Winner!

Time for some bragging again :-)   I entered Mr Price Home's 'Summertime with Family & Friends Competition' where you have to upload an image of your family/friends having fun - or what you're getting up to fo the summer. Something like that.

Here's my pic that got me a R3000 shopping voucher prize.

Buddies at Elands Bay

Presents, YAY!

It was my 30th birthday recently and I had a mad hatter's party. I was too busy to take lots pics so instead I took pics of my gifts afterwards. Once I get all the hat pics in order, I'll post it.

I got quite a bit of jewellery including necklaces, earrings, a bracelet and a ring.

The jewellery I got :-)

I got some chocs and sweets as well. I managed to finish the one box of Lindt already (with some help).

I finished about 2 chocs before I took this pic

Body stuff - yipppeeeeee. I got loads of body wash, body butter, perfume and other body-realted things.  They all smell AWESOME and I've started using quite a few of the products already.

Yummmy

The perfumes I got are Clinique Happy (+ lotion), Cacherel Amor Amor (+ lotion), DKNY travel perfumes and Tommy Hilfiger Loud. Body stuff included olive, coconut and shea body butter, a variety of body wash and banana shampoo. I also got a Body Shop gift pack (x2). There's a Sh'Zen gift pack as well with a loofah thing that really works well. I also got hand cream to pop in my handbag.
 

A jewellery box, jewellery chest and Cashmere soap

High School Musical Pillow (don't ask) and three picture frames

Before you start wondering...I'm not a High school Musical fan. I've never seen the movie or series in my life and I'm not quite sure why anyone would design a pillow dedicated to it. Nevertheless - it's a fun gift.. and I actually use it.

I enjoy scrapbooking and making cards and stuff so the scrapbooking book and kit was a pretty cool gift. I generally always get scrapbook stuff but this is my first book about it. I got two DVDs - My Father the Hero (was my favourite movie when I was thirteen, I think, and When in Rome is a movie I hired about three times so my friend thought it would be better if I had my own copy. I think it's a sweet movie and Josh Duhamel is hot. I like Kristen Bell because I used to watch Veronica Mars. she is awesome. I also got Eclipse - which is the only book in the Twilight saga that I don't have. Yes, I'm a twilight fan. I've read all the books but they weren't all my own copies. Now I finally have the complete set.

I got a Woolies gift voucher from my colleagues - which was really nice of them. I haven't spent all of it yet, which is really surprising.  Some cash also came my way - I'm sad to say that I've blown it all already, hehehehe.

The complete F.R.I.E.N.D.S series....booyah!!

Last but not least, I got a pair of shoes. First time ever! Whoop whoop. They're a pair of blueish leather high heels that I tried on about a month ago... and when I went back to buy it, they were sold out. Now I know why :-)

Cape Times Big Walk

So 10 kilometres isn't that much, but it's something and it beats my usual sleeping in on a Sunday...actually, it doesn't...but it was for a good cause, so it doesn't matter.

Dragging myself out of bed at 6am on a Sunday is sooo not my idea of fun! Seven of us decided to do the 10km fun walk from Cape Town to..uhm.. let's call it Mowbray because not many people know where St George's Grammar School is. The plan was to get to the Grand Parade at 8am and finish the walk by 10am. Did we get it right? Read on. In true Cape Town style, the race race started 5 minutes early (for those of you who remember the premature implosion of the cooling towers) even though there is a massive clock at the top of Cape Town Central Library overlooking the Grand Parade. See exhibit A:

07h55 and off we go

So the walk started out very slowly - we were all trying to squeeze through the streets of Cape Town until we got through the Company Gardens. From here it was free sailing.  I wasn't long before we saw a "6km to go" sign. I'm not sure how we reached that so quickly. A few minutes later we were at the halfway mark sipping Coca-Cola.  There's not much else to say except, we walked and walked and walked until we reached the finish line.

