took alot of effert to just keep him in a straight line. So it wasn't like I completely messed up, it's just that I have a hard enough time doing the dressage steps correct and beautiful (remeber I have a thee time Olympian and World Champion watching me) now I also have to worry about the horse as well. Jaun said that I did great, but as soon as I was by myself, I started crying, let's just say I'm glad I decided to put on my water-proof mascara today, because otherwise I would look like I was ready for Halloween. After Jeri finshed her lesson and we stayed to watch Jaun ride one of his Olympian horses, we went back to the hotel, changed and went out for a walk. One our walk we came across this little shopping center and so we decided to explore it, since it wasn't like we had anywhere to go, and it's always the right time to go shopping. Well in our excursion of the shopping center we came across this M&M vending machine. I saw it and was like Jeri, Jeri, look it's M&M's, YAH!!!!!!!!! and then raced to it, I don't think I have evergotten my change out so fast before (just so you don't think that were some crazy people, we have been trying all week to try and find a place that has M&M's, which is nowhere. so we were excited since we had finally found some.) We spend the rest of the afternoon walking around the town, and then go and get some dinner (where Jeri told more of the fabulous horse stories of her and friends horse experiences) and then went back to the hotel.

DAY 91

2006-09-26T19:44:00.000-07:00

OK, so feeling like the bad little Jew that I am and forgetting about Tzom Gedaliah and about the fasting part, I decided to do it today. Even though since I didn't fast yesterday so it didn't matter any more it made me feel better that I was going to mke it up today, even though it was pointless. I got to ride Little Banana again :) yah!!!!! We worked on the same things as yesterday, but also added some half-passes (is the same as the leg-yield, were the horse bends away from the direction he is traveling, while in the half-pass, the horse should be bending towards the direction he is traveling.) Unlike yesterday were I was second and then spent the rest of my time at the stables watching the other lessons and looking around the barn. Today I was last, well actually second to last, since Jeri rides 2x a day. This is because Judy and Laura want to ride first so they can have the rest of the day to exploring around with Bill, unlike Jeri and I. So it goes Judy and Laura then Jeri, me and then Jeri again. The realy cool thing was that at the end of my lesson today, before Jeri rode again Jaun got on his chestnut (non-horsey people: a chestnut is the name of a type of color of horse, laymen's terms: light brown) who is one of his O lympic horses and hacked (light riding, without a lesson) around with me. VERY EXCITING!!!!!! After words Jeri and I went back to our little town of Boadilla El Monte and did some more walking around, unlike last time Jeri bought some presents for some of her friends back home in Florida. Jeri and I then hung out in her room and talked horses (what else is new, LOL!) till it became dark. Even though Jeri was very hungry she was very nice and waiting till I could eat till she had dinner. The funny thing was that even after it became dark we still were at the restaurant, and almost done, before the Spanish crowd came in. To break the fast we went to the hotels restaurant, which is a four coursed, white gloved, 1 server per 1 guest restaurant. We first was served water and the wine menu, after picking out our wine we moved on to the regular menu, were I automatically found DUCK!!!!! I ordered this and a few minutes later we were served this, I guess it would be appitizer, there was this shot glass worth of gazpacho and a porcelain soup spoon, with some sort of lentil and something. Then we were brought out our salads, which was exciting, since Jeri and I have noticed that it is very hard to find salads in the restaurants and when we do the lettuce doesn't look fresh, so it was exciting to get not only salads but fresh, crunchy lettuce. While waiting for my duck and Jeri's fish we had some bread and wine and once again talked anything and everything horsey. Our meal came and at once there was no noise except our ambrosia noices. My duck was amazing it had some apricot/peachy flavor with some mashed sweet potato and fruit on it as well. While waiting for our dessert the we were sharing we got this little dessert appitizer thing, I guess you get this whether you order dessert or not. This thing was insane, there were two small shot glasses with this strawberry thing (the same consistancy as gazpacho) with a little whip cream and then in another little shot glass with to tooth picks, with one end of the first toothpick, being this dark chocolate and the other being this white chocolate, but what made the white chocolate so amazing was that there was curry powder in it. You would never think to put curry powder in chocolate but it just gave it this wierd punch, but at the same time not.

DAY 90

2006-09-25T20:10:00.000-07:00

I wake up today and put on my tall boots. Now my boots fit me fine but except for the week that I rode in them in July I haven't worn them them since May of 2005. So natuarally my calves were sort of throbing since they had forgotten what it felt like to be pushed into tight leather and kept there for hours at a time. I go down to the breakfast room and find Jeri there sitting at a table by herself waiting for me, talking to Judy and Laura. I sit down at the table with my plate of food and look around the room. Let me just tell you this room is just as beautiful as all the rest in the hotel. With two chandeliers and gold paint on the walls next to beautiful paintings, I'm thnking, most people when they go traveling around the world or "backpacking through Europe" they are probably not going from gorgeous surroundings to more gorgeous surrondings. We then go outside to wait for our driver to pick us up and take us to the stables. Well actually Jeri and I waited, Judy, Laura, and Bill had rented a car and went to go get it from the parking lot and to follow our driver. See unlike Jeri and I who just came for hard core dressage training the also wanted to do a bit of touristing as well, that's the reason why Bill had come in the first place. We arrive at the stable and, OM MY F***ING G-D, this place is not only beautiful, but insanely big. I'll try and explain this, but also look at the pictures. You walk in through this gate and end up in the courtyard where if you took a sharp right would take you up the stairs to the spectators place for the indoor, if you bear right, instead of the sharp right, it will take you into the indoor itself. If you go straight, instead of going any right at all you will go up this little path that will spit you at three LARGE outdoor rings with a spectator house, yes I ment to say house, in the middle of the first two rings. If instead of going right or straight you go left instead you will look down this path with horse stables on either side. The first place you will come across is this little house that has the bathrooms and vending machines. The rest of the way down on either side of you are horse stables with each stable have about 10 to 16 stall in each stable. The whole facility has about 180 to 200 horses total, and of corse a million dogs, well more like 10-15, but it felt like a million that's for sure. After reading and hearing waht are abilities were Jaun decided to give us 1 private in stead of 2 semi-privates. Jaun Matute is this amazing dressage rider who is on the Spanish Olympic Dressage Team, and has won golds and silvers in three Olympic Games, he was at the Games in Seoul '88, Barcelona '92, and Atlanta '96. The horse that Jaun put me on is named Little Banana, if you couldn't guess, he's kids named it. I had a really great lesson, and he kept complenting me on my hands and how still they were. Which made me very happy to hear since that is one of my problems in riding and I worked on that most of my time at OS, so now I know that all of my hard work actully paid off if an Olympian is saying good thing about them. My lesson consisted of alot of lateral work. Transistions, leg yields (which involves forward and sideway stepping, the horse has to cross his legs while engaging his hindquarters and maintaining forward energy. The horse bends away from the direction he is traveling. The forward steps should always be bigger than the sideway steps, thus preventing the horse from over-bending.) and then doing some collected trots and canters (is the increased engagement and lightening of the forehand. The strides are shorter (and higher in the front legs) than in the other paces of the trot or canter. The horse’s outline appears shorter from bit to hip, with the neck and withers stretched and arched upward.) and then extended trot and canter (stretching and lengthening of the outline and stride of the horse, an increased phase of suspension. The horse covers as much ground as possible with each stride, maintaining nearly the same tempo and relatively uphill balance. After our lessons we all walked over to this Italian restaurant with Jaun and had some lunch, though if you remember lunch time is at 3ish so we were actully early even with 4 privates that didn't even start till about 10am. Afterwards Judy, Laura, and Bill went out on there excursions while Jeri and I went back to our little town and walked aroun just looking at all the little shops and what not. Afterwards, I don't know what Jeri did, but I took the best nap. When I woke up I got changed and went out to dinner with Jeri. The restaurant that we went to was just a little bit further up the small hill than the place that we went to the night before. When we walked in there was this waiter with this dish that looked like turkey with gravy and french fries. So when we go to order, we're like oooo that sounds good turkey with gravy. When the waiter comes around we ask for (and this is our conversation) "the Pollo please with the french fries.... um.... potatoes...um...shit maybe pollo isn't chicken... {Jeri starts flapping her arms around like a chicken}.... {no light bulb goes off}.....wait....... pollo is so chicken.... WTF....... never mind we'll just have the, the.........um...... oooooo, Carne. that's what well have some Carne. gracias........ oh, and a fanta limón and a coke light.... gracias" The funny thing is when we get our food it is what we were wanting from the start. What we had thought was turkey was actually beef. So with all of Jeri's lovely sharades and our Sanish/English/French food explanations, we ended up with what we were trying to get in the first place. Over dinner we laughed about that and Jeri told some FUNNNNNNY horsey stories. We then went back to the hotel and chatted a bit in Jeri's room until we were both starting to fall asleep, which is when I went back to my room and plopped down on my mad and was asleep before I knew it, being so sore and all.

The Equestrian Center

DAY 89

2006-09-24T21:29:00.000-07:00

This is starting to become a very annoying trend, this waking up at the crack of dawn for the damn train. But because of the distance between start and finish the only trains that I can get is the first train out in the morning. Thankfully, my trip from Barcelona to Madrid only has 2 stops, one in Lleide and the other in Zaragoza. I get off the train in Madrid into this absolutely beautiful train station, NO JOKE! just look at the pictures. What they did was added on a new train station to the original one, and the old station is where all the things like ticket counters, info booth is. Also there are all these little cafes on the edge of the old station, and then in the middle is this jungle thing, it even came complete with turtles and other amphibious creatures. I take a taxi to my hotel, which is about 30 min from the train station in a small town called, Boadilla El Monte. The first thing that I came upon was this freaking large, salmon pink, building, which looked like it used to be a palace or something. Well I later found out from the front desk that it was originally built and used for an equestrian centre back in its hay-day. HAHAHAHAHA, back in its hay-day, WOW, I crack my self up. A horsey place back in its hay-day ...........um.....yea..... Now that I think about it, it's actually not that funny, I've just been sitting at this damn computer for 7hrs and 34 min and 49 sec at this computer in an internet cafe transferring all my days notes from paper to my blog (it's Oct. 2 in Madrid right now) Anyways, I would just die and go to heaven, probably a dozen times, if that's where I rode. It's now some sort of government building. I arrive at my hotel which I just up the road, named El Antigvo Convento, which was built in 1674 as, if you didn't guess already, a convent. I walk into the hotel and feel as if I have just gone back in time and if it weren't for the little things like lights and the front desk having a computer it would have been back then. This hotel, except for some modernifications that they had to do for safety reasons they have left everything how it was. Let me just tell you this place is gor-ge-ous. When you wake down the halls there are these b-e-a-u-tiful tapestries and oil paintings. That's not including all the other things like some old chests in the hallway and some other furniture, plus a lot of the outside doors are original. I finally get to my room more to get a tissue to wipe the drool off my face. I unpack all my things and fall, and I mean literally fall (I tripped over the carpet) onto my bed were I am fast asleep until I hear this tapping at my door. I go and answer it, I find this middle aged woman extending her hand and introducing herself as Jeri Caprio, from Pompano Beach, FL (later finding out that has ridden with all these amazing people, and that she is at the St. George level, and that she currently rides in Wellington). I’m thinking to my self this is such a small freaking world I’m on the other side of the world from a place that I have only lived in for 10months and at a riding program, that even though is not a small company, by all means is not a huge one either, and now I’m meeting someone who lives 45min away from me. While talking to Jeri in my doorway the other two riders, Judy and Laura (who are step-mother and daughter) and the Bill (the husband and father) come walking by on there way to dinner. So we quickly said hi before going down the stairs. A little while later Jeri said that since it was dinner time and that she was starting to get kind of hungry that we should go out. Well since we didn’t know were anything was since we both had arrived today, we started walking in the direction of the most lights, thinking that a lot of light must mean people, which means things like restaurants, which means food for our bellies. When we got to the top of this small hill we saw this pub/restaurant that looked kind of good, so we popped right in. We look in and there is nobody except for the waiter and some guy and the bar. Well we’re too hungry so we sit down and look at the menu. THAT WAS A JOKE :) I mean it’s not like we know any Spanish, even though we both live in Miami. So between our English and my French and limited (and when I say limited, I really mean it) Spanish we sort of got through the menu and ended up just ordering a mixed salad and pesto spaghetti. When we were just finishing our meal there was this big rush of people that came in to eat. We later found out that people in Spain do everything later. This why nobody was at our restaurant during “dinner time” because it wasn’t for them. This is what we found out; breakfast doesn’t start till about 9:30-10:30am, “lunch time” is at 3pm and dinner is not till 10pm, though some of the “tourist” restaurants will open at 9:30pm. By the time we got back to the hotel we both weren’t that tired, but we knew we would have a big day ahead of us so we said our goodnights and went to bed.

the (well all dried up) Spanish Country-Side

DAY 88

2006-09-23T19:16:00.000-07:00

I checked out of the hotel and took the taxi to the hostel that was actually in the city, yay! Before I go on I just have to say that this hostel was ABSOULUTELY GOR-GE-OUS. It was originally a Moor monestary, so everything looked like it was from the Middle East, there was even Arabic written on the walls, that is of course the tiles were in Arabic, not that sombody had written on the walls in a pen or something. I put my stuff in my room and then headed out for some touristing. Now that I write this I realize I think that I starting a trend here, Speed Traveling, I noticed more from, London, Monte-Carlo, Berlin, and now Barcelona, that I'm not only do I do all my touristing in one day, but I'm only in the freaking counrty for one day, and It's not like the countries are nieghbors either. Anyways, I spend the day looking at the monuments and what not, getting lost, well actually not lost since I dont have a point B to start with. So I don't think one can get lost if there not trying to get anywhere. Just a thought, lol.......... I also think that when you get "lost" that's when you find the "little jewels" of the place that you are in. By the time I had gotten back to the hostel that night I think I had managed to see the enitre city. Well not it's time to do the traveling version of Rosh Hashanah. I go into the "dinning room" area and take out my apples, honey, pita bread (which is the only round bread that I could find at the gorcery store) and sat sown. At the grocery store they had no wine or grape juice, so the closest thing that I could find at the hostel was Fanta. Even though Fanta is so not a juice I figured that it was probably more a juice than coke or sprite or the other coke products in the vending machine. Being extremely tired after my holiday-ness I went up to my room and wrote some postcards before going to bed.
THE PICS:
~~~visit Barcelona ~~~
~~~El Poble-Espanyol ~~~
~~~The Sculpture Garden ~~~
~~~The Magic Fountain ~~~