It was a fairly easy walk - not too long and not too short. Pics say it all:

The contestants :-)

The starting point

Thousands of people getting ready for the walk

This means nothing - I just thought the birds looked cool

Just past half way!

Smiley faces at the finish line :-)

Winners!!

Me and my medal.

Love is in the air...and friends everywhere

This is one of my favourite pictures of the people I spend most of my time with. It was at our friends' wedding on 9 October this year. Beautiful wedding, amazing food...wonderful people. The speeches could have been shorter... but I just like to complain :-).

Us at Danyaal and Sakinah Davids's wedding.

Been there, done that

I'm on a local "been there, done that" mission.. so here's my first Cape Town must-do. I'm kinda embarassed to say I've never been to Robben Island - so I'm guessing that has to be added to my to-do list. Another random one is to take a pic with Just Nuisance in Simon's Town.

So this is me after my fish and chips queueing at Mariner's Wharf in Hout Bay..on a sunny Sunday afternoon nogal!!

This was yesterday.. haha. I promise I've been there before though.

Some of the cool people who queue for their food

A pretty blue boat

This Sunday I'm doing the Cape Times Big Walk, I consider that another good one to add.... watch this space :-) 

Santa Shoebox Project

I think this is a really cool initiative and I'll encourage people to take part in it when it comes around again.  Basically, you get a shoebox (standard size), fill it with cool stuff (guidelines are provided). Wrap the box....and you've just made one child smile.  I think you're too late for this year's shoebox project but maybe next year you'll wanna give it a go? www.santashoebox.co.za

This box came to about R90 (Cheap cheap) but some of my colleagues spent about R250 on theirs (I'm not THAT generous).  Hahaha.

This box is for a 12-year old female. I don't know if girls that age still play with dolls but this is the only toy I could find to fit in this box!

The box must have a facecloth, soap, toothbrush and toothpaste. There must be one item of clothing, a toy, sweets and some stationery and they all have to fit into a medium-sized box.

Pretty cool. My birthday's in December - you're welcome to give me an age-specific Fatima Shoebox.

Thank you :-)

Twenty ten ...it was here

Millions of eyes were on SA mid-2010. We hosted one of the biggest (if not the biggest) sporting events in the world... and I was there :-) I dont' really watch soccer or know much about it but there was just so much gees, you couldn't NOT get involved.  Thought I'd share some of my favourite memories. Oh, and by the way, I drew Spain in a fun random selection game we played at work and won 600 bucks GO SPAIN!!!

This was the first game I went to. I was kinda down coz the ONLY game I got tickets to, it decides to rain :-( But the game itself and just the atmosphere made up for it. Portugal beat Korea 7-0

Blowing my vuvuzela at the Portugal VS Korea match

Must be a huge soccer fan

Cape Town Stadium

Some people went all out with their supporter gear. This is a buddy of mine I happened to bump into at one of the matches.

A Spain supporter, I take it?

Go Spain!

After all the African teams were out of the game - Ghana remained. We all backed Ghana so that at least one African team made it through. They lost. It was the "Suarez Handball" game. Ghana was about to score and Uruguayan player, Suarez, put his hand out to stop it. Naturally, we were all pretty mad about that. Ghana got a penalty - and they missed it. Pity poo. After that - we all wanted Uruguay out of the game.

Me showing my support for Ghana

Here we are backing The Netherlands when they played Uruguay. After the Suarez handball, we backed The Netherlands with all we had..hahaha. It was fun - and we had front row seats to this match.

Netherlands vs Uruguay

My boo :-)

Proudly South African

Cameroon VS The Netherlands

Just being inside the stadium was a really amazing experience. Even if you couldn't get tickets to the games, the vibe everywhere else was fantastic. People dressed up, blew their vuvuzelas and were just really happy. It felt like New Year's Eve every day :-)

Inside the stadium - will send chills up your spine!!