DAY 87

2006-09-22T21:15:00.000-07:00

Once again I wake up at the crack of dawn, check out, then walk over to the train station, were I have to wait outside since nobody had gotten there to open up the doors. That's when you know you wake up early is when you have a 5:30 train and you get there before anybody else, there isn't even a security gaurd around. Todays train ride is about the same lenght of time as yesterdays, except I'm going down to Barcelona, Spain today. I wasn't originally going to Barcelona, but since the train was going to pass by anyway to my final destination of Madrid, Spain, I thought WTF I don't know when the next time I'm going to be in Spain so since it's not out of the way might as well and I wasn't expected in Madrid till Sunday anyways. My train made many stops before arriing in Barcelona. I stopped in Montauban, France and Toulouse, France where I changed trains, then to Carassonne and Narbonne, France. At Portbou, Spain we had to stop, and wait for the police to check everybody's passprts. After which we stopped in Figueres and Sirona, Spain before finally arriving in Barcelona. I get into the taxi and give the driver the address and he gives me the same look as the driver in Cahors, so i'm thinking OK, how close is this one, come I all ready feel stupid I don't think you can make me feel any more. Well actually it was just the opposite, it took about 30-40 min to drive out to th hotel, which I found out is one of those highway hotels. Now don't get me wrong the hotel was nice and very pretty,and there were flowers and trees outside my window, IT WAS STILL A HIGHWAY HOTEL. Since I didn't want to drive all the way back into the city I decided to spen the rest of the evening at the hotel. Besides the normal watching TV, reading my book, and sleeping, I also went onto the internet to look for a hotel that was actually in Barcelona and not 30 min away, you know something that I could take the metro everywhere and not have to rely on the taxi for everyhting, since that would get very expensive very fast.

DAY 86

2006-09-21T14:11:00.000-07:00

I woke up at the crack of dawn, Enghien-les-Bains was a ghost town, just before I got picked up by my taxi came did even the cleaning crew came out. I got to the train statio right at the same time as the train so I had plenty of time to get all my things situated. The train from Paris to Cahors, France was about 5 or 6 hours, I don't remember, lets just say it was a long time. On the way own I stopped in Limoges, Benedictins, and Brive-la-Gaillarde, which are all in France, for a little bitbefore ending up in Cahors. OK, so I only brought one bag and it wasn't even that haeavy except for some of my riding stuff. But of course the station that I had change trains at DID NOT HAVE AN ELEVATOR! I definately got my work out today carrying my 40-something lb. bag and then my "carry-on" which was about 10-15 lbs. it's self from the train to the stairs, down the longest single flight of stairs, under a couple platforms, up the longest single flight of stiars, then across the platform to were my car was. I arrive in Cahors and go to were all the taxis are and show one of them the address of the hotel, he gave me this look that I just asked him to drive me to the moon and back. I thought to myself, aww shit this is going to be a very long and expensive ride. To my, greatful, suprise it was actually just a block down the street and that I could walk to it. Since the people before me checked out late, my room was still being cleaned. So in the meantime I went on to the computer and checked my email, etc... The one and only reason why I am here is to go to this restaurant in Les Arques, but when the lady at the front desk calls the number for me she gets the answering machine saying that they are closed for today. Great I come all the way down here and the only day that I can go to this restaurant, it's closed. W ell I 'm not just going to sit around and do nothing, I go to the front desk and get a tourist map. I saw tourist map, because it is one of those maps that also has the pictures of the monuments and other touristy thing in that town or city and then tell you where on the map they are. I spent the rest of the day touristing around this charming little town in the south of France. Even though I wa only touristing from about 4-5ish till 9-10:30 I had done enough stuff to fill up to days and my feet definatly felt the same as well.

go visit Cahors

DAY 85

2006-09-20T17:11:00.000-07:00

So since Sabine was not going to be at home today and neither was here house keeper I couldn't stay at her apartment today, becuase once I left I wouldn't be able to get back in, and Hélêne was getting her apartment cleaned for the high holidays so I couldn't go to her's. In the end Iended up going to their parents house in Montmorency which is a neighboring village. So today I spent the entire day either watching TV or playing with the Hélène's baby, then in the late afternoon playing with Noa, Sabine's oldest daughter. When I returned to the apartment Ipacked up my bag that I would be taking to Spain and then put the rest of my things away in the corner of the room out of the way.

Eyal; Hélêne's baby

DAY 84

2006-09-19T16:21:00.000-07:00

I woke up about 9 am and headed over to Sabine's apartment, if your wonderinng why I would be going over to her apartment since that was were I was staying is that I had fallen asleep at her sister's in the apartment building next door. Sabine and I then get in the car and head out to this store to get some fresh fruits and vegestables. It was one of those organic places. After which we went to the regular grocery store to get the rest of the food. The one thing that amazes me is that the amount of food that we get per grocery trip and the amount of times we go in one week you would think she was living in a house with 8 teenage boys, though the funny part is that it is just her, Luc, and there two little girls. Also the amount of milk and yogurt that this family consumes bewilders me. For example, we bought about 18L of milk a little under a week ago and not only is it finished bought today we got 48 freaking Liters of milk!!!!! they go through about 2L of milk just for breakfast, so you do the math. And don't get me started on the yogurt they have a very large fridge, yet there is 1 1/2 shelves reserved just for yogurt, seriously I think they should move to a dairy farm, because they also love cheese and butter. Anyways after we got back from the grocery shopping spree, no joke on the "spree" part, Sabine had to go to work and I went and laid down on the couch. I have been on many couches all over the world is this is by far the most comfortable, insanly........ well everything one would want in a couch, couch!!! Because of the aformentioned I took a 6 hr nap. When I woke up it was time for dinner, after which Sabine and I went for a walk down my the lake.

DAY 83

2006-09-18T20:40:00.000-07:00

Didn't do much today; i first slept in and then had a late breakfast, most would call it brunch, but that would mean I also ate lunch food as well as breakfast food, which would be a lie, because I only ate breakfast food. Getting back to what I was talkking about, after "breakfast" I then went over to Jérôme's, he is a friend of the family and owns and works in his bakery. So naturally I would want and go see "behind the scenes." I then spent the rest of the afternoon with him and his "parnter in crime," who is an American, originally from San Fran but moved here 20 yrs ago with his wife. I then left a little bit before dinner and went back to Sabine's to help with making dinner.

DAY 82

2006-09-17T16:51:00.000-07:00

Didn't do anything today, just hung out around the apartment playing with Noa and Eva. JUST A NICE RELAXING DAY!!!!!

DAY 81

2006-09-16T20:55:00.000-07:00

Today we, being Sabine, Noa, Eva, and I, went to the Hippodrome. When we got there we found out that it was closed today since the horse were racing on a different track today, so we could only look around from the outside. I felt like one of those people who first surveys a place and takes down information and pictures before planning there way in to steal XYZ. Anyways, since that was a bust we then went back to Enghien-les-Bains and took the kids to the playground were the palyed and rode aroung on there bikes.

SEE THE PICS!!!

DAY 80

2006-09-15T18:21:00.000-07:00

During the day I helped Sabine around the house, played on the computer, and watched some "24" In the evening we went over to Sabine's parents house in Montmorency for Shabbat dinner. It was a nice little Shabbat dinner, with Sabine, her 2 kids, Hélêne, her baby, and her husband Frank, and then Sabine's other sister Alexandra. We stayed for a while even long after we had finished dinner, I guess it had been a busy week for everyone and they were all in the socializing mood.

DAY 79

2006-09-14T21:40:00.000-07:00

I finished all my sortting and packing up so now all I have to do is send it, and I plan on doing that tomorrow. Well the first thing that I actually did today was go to the grocery store with Sabine. Though this was no ordinary grocery store, OK... visualize this, the size of a Costco, but 2 floors, one being the grocery store and one being like Costco. Plus it was coneccted to a mall so when we got the shopping cart in the parking lot we had to walk through the mall to get to the grocery store. That was OK , but when we were going back to the car we were walking around the mall with all our food in a grocery cart, but the funny thing was nobody was looking at us funny...... but then they see it all the time and we weren't the only one either. We got back to the apartment and put the groceries away, after which I finished the packing of my box. Later in the evening Sabine and I went to go see My Super Ex.

DAY 78

2006-09-13T21:25:00.000-07:00

Didn't do much today. Sabine had to go into Paris to get some books at this place, sort of like a convention center. It was this Arabic convention center though. Not that everything that went on in there had to be Arabic, just the building was. The outside of the building was really cool it was all these mettel squares and stars, very, of course, Arabic. So wz went inside and spent about an hour or so before heading out and walking down the street to which on our right across the River Seine, was Notre Dame and then in the distance we could see the Effiel Tower pepping up over the trees. We then stopped and got a sandwhich to go and went to a book store so that I could get some more books to read, since it is, of course, very hard to find pleasure reading books in English, when your not in English speaking counrties. After this we had one last stop, to go to Gare du Nord. This stop was to get my train tickets to Spain. Now having my tickets we took a direct train back to Enghien-les-Bains. We get back to the apartment and have dinner, after which Sabine and Luc went out to the movies while I staid back to watch their kids and be a geek and watch the first 3 movies of Star Wars.

DAY 77

2006-09-12T18:39:00.000-07:00

Today was simular to yesterday, but I did do a little work. I slept in then went to work seperating all the stuff from what I'm keeping and what I am not. This might not seem like that much, but it actually was. I spent a couple hours lifting boxes of books, and 35 and 55 pound bags up and down the stairs around the room, etc... You get the point. So anyways, after that I took another nap since it had ired me out and when I woke up Sabine had come home from work we went out for a walk and she should me all around the town. This town has everything, and Iam not even exagerating, think of everything in Paris, now squish it into a town were you can walk to everything, and from that Ladies and Gentleman you have Enghien-les-Bains. It even has a casino and dinner theatre that could have come staright from Las Vegas, by the scale of it. The also really cool thing that I just love about this city is all the fountains that is has. I'm not talking little whipy fountains or something that could come from Versailles. These would come from an architectures dream book of fountains, and none of the fountains are the same.

DAY 76

2006-09-11T20:34:00.000-07:00

I was very tired today since Sabine (my friend) and Luc (her husband) didn't get back from the wedding till 2:30 this morning, and apparently it still was going on till something like 5 something almost 6ish in the morning. They had to get back though because they had work this today. I was so tired, not just from yesterday, but from being a little tired adding up of many days. From the stress from class, studying and taking my exam, the death of Lili, and then packing and moving, so today was dedicated to catching up on much needed sleep. So I'll some it up in short what I did today, actually one word: SLEEP!!!!!!

DAY 75

2006-09-10T22:14:00.000-07:00

So I finish all my packing and look at all the stuff I have. Well keeping in mind that most of the stuff I'm sending home because it's stuff like my cookbooks from the Ritz, some things that I got in my travels so far, and some clothes that I needed in Europe but don't need know and need get rideof some of the weight in my bags. In the evening I took some pictures of the apartment and 2 of the 3 cats and then took the taxi to Enghien-les-Bains, which is a small city about 30 minutes just NE of Paris. I get to Enghien-les-Bains and the taxi driver sort of finds the place where I'm supposed to go. See the problem was that he could see the street sign that we wanted but we couldn't find the street. We eventually figure out the reason for all this, the street that we were looking for is a service street. Not that my friend lived on a service street, it's just that the only way to get to the front door of the apartment building is by the service street, there is another way, but it is only a foot path. I get all my stuff unloaded and into the apartment have some dinner and hang out with their children and the babysitter till my friend and her husband came home from this wedding they had gone to.

DAY 74

2006-09-09T16:38:00.000-07:00

Didn't do much today. Basically just hung out around the apartment cleaning and packing. See I'm not leaving Paris for like another 2 weeks but my lease is up, so I'm moving in with one of my friends. She actually started out being Erin's friend, but since I grew up with her around, when I got older I started a friendship of my own with her. So I'm moving in with her fo my last 2 weeks.

PICS OF THE APARTMENT

DAY 73

2006-09-08T20:45:00.000-07:00

We made Boysenberry Lolliepops, 3 different kinds of chocolate bars, hollow eggs, and then with the left over chocolate (because in a professional kitchen you always use everything up) made a little chocolate sculpture. We started with the boysenberry lolliepops, putting the water and sugar in a pot. After the wate/sugar mixture came to a boil at 140°c we added the glucouse and added the boysenberry essence, and the blue and red food dye. While that was on the stove we took the plastic for our molds (the same plastic as the ones used as barriers in walk-in fridges) and cut the shape that we wanted in it, then put the sticks in. Taking the hot mixture, once it reached 152°c, putting into a paper pastry bag and pipped into the molds and set aside to cool and harden. Especially cool, even holding it with a kitchen towel the hot liquid was still burning my hands and after I quickly poured my lolliepops and to rush to the sink and let the cold water run over my hands. Next was the chocolate bars, we took the Ivory, Chocolate/Coffee, and Jivara chocolate and put them on the stove to temper. First we cleaned out the molds with a cotton ball, so there is no fingerpints, then poured in the chocolate, that is after is was finished being tempered. Then just like yesterday tapped the sides, to get ride of the air bubbles, then scraped off the excess from the top and the chocolate that was on the side of the mold. Putting the molds on a rack, before setting aside, added the chopped hazelnuts. With the same Équatoriale chocolate that we used with chocolate/coffee bar and poured them in the egg molds. Just like with the Mont Blancs, we tipped them over so it only coated the side of the mold. We put to layers on the egg mold so when it was time to take them out they would be thick enough and wouldn't break while taking out. While everything was on the racks hardening we took this time to clean up, which took no time at all, since we had Siran Wrapped the table tops again. After out tea and coffee break we took the chocolate bars out of the molds and then finished the eggs. First we put a cookie sheet on the stove and let it get warm. Then taking two egg halves put them on the cookie sheet moving them around so the edges melt a little bit, one thing that you have to remeber is not to leave the eggs on to long because then when you put them together they won't be the same size, since one of the halves will be smaller than the other one. We put the eggs aside to quickly harden in thier new form and then put them into special boxes. With the leftover chocolate eggs chef made a little sculpture that was kind of cool. Then after putting out all our creations and taking some pictures, we had some champagne and then the people who were leaving recieved their certificates and then I GOT MY DIPLOMA for passing my exam. Then just socialized till the end of class.