The gang

Friends and enemies

When we didn't have tickets to games - or if the games were played in another city, we'd make plans to meet up at a public screening area or at someone's house. Any excuse to get together...hahaha

Watching one of the matches at Adidas Three Stories

The day I backed Zee Germans

Front row seats, baby!

That's how close we were - FRONT ROW. Uruguay vs Netherlands

Zakumi!

Some colleagues learning the diski dance

And when it was all over...we had serious withdrawal symptoms. No more excuses to hook up and celebrate, no more shouting and making weird noises for no reason (and being able to make a noise was really fun) and no more fan walks to the stadium. It was great while it lasted. Brazil 2014 might just be on the cards ;-)

The day of the first match - SA vs Mexico

A trip to Greece

I love cheap travel! My friend and I spent two weeks island hopping in the Cyclades for about R12 500. (including flights, accomm and food) Spending money took it to about R18 000

The trip started out pretty crappy. People were rude to us, no one understood us, we couldn't understand any signage and to top it all off it was something like 34 degrees (Celcius) that day. We were staying at a place called Pagration Hostel - cheap cheap. We shared a dorm with about 3 other females.. one of them was a whale who snored and made Free Willy sounds all through the night. I'm not kidding. Guess that's what you get for trying to be pennywise.

Waiting for our room at Pagration Hostel - while enjoying South African biltong :-)

Next morning we had to rush to catch a four-hour ferry to Mykonos - WOOHOO. We just about made it to the ferry by the skin of our teeth. Was a close call and we were stressed and worried that we wouldn't make it...and it didn't help that not many people were eager to help us. So we got off to a pretty rocky start to the trip. The ferry is AWESOME. It's like one really big ship and onboard it's like a hotel. I generally don't like going on boats and wobbly waves  but the ferry's so big and the water's so calm, you don't even feel the motion.

The Blue Star Ferry docking at Mykonos

Inside the Blue Star ferry

In Mykonos we went for Paradise Beach Resort, a budget camping and simple accommodation option on the beach. When I say simple, I mean simple. In our bungalow there were two beds (when we sat up and faced each other, our knees could touch. The toilets and showers were communal so we had to walk back and forth in little towels. If you’re not planning to chill in your room all day, it’s a great option. The resort is quite far from Mykonos Town but they've got a bus that goes between the town and resort all day. Breakfast (included) was toast, a boiled egg, preserves (basically just one flavour of jam) and tea/coffee/juice. You could pay extra and get more stuff ... we didn't (hehehe).

 Check out Mykonos Town:

This is how narrow the roads are in Mykonos Town

Lovely postcards - hahaha

Petros the pelican - the island's mascot

 Paros is amazing. It's less crowded than Mykonos (we didn't go in peak season though) and it's really pretty - plus.. we could rent a quad bike to get around in. The place we stayed at was Santa Maria Surfing Beach hotel (similar setup to the one in Mykonos - but way nicer looking.. especially the bathroooms and toilets. Ironic, though, that it's called surfing beach but we never came across one surfable beach on our trip.

OH MY WORD - how could I forget to mention... in Greece, you can't flush the loo roll down the toilet. It will clog the pipes. So whether you're doing a number one or two, you have to wipe then chuck the paper in a dirt bin next to the toilet. How uncool is that!  Takes a while to get used to it. After clogging quite a few toilets, we finally figured out what the signs above it meant.

Paros in pictures:

Paros... perfect beaches

Exploring on four wheels

We stayed on Naxos Island for one night. Not the most eventful island - seems like all the oldies go there. Pretty place though...and so far our nicest accommodation - Windmill Naxos - a two-bed en suite room - sort of like our own apartment. There's like one or two tourist attractions and the rest of it's beach and eating. It's the biggest island in the Cyclades - maybe we just didn't see lots, that's why it wasn't eventful. We only spent a day there.