****CLICK TO SEE THE PICS****

DAY 72

2006-09-07T23:47:00.000-07:00

Another busy day ahead, todays reciepes are: Raspberry Jivara Milk Chocolate, Guérande, Carmel, Chocolate Carmel, Ritz Squares, and Mont Blanc. We started with the first two since the first step, for both, was to take the chocolate and put it into a mold to make a large square. For the Raspberry Jivara Chocolate took the raspberry pulp and the trimoline (inverted sugar) and put it on the stove till it boiled, then poured it over the chocolate and mixed. When it went down to the temperaturethat we wanted added the dry butter (dry butter has 84% fat content, unlike sweet or "normal" butter, which has only 82%) and the raspberry alcohol, then set aside. For the Guérande, we took the Jivara chocolate and cooked it with the sugar and the special salt from Guérande. Then in another pan boiled the cream and the trimoline (inverted sugar). Then when the carmel boils and it with the other pot and then whisked in with the chocolate and butter. Afterwhich put it into the mold and set it aside. After both chocolates had harden put a thin layer of extra bitter chocolate and let it sit, this is for a "bottom". Since we had made to much of the carmel mixture we took the leftover and put it into two, taking one and pouring it into a mold and the other, adding cocoa powder and then putting into the mold. We then quickly did the Ritz squares, taking the tempered chocolate and pour over the sheets. Then with this really cool contraption, that spreads the chocolate out evenly, and then put it into the fridge to harden. The last thing we had to do today was the mont blanc. With this special machine took our mixture of cocoa butter and 70% covering chocolate (the 70% is the type not the amount) and, with the machine, spraying the chocolate on the molds and then putting in the fridge. Afterwards taking the ivory chocolate and filling up the molds then turned them over so the chocolate just lined the molds and weren't filled. Taking the tempered ivory chocolate and added it with the glucouse and Kirsch and mixed. Putting into a pastry bag filled the molds and then put a Eau de Vie fruit brandy soaked cherries on top. Then putting a layer of the chocolate ontop and then putting in the fridge to harden. We then took out the raspberry jivara milk chocolate and the guérande and then cut them with the guitar (see pics). Afterwards, dipping them both in chocolate and letting them harden. At this point we cleaned the kitchen and had our tea and coffee break. After the break we put everything into the special plastic bags and then went down stairs to the Ritz's chocolate room. Here we got a little tour of the room and then got a little demonstration of the tempering machine. This machine does exactly what we do up stairs by hand. There are many different little button and knobs on the side, they are what set the spesifications. The red numbers are what the chocolate is at now and the green numbers are what we want the chocolate to be at. After the little tour we went back upstairs and changed. Though since it is Thursday we didn't leave, or if we left it was just to get something to eat. Then we all got together in the parlor and disscused chocolate for 2hours, OH F***ING YEA!!!!!

THURSDAY NIGHT CLASS:
We first talked about the extensive history of chocolate, with how it started with the Aztecs, then how it spred to the rest to the world, etc.... Then how chocolate is made, from the tree to the table. There are many different kinds of chocolate, but here are the three basic one and what they consist of. DARK CHOCOLATE: it includes bitter and semi-sweet chocolate and contains between 35 - 70% cocoa as well as cocoa butter, sugar, and sometimes emulsifiers. MILK CHOCOLATE: it includes powdered milk, sugar, and vanilla, which is added to the cocoa butter, whiches what gives it that sweet taste and creamy texture. IVORY (or for you non-culinarians "white") CHOCOLATE: it is made from cocoa butter, with added, either, consentrated milk or powdered milk, along with sugar and vanilla essaence. Then we talked about what happened to chocolate and how it evovled once it hit European soil.

A LITTLE CHOCOLATE TIMELINE:
3,000+ years ago- Aztecs are cultivating the cocoa bean and making it into a "drink," consisting of the crushed cocoa beans, dried fruits, hot pepper, musk, honey, vanilla, and reed juice.
1527- brought to Spain by Cortez.
1647- the first "eating" chocolate was made in London, under the name Spanish-style chocolate rolls.
1680- the word "chocolate" entered César Pierre Richelet's Dictionary of French language.
18th century- chocolate had conquered the whole of Europe, but still remained an extremely luxurious product. 2lbs of chocolate cost 60 coins, the equivalent of four days work.
1705- a rule was drawn up allowing drink sellers to sell it by the cup like coffee. However, it is only during the Regency and under Louis XV that chocolate is definitvely adopted.
1737- botanist, Carl von Linné classed cocoa as theobroma, meaning "divine nourishment."
1776- a certain Doret invented a hydraulic machine for crushing cocoa and redusing it to a paste. Until then the beans were grilled in a basin before being redused to a paste by hand.
1780- the first mechanical chocolate factory was built in Bayonne, France.
1847- first chocolate bar appears on the market, by the English company, Fry & Sons.
1888- Milton Snavely Hershey opened a small factory in Pennsylvania (now that which is the Hershy monstrosity today).

Now Comes The Good Part

DAY 71

2006-09-06T21:43:00.000-07:00

Today is the day that we are using all the chocolate that we were working with on Monday. Todays goodies consist of Candied Chestnuts, Whiskey Truffles, Montélimard Nougat, Black & White Rock, and Muscadines. It was a very bust day ahead of us but thankfully alot of the steps were the same between them and with the same chocolate. Before we did anything we put a double layer of Siran Wrap on the table. We put the first layer on so it would be an easy clean up since we were going to get very, let me say it again VERY, messy. Then the second was for when we used a knife, so it wouldn't mater if we sliced the top layer of Siran Wrap. We started with the Montélimard Nougat, since it had the most parts and would take the longest. We put the water, sugar, and glucouse on the stove and boil till 150°c and in another pot heat the honey till 130°c. While those were on the stove we took out the hazelnuts, pistachios, and almonds and cut them to the size of a pea. When the honey was done we added it to the egg whites, and sugar like we did when we were making the Italian Meringue. Then adding it with the other pot, added the nuts and left to sit a bit. We moved onto the Candied Chestnuts. The chestnuts that we had gotten in syrup, we had put them on a rack to drain them. We then took the fondant icing and some water and temper this mixture. While tempering, we added the powdered sugar and the trimoline (which is an inverted sugar). When this was all done we dunked each chestnut into the glaze and then put them back onto the rack and put into the oven and steamed them for a little less than a minute. This steaming process is to seal the glaze onto the chestnut and so it just wont drain off when cooling. Going back to the nougat we took it out of the bowl and put in between two sheets of rice paper. Rice paper is so cool, it has the consistancy of litely waxed paper (apparently like the communon wafers) but when you put it into water it become lie wet balled paper, but a little stratchy because of the gluten in the rice. After struggling to spred it all out and then putting the top layer of rice paper put some icing sugar in top. The icing sugar, in the case of desserts, serves the same purpose of flour when your trying to roll something out. To help maintain a leveled nougat we put to sticks on either side and rolled out till we were satisfied. Afterward we cut around the edge so we had a nice rectangle without any rice paper sticking out, then into bit size rectangles and then wrapped them up. The last three things that we had had some simular steps. We started first with the whiskey truffles, taking the cream and trimoline and boiling it then adding it to the chocolate. After the chocolate was fully mixed and had almost cooled added a couple shots of whiskey. When it was about 95% or so cooled we put it into a pastry bag and made little ball on the parchment paper and then set aside to completely cool and hardened. Moving on to the black & white rock we melted the cocoa butter and then added to the pralines. This made a dough like mixture, which we then cut into little cubes and rolled in the finely chopped waffers and then set aside. Then the last the muscadines, we melted the cocoa butter and mixed with the pralines. Then took the single cream and boiled it then added it to the praline mixture. When cooled we took a N° 7 tip and pipped it out onto parchment paper, in a shape like a small slug. After all of this we tok our tea and coffee break. Then taking the other two desserts and the chocolate and the chocolate for the "rocks". We then spent some time in rolling them all in the chocolate. Unlike the black & white rocks, which after the chocolate coating were done, we then added the third and final stage. Oh, I forgot to say, the Black & White rocks taste exactly like Ferrero Rocher. For the whiskey truffles the last stage was rolling in cocoa powder and for the muscadines was icing sugar. We then put everything into little bags and cleaned up, which didn't take that long because of the Siran Wrap.

LITTLE CHOCOLATE HEAVEN...

2006-09-06T00:00:00.000-07:00

Lili was one of the cats that was born in my walk-in closet when I was 1 yrs old. She died on August 19, 2006 at 18 yrs old, after battling cancer for 3 yrs. I don't know my life without her, literally. She was a beautiful cat and the warmest heart of any living creature I every knew, even including people. I WILL TRUELY MISS HER TREMENDOUSLY! I LOVE YOU LILI!!

DAY 70

2006-09-05T22:46:00.000-07:00

Today was jelly day, we made Raspberry Fruit Jellies, Raspberry Jelly, Strawberry Jelly, and Pineapple - Star Anise Jelly. We took out three pans and put each mixture into each one and then onto the stove. With both the Strawberry and Raspberry jams we took the fruit, the special jellifing sugar, lemon, and with the Strawberry one also adding some vanilla bean, cooked them on the stove till they reached the disierd temperature. With the Pineapple - Star Anise jelly, the only added thing was we had to cook the raisins in another pan before adding to the mixture. This was really cool, beacuse right before we took it off the stove, and now this was of course on purpose, set fire to them. So for a couple of seconds there was a flame inside the saucepan (in the pic you can see it but you might have to click on the pic, so that it will inlarge). One thing that we had to do was wrap our stirring hand in a towel. This was because while the mistures were on the stove we couldn't stop stirring, and at that hot temperature of heat and steam, well you get the point. At this point when the fruit mixtures have now turned and are Jelly we pour them into jars, close the lid, turn them over, and put them into the fridge.The reason why we have to turn them over is so that when the jellies are coolin, in the closed jar, that there is no air bubble between the jelly and the lid, otherwise it becomes a luxury spa for micronisms. Before starting our last reciepe we had our tea and coffee break. After the break we made our last thing for today, Raspberry Fruit Jellies. We put the fruit pulp, sugar, pectin, and glusouse and put it on the stove, then whisking it till the sugar and pectin dissolve and is boiling. Then we had to keep it ata boil till it reached 110°c on the cany thermometor. When it reaches this point you have to take it off the flame and then quikly (and I mean quickly) the citric acid. The reason why I'm stressing on the quickly part is that the the first time we made this we had whisked it in, but then it started to congeal in the bowl, then, because of a question, we found out that if we added the citric acid to early in the process, lets say like when were still cooking it, it won't congeal at all and the mixture will stay liquid no matter how long it's in the fridge. Anyways, we then poured it into the mold (oh, if your wondering about the picture, the sugar around the mold is to make sure that everything stays in, and if not the sugar would catch it) and then let it sit for a bit. While it was sitting there congealing, we cleaned up the rest of the kitchen so when it was time to go, we wouldn't have to stay behind and finish cleaning. The last thing we did was cut the big mass into little sqaures, roll them around in the sugar and them put them in their pretty little Ritz plastic bags. Instead of going home I had to stay afterwards for my exam, UGH!!! I had an hour after class to clean up my uniform, go to the bathroom, and do a little last minute studying (well I knew all the reciepes, for me it was more just repeating them in my head than actual last minute studying). So before entering the kitchen I had to pick from one of the envelopes and then took out the paper inside to see which reciepe I had gotten. Thankfully we were allowed to write whatever we wanted on the paper, well that's because I had already given in my notes. So, before forgetting, I wrote down the reciepe and someother things like what order I was going to do everything in, including washing up. I had picked the Milk Chocolate Tart, thankg-d. I mean I knew al the recieps, just of the 5 this one was the most simple, but still not being plain. The only realy scary thing about the exam was that I was the only person. The reason this was scary was because I was the only one taking the exam this week so it was dead quite. The wasn't even any noise outside the kitchen since it was like 8 at night and most people had gone home and the other kitchen for the school had even been closed up for the day as well. Well after the exam, and about 100lbs had been lifted from my shoulders, I went home.

Get Some Bread and a knife....

DAY 69

2006-09-04T19:45:00.000-07:00

Before I start this week I would just like to make my second PUBLIC SERVICE ANNOUNCEMENT: Before going anyfurther, please get a tissue to catch any future drool. Now back to today. Today was mostly just starting some reciepes that are coming later in the week and then two reciepes for today. We started out day with a little lesson in chocolate tempering 101 and then went back into the kitchen to start our day. We got out some saucepans and put in all different kinds of chocolate, and I'm not refering to white, milk, bittersweet, and dark. I'm talking about équatorial, jivara, guanaja, caribbean, ivory, etc.... These types are what the chocolates are really named and the previous names are more like catagories rather than names. So the two reciepes that were doing today is the Fruit and Nut Chocolates and the Almond Rock. Both are relativley simple and not that much time, but that's why were doing them today, because the other chocolates that we have to get ready for the rest of the week will take up the rest of the time. While this was on the stove we got cracking on all the fruit, nuts, etc... that we had to cut for both reciepes. Once the chocolate, for the first reciepe, was ready we poured some of the chocolate into a pastry bag and then on parchment paper made little circles of chocolate, the circumfrance and height of a quarter. Then before the chocolate cooled placed the the white almonds, pistachios, cut candied orange peels, hazelnuts, raisins and walnuts. Popped them into the fridge and then got out the almond slivers, chopped candied orange, and rice crispies (and yes I'm talking about the whole "Snap, Crackle, Pop" one). After mixing in the butter to the tempered chocolate we then added the aformentioned. Then putting them into little balls and putting them into the fridge to harden. We then had an extremely late tea and coffee break, afterwards put all the chocolate that we were working with during class away. We cleaned up the kitchen, put our two goody yumness into bags and then talked about chocolate for the last couple minutes of class. Afterwards I went home and went back to studying the reciepes.

Fruit & Nut Chocolate

Almond Rocks

DAY 68

2006-09-03T16:16:00.000-07:00

I'm starting to sound like a broken record. Still on the coomputer but now naming the pictures. After finishing the tagging of all the pictures I moved onto more importatnt things, LIKE STUDY FOR MY EXAM! Here's the deal with the exam, on wednesday I got a piece of paper with 5 different recipes, all of which I had done sometime in the past 5 weeks of school. I then had to memorize everything about the recipes, except for the measurements since of course they would be smaller on the exam. Oh, just in case your curious the recieps that I had to memorize were; Lemon cake, Milk Chocolate Tart (with a hazelnut cookie dough), Mini Fruit Tartlettes, Orange Eclairs, and Lemon Meringue Tart (made with Italian Meringue). So normally you get a week to study all this, but since I had been working on the pictures and blog all that time, I had to cram a week's studying into 2 days.

DAY 67

2006-09-02T16:53:00.000-07:00

Still on the computer, but today was dedicated to finishing the uploading and then starting to tag everything. This took longer than it should have. This is because I had a list with what picture number went with which description. But for some reason when I had uploaded them to the computer they didn't stay in the same order. Thankfully they weren't to much off, like 3 would be in the 6 or 7 spot, and 4 would be in maybe the 2 or 5 spot, etc...

DAY 66

2006-09-01T20:43:00.000-07:00

Was on the computer the initre day down loading all 500 pics. It took the whole day even with a really fast internet. Then at the end of the day started the upload to the internet.