Naxos

Eating yet another gyros thingy. It's a schwarma with chicken/veg or meat filling

The Portara

Next stop - Ios!! This is the party island. Sort of like the Ibiza of Greece. We stayed at Far Out Beach Club - it's a REALLY vibey spot right opposite the beach. The resort itself is really good looking and their accommodation ranges from luxury to basic.. to very basic. Yes.. we went VERY basic :-) During the day everyone's lounging around one of the two pools listening to really cool beats. If you're after a good party - this is the place to be. We did a bit of sightseeing but the resort was so cool with its hammocks that we just wanted to swim and chill all day.
 Word of advice... if you're gonna stay here - pay a bit more and get a nice room.

The highspeed ferry docking at Ios Island

Lazy afternoons at Far Out Beach Club

Far Out Village (next to the beach club) at night.

Where you'll spend most of the day at Far Out

If you look really closely, you'll see the sea right behind the pool

Our rondawel

And then - the grand finale!!! Santorini Island. I love love love it!!! It's got everything from the beaches to shopping, cool food places, historical sites and the best day trips!  We did a day trip to Nea Kameni (a volcano). They take you on a cool wooden boat thing to the volcano where you have to hike all the way to the top. It's HOT HOT HOT. When you get to the top they pretty much show you where the lava coud squirt out of at any time. If you feel the ground, it's very hot as well (and not just from the sun). After exploring that, you go to a natural hot water spring in the sea. Freakin' amazing. You literally jump off the boat into the cold ocean (near to the shore) and swim a few metres and you'll feel the water get warmer. That was definitely my favourite part of Santorini. Simply coz I DON'T jump into oceans - so that was a major achievement for me!! Candice was pretty chuffed with herself as well.

Then they take you to another little island called Therasia, where we had lunch and then headed back to Santorini. We did lotsa shopping in Thira (where you'll get really cool sunset shots of Santorini's houses and churches). Our accommodation in Santorini was double-booked so we ended up staying at the owners' other accommodation. Very decent en suite double room off the main road. The place we were supposed to stay at (Katarina and John Hostel) had a VERY dodgy bathroom for us to use before we had to catch our ferry(coz we had already checked out). We had to take a shower in a dark bathroom/toilet (luckily two other travellers were also there with a torch). To make matters worse - there was a cockroach exploring the bathroom... eeeeeeeeek!!!!!!

The Nea Kameni hike

The warm water spring drop off

Our boat

Lunch at Labros, Therasia Island

This is Santorini

A restaurant doorway - Thira

The view from Thira

Me me me Santorineeeeeee

 Inter-island transfers via ferries came to R1500 with the shortest ferry at R85 and the longest (Santorini to Athens) at R390 for an eight-hour trip. When booking long ferry rides, choose the more comfortable, assigned seats instead. It costs more, but it’s better than arriving at the ferry only to find out the seats are all taken and you have to camp out on the deck overnight - like we did - hahahha. you live, you learn.

Our little bed we had to make for the 8-hour overnight ferry back to Athens

And this is what TIRED looks like!

Back in Athens, our room at  Neos Olympos Hotel wasn't ready...and it was on the 4th floor, or something ridiculous like that. So, after having no sleep and dragging our bags for over an hour trying to find Neos Olympos - we were pretty pissed. We started getting catty with each other - hahaha. So instead of falling asleep on the steps while waiting for our room, we decided to force in the last of our sightseeing before we sleep the rest of the day away.  We went to check out all the must-sees like the Parthenon at the Acropolis, Temple of Olympian Zeus etc etc. We were BROKEN. It must have been something like 40 degrees - and we were tired.

The Parthenon

Some other important building I forgot the name of

Temple of Zeus at Olympia

We ended the trip with some shopping at Plaka that night - and the next day before our flight we did some serious financial damage coz we couldn't believe we had lotsa money left (coz we budgeted so hard throughout the trip..hehehe).

Was an awesome trip - loads of fun, lots of sun....and tons of shopping crammed into the day day we had to leave :-)

Pity we weren't able to add Turkey to the trip...oh well, guess I'll have to make a plan to get there another time :-)