DAY 65

2006-08-31T23:59:00.000-07:00

I wake up about 1/4 till 6am to the sound of the train comming to, a very loud, stop at some train station to let passengers off. I was up for a couple of minutes before falling back to sleep. I then wake up for good about 35 minutes before arriving back in Paris. I get to Paris Nord and walk to the metro and take back to the apartment. I then spend the rest of the day sleeping, reading some of my Jane Austen book and checking my email. Peace Out.

DAY 64

2006-08-30T22:12:00.000-07:00

So today was the second, and last, day in Berlin. I didn't do as many things as yesterday, but a couple of them were on the city limits so I had to put travel time into the schedule, plus most of the places today were big places that would take an hour or more per one. The first place I went to today was the 1936 Olympic Stadium (which is also were the 2006 FIFA World Cup was). When I got up to street level from the metro station, my first thought was did I go to the right stop. I mean I realized I went to the correct stop since the name of the stop is
"Olympia-Stadion" if it couldn't get more obvious. The reason why I thought this was beacuse the stadium is outside the city so there are these trees, a little land bridge, and dead quite. Thankfully, after walking under the bridge I saw a sign point in the direction of the stadium. Once I get to there I have to go get a ticket at the visitor's center, this is because when there is no event going on it becomes like a museum. I looked around taking pictures and what nost when I see the Olympic torch holder on the other side of the stadium. I walk around and after taking some pictures of it look at the placks that name all the winners of the 1936 Olympics. Before leaving I passed the VIP boxes, there was this plack talking about Hitler and his envolvment in the Olympics. I then got to go to the box were he sat, I got a VERY CREEPY feeling when I got near his seat. I then left and did the rest of the sites in order in going back to the hotel. The next stop for me was the Schloss (or in English, palace) Charlottenburg. Something that caught my attention was that the pipes, walking to the palace from my metro stop, were above the ground, see...

This palace, by architect Peter Joseph Lenné, was built to "unite" nature, art, and architecture in a "Prussian Arcadia" in 1825, at the behest of Prince Carl von Preussen. The neo-classicist architect, Karl Friedrich Schinkel converted the original palace into a summer residence in the Italian country-house style. There are 4 main buildings on the estate; Schloss Charlottenburg (the main building), Neuer Pavillion (the "cotage" on the estate), Belvedere (a tea/relaxation "cottage" for the Queen), and the Masoleum were some of the royal family is buried. The Palace grounds and park is one of the most significant historic garden monuments in Germany. It was designed as a Baroque garden at the end of the 17th century by Siméon Le Nôtre. Though during the 19th century landscape architect Johem A. Eyserbeck and architect Peter Joseph Lenné converted the grounds into an evocative "English" landscape garden. Never the less, a portion of the Baroque tree lined avenue structured and boscages havesurvived. Also, the mausolem is the burial place of the Hohenzollern family. It was built in 1810 in the style of a Doric temple, by H. Gentz with help from Karl Freidrich Shinkel. It was then extended in 1841 and between 1888-18890. In the crypt lie the remains of Queen Luise (d. 1810), King Frederick William III (d. 1840), Kaiser William I (d. 1888), Queen Augusta (d. 1890), and Prince Albrecht of Prussia (d. 1872). On the way back I stopped by "Bellevue" to take a picture. "Bellevue" is the German equivalent of our "White House" and is were the presidential family live. After that I just one more place to visit before going back to my hotel to pack. On my walk over I passed the Eingang Siegessaule which is this statue in the middle of a 10 way round-a-bout. The last place that I wanted to see was the Mercedes-Benz Complex. This complex not only has the headquaters of the company in many different buildings throughout the complex, it has a dealership, cinemas, a musical theatre, IMAX, arcade, a Grand Hyatt Hotel, a mall, even a casino; if you don't believe me just look at the picture of the complex's map. When I was walking back to the hotel I passed this cool fountain, so I took a picture.

ROYAL VISITING COMING UP....

DAY 63

2006-08-29T19:56:00.000-07:00

So I woke up today to the knock on the door of room service. The funny thing is that now when ordering I notice everything since I've worked on the other side. So anyways, after breakfast I headed out for my very busy day. I started my day at the concierge to have him circle all the places that I wanted to go on my map. Then took the metro to this area that has some pieces of the Berlin Wall. I got off at my stop and spent some time not only taking pictures, but also reading the plackes that they had put up next to the pieces. Then moved on to the Plenary Assembly Hall of the German Bundestag, aka German Parliment. Next to the parliment building across this little spit of the River Spree was this really cool looking, architectually, building, I later found out was a government building. I wish our government buildings looked like that. It looked like it should be a modern art museum or something. Since I was near it, I then went onto see the Bandenburger Tor; which is an arch at the Pariser Platz on the bloulevard were the Prussian Electoral Princes rode down, I think when they were crowned. On a VERY long walk to the Galleries Lafayette to get something to drink and a rest for my feet I had seen this kind of cool building and wanted to check it out, which I did after recharging myself. When I reach the biulding I find that it is part of a complex, named Gendarmarket Square. The complex consisted of two small cathedrals and a theatre and statrue in the middle of the two. The theatre was designed by Karl Friedrich Shinkel. Then in 1699, Prince Friedrich III (later the self proclaimed King Friedrich I) gave the immigrated French Huguenotes a site (next to the theatre, but north of it) for the building of a church. But then he gave ( to the south of the theatre) the locak German population a church as well. Since the rest of the things I had planned to see today were on the way back to the hotel, I started in that general direction. I was walking back when I sawthis really cool sculpture thing that I remebered seeing from my taxi coming from the train station. It was really cool looking. It was all these squares, some were only a couple of inches high and went to probably about 20 feet. The different levels were all mixed up and the sqaures were in straight lines horizontal and vertical. The coolest part of it all was that if you looked at it straight on the sqaures were in nice little lines, but if you looked at it diagonally they looked like they were all mixed up and no order what so ever. I later found out from the concierge that it was the new Holocaust Memorial. After this I stopped at the St. Marien-Kirche church. This is the second oldest church in Berlin and the only church from the Middle Ages in which services are still being held. The church was built in 1270 in a Northern German gothic brick style. While I was taking the side picture of the St. Marien-Kirche I saw this cool looking building that (I thought this was the best part) was painted in this light baby girl pink with white trim. Ok, now that I write that I sounds hideous, well it wasn't (just look at the pics)
so after taking the picture I walk over and read the sign saying that it's the Deutsches Historisches Museum (aka. German History Museum). Next to the museum was this bridge (you can see the museum in the background in it's pic) that looked like alot of those big grand bridges that you see in Paris. I read the plack on the bridge and saw that it was named the Schoss Brucke bridge, I forgot the year that it was buit, but I remember that I was long time ago. Right next to the hotel and my last stop before going back into the hotel was the Berliner Dom. It is a cathedral that was the former court of Prussia's royal family, The Hohenzollern's. It was built between 1894-1905 by the architect Julius Carl Raschdorff. I then spent the evening in the hotel watching a movie on the TV and then just hanging out in my room since I was very tierd from the lack of sleep that I got over the WEG days. While hanging out I went out onto my balcony which had the coolest view. Straight a head was this park, well at least it looked it, there were too many trees not to be, to the right the Berliner Dom, and to the left the "TV Tower". The "TV Tower" is not it's real name, but that's what everybody calles it, because that's what it is (It makes since though).

TORISTING BERLIN ->->->

DAY 62

2006-08-28T19:20:00.000-07:00

So I woke up today and got ready, then went to the train station. I took the train to Koln, Germany were I had to switch trains. Since I had a couple hours I went outside to look around, I didn't go far. Across the steet was this cool looking cathedral, so since I had the time I went and checked it out. Afterwards I got on my new train and had a 5 or so hour journey to Berlin. On the way there we stopped in Wuppertal, Hagen, Hamm (Westfalen), Bielefeld, Hannover, and Lehrte, before reaching Berlin. I then took a taxi to my hotel and then changed and went down stairs for dinner. The hotel that I was staying at, the Raddison SAS Hotel, had this really good asain restaurant, so that's were I went (I took a couple pictures) The really cool thing about the hotel was the aquarium. The hotel was one of those hotel that is hollow in the middle, like a doughnut, and were you can see all the floors. In the middle though was this FREAKING HUGE aquarium, I found out that it is 32 feet tall (went from the second floor up till the 5 or 6 floor, 1 million litres of saltwater, 2,500 tropical fish, and the biggest cylindrical aquqrium in the world. I then spent the rest of the evening reading and watching TV and a movie.

sculpture at the Aachen train station

HOTEL PICS.....

DAY 61

2006-08-27T20:30:00.000-07:00

FEI WORLD EQUESTRIAN GAMES 2006: DAY 4

So since my feet were still sore from yesterday I went to the food tents and got all the food that I would need for the day so that I would not have to get up unless I wanted to. I get to my seat and sit down and get everything organized for today events, you know like get out the score sheets and and camera, and of course breakfast. Then a little bit later this couple come looking for their seats, I tell them it's right next to me. Here were it get funny. A couple of minutes later this other couple come and tell (looking at the couple next to me) that they are in their seats. We look at their tickets and it says that they are in row 23 and that this is 22. Then a small group of people come and try and find their seats in row 22, but then we see that one of the people her seat doesn't even exist. I mean the row just end at number right below it. We even look across the aile to see if the numbers continue up, they don't the number is 1. Then we figure out that they are in the wrong section. Then a little bit later some more people come saying (talking to the people sitting directly in front of us) that they are in their seats, we look at the tickets and see that they are correct and that the other people are in their seats in row 21. So then those people check there tickets and find that they were sitting in the correct seats just the wrong row, so they move down a row. But when they do that they bump the people out that were sitting there. After all this confusion we go get somebody who works at the horse show. In the end this is what worked out: we moved from our row 22 to the correct row 22, the people who had said that that couple next to me were in their seats (turns out they really were) took their seats in the correct row 23. Then the people who were supposed to be in the same number seats but row 21, went into the correct row and then the people they had bumped out moved down to their correct row of 20. That is why there were all the empty chairs in "row 19", because it was actually row 20. A little bit later more people came and were trying to find their seats, they found it on the first try, but they were sitting in the same numbers seats but row 23. As soon as they sat down there, all the rest of us (at the same time) all started laughing. They look at us funny and we explain what had just happened and that if they had come a couple of minutes earlier, they would have been able to experience a lovley round of "musical chairs". If you think that I am making this up, believe me I don't think even I could think of even thinking of this. Anyways you know what to do for the pictures.When I got back to the hotel I packed for Berlin, since I was leaving in the morning.

click on the FEI World Equestrian Games 2006 to see the pictures

DAY 60

2006-08-26T22:23:00.000-07:00

FEI WORLD EQUESTRIAN GAMES 2006: DAY 3

Since the X-C didn't start till 11am, I slept in a bit. Before going to the horse show I had to go take the pictures off my camera since I only have one photo chip and it only had space for a couple more pictures. When I realized this I felt like a mad paparazzi, since in just 16hrs (8 each day) I hade taken over 300 pictures. That is because my camera can hold a couple dozen or so with out a photo chip and then my photo chip holds 300. Afterwards taking the bus to the show and having a blast. By the time I got back to the hotel my feet were in so much pain from walking around all day. You see X-C courses are set of "x" amount of acres, so if you want to see all the jumps, like I did, that means that you have to wake all of those acres. The terrain is not some paved road, well there is no raod at all, just grassy, and sometimes muddy, rolling hills, with lots of trees and streams, etc..... Plus I didn't sit down at all today, not even once. Then to make matters wore I still stayed at the horse show. Then instead of sittingdown I then went out to the X-C field hand started taking pictures. Then later I was next to the Mercedes-Benz Stadium getting times, scores, etc... for today's X-C and it was taking so long so by the tim I had finished they were just about tp start the FEI World Individual Dressage Grand Prix Freestyle Championship. So of course it pulled me in and I couldn't just leave, so then I stayed even longer, this is also with having to stand. This is because I didn't have a seat I had to stand up. So when I finally got back to the hotel room it was 1am. I then watched some TV while I soaked my feet in hot water in the bath tub and then massage the knots out of my feet. There is not much more to say other than just looking at the pictures. You know what to do.

click on the FEI World Equestrian Games 2006 to see the pictures

DAY 59

2006-08-25T21:17:00.000-07:00

FEI WORLD EQUESTRIAN GAMES 2006: DAY 2

Ok so there really isn't much to say about to day. I woke up went to the show grounds, got some breakfast, which was banana with nutella crepes, and spent the rest of the day in my seat. That is other than getting something to eat for lunch and dinner, going to the bathroom, and getting up a the breaks to walk a little bit. Then at 5:30pm, after the Dressage had finished, I went over to Stadium 3 to watch the Vaulting. I would just like to say that vaulting is soo freaking cool, it's basically gymnastics on a moving horse. Well there is really nothing else to say other than what my picture blog says so perfectly "A Picture Is Worth A 1,000 Words"

click on the FEI World Equestrian Games 2006 to see the pictures

DAY 58

2006-08-24T19:38:00.000-07:00

FEI WORLD EQUESTRIAN GAMES 2006: DAY 1
So I woke up and got ready for the full day ahead of me. I got to the show grounds about 10mins before the first person was going to start their test. Let me back up a second, if your not a horsey person and wondering what a test is or why they would be doing one at a horse show, this is why. A "test" is the name in what you do in Dressage at a horse show, a synanum would probably be round (ex; the first round). Anyways back to the present, there are many more other types of horsey events going on here, but I only came for the Eventing part of it. I got 4 days of tickets, 1st & 2nd Dressage, 3rd X-C, and 4th Show Jumping. If your wondering why there is two days of dressage that's because there was to many riders to fit into one day. It also helped that we took three breaks throught the day, dressage from 9am till 5:30pm with a hour lunch break and two 10-15min breaks on either side. Nothing really happened, well of course something happened I am at the WEG, but nothing more than the usual at these types of events. Though while on my lunch break I was walking around and looking at the building, when I heard a big chear from Stadium 3 (the vaulting arena) but of course I couldn't go inside since I didn't have a ticket. I then thought to myself that that would be kind of fun going to see the vaulting. I looked at the times table for the Games and saw that i could go after the dressage tomorrow. I would miss the first 1/2 hour, but then it didn't really matter because 1.i wasn't following the score and 2. I would still get to see another 4 hours of it. So after the Dressage ending today I went over to the ticket booth and bought a ticket for tomorrmow vaulting. Afterwards I cought the bus back to the hotel, which I would just like to point out was free. This was because the Games organization (the same governing body as the Olympics) made a deal with the city of Aachen, that we could use that day's ticket as sort of bus pass to anywere the busses ran.

at the entrance to the show grounds

the vendors "tent city"

the photographers

click on the FEI World Equestrian Games 2006 to see the pictures