Let's get you caught up...

Sorry for the long silence on our side!

Life is coming along nicely here in Mountain View. Terry and I are both settled into our apartment and are enjoying having all of our stuff back after a year and a bit of storage. And luckily for us almost everything survived the trip intact.

As far as I am concerned, the big news is that we have adopted a dog at long last, and he is wonderful! I can't believe I made it so long without a little buddy. Hi name is Chester and we are pretty sure that he is a Jack Russel and Miniature Pinscher mix. He is a fantastic little dog and definitely above average, he has already learned all kinds of fancy tricks!

We had a great visit from my brother, Dominic, and although it was pretty much the blind leading the blind, we were able to get out and about to explore the bay area and had a great day in San Francisco. We did the city in a big way and managed to visit China Town, the Ferry Building (for some gourmet shopping), and had a ride on a cable car for about 10 minutes before it broke down (and no they did not refund the $10 fee we were charged). We did drive-bys past Coit Tower, Fisherman's Wharf, Golden Gate Park, the Presidio, and of course a drive over the Golden Gate Bridge. Over all it was a lot of fun and Terry and I both definitely enjoyed his company for a few days.

Terry made a Kamakaze trip back to South Africa to sort out a few loose ends and despite being on a plane for half of his trip of 9 days he was able to take care of business, see as many of our friends in Joburg as possible, and have a good romp at Michael and Dawn's wedding! Which sounded like it was a beautiful event.

Aside from that bit of excitement things have been fairly quiet here. Terry is putting in a solid 17 hour work day almost every day and it seems like things are really going well at Trial Pay. I have even been recruited to manage all of the Customer Service work for them whch is a little project that has been taking up a surprising amount of time. We took a bit of time out the other day to celebrate our anniversary and have a very lovely dinner at a restaraunt called Marche in Menlo Park. We have been spending lots of time enjoying having some of our old friends back and I have gotten lots of time to play with Lina and Emil, definitely some of the coolest little kids I know.

So all is well here and we hope the same goes for all of you!

Much love,
Genevieve, Terry, and Chester

Back in the USA

Hi Guys,

Sorry for the radio silence! I know I'm way over due for sending out an update but travelling and settling in here in California are just going to have to do for excuses. Since we left Joburg a month ago we have been very busy bees.

Terry and I spent Bastille Day weekend in Ocean City, Maryland with our very good Boston friends at the much spoken of and highly anticipated reunion weekend that my girlfriends and I have committed to doing every summer. I have to say that the weekend was worth the wait in every way! The eight of us had a blast and despite our disappointment with Ocean City as a vacation destination (aside from highlights such as Mother Plucker's Restaraunt) the beach house we rented ended up being pretty much all we saw of the city, by choice! While we were there we got a chance to catch-up with each other face to face after a year apart, celebrated the impending arrival of 2 bundles of joy, got to know 2 recent baby arrivals (Owen and Clayton), and thoroughly enjoyed each other's company! The boys all also had a great time and actually made an effort to see the city, spending both nights out at the local haunt, the Green Turtle and a day in a rented boat on the bay. And to their credit organized a very nice dinnner for us consisting of steak and about 50 Maryland Crabs!

After the reunion I flew down to Austin, Texas for a week to catch up with all of my family and friends in what I still (despite all of my travelling thus far) consider one of the coolest cities in the world. Despite being a cool city it was definitely in the midst of its annual summer roast with the temperature hovering near 100F (about 38C). It sounds bad but you just have to know how to handle it (and airconditioning is a big part of handling it!). I'm happy to report that all of my family and friends back home in Austin are doing great!

After Austin came my flight out to California where Terry and I have been graciously hosted by our very good friends (Kellie and Alson, Kena and Joe, and Jens and Jenni) while we work to get ourselves settled in here. The settling part is coming along slowly but surely. Terry is loving his job, as is evident by the crazy hours he is working (a good day is 12 hours minimum right now). So I've pretty much resigned myself to seeing him on the weekends for now. We have signed a 6 month lease on a place in Mountain View and are waiting till the 20th (at Jens and Jenni's beautiful house, we have threatened to steal it from them...) until we can move in. we are researching fuel efficient cars given the fantastic things the gas price is doing right now, I'm starting on my job search, and our stuff is as we speak being placed on trucks to be hauled to us from Boston. We are getting to know Silicon Valley and San Francisco (we had a great time up there with Kena and Joe last weekend). So over all things are great but Terry and I are both really missing things back in Joburg!

And P.S. all you South Africans will be happy to know that both of my parents said that I now have a bit of an accent, I guess you all rubbed off on me after all!!

Action Packed Week!

We've had quite a busy last week here in Joburg. Terry and I kicked things off with a charity event at theh Johannesburg Country Club, a morning of croquet and pimms on the lawn to sponser a great charity organization caled Starfish that is based here in South Africa and works to provids for AIDS orphans here in South Africa. It was a fantastic event and very well planned. Given Terry's slightly competitive nature (oh yeah and he decided to dress up for the event in his old school blazer) our foursome was the most hotly contested game on the pitch and lasted a good 30 minutes longer than any of the other games but we followed the rules and really let ourselves become immersed in the cometitive and slightly passive aggresive nature of the game!

After our morning of colonial opulence Terry and I headed off to the filmset of a friend's movie currently titled Jerusalem, about building hijackings in Johannesburg. Yes, in Johannesburg a building can be hijacked by less than savoury individuals who then demand that rent be paid to them rather than the rightful owners. It wouldn't be as big of a problem if the laws weren't set-up as they are. With the current law systems it can often take an owner months to regian the legal rights to a buliding once it has been hijacked. We arrived on the set in downtown Joburg (a slightly seedy area of town) and watched from the sie lines as they filmed about 20 security guards and police storming a hijacked building. It was a lot of fun to see everything in action and I'm definitely looking forward to seeing the finished product in about another 18 months.

After that we went to visit our friends Cliff and Elsje who had a baby last week, Cayden, and had just brought him home from the hospital. It's always amazing to see how small a new born is! But Cayden is looking strong and Terry and I have made his parents promise to keep us up to date on all of his progress given that we are leaving this week, but at least we got to meet him before heading out!

We also had a chance to have a lovely leisurely lunch with Terry's cousin Sonia and her kids Nicole and Theo who flew out to Joburg from Austin for a visit with the family here. It was a bit odd seeing them so out of context but great to catch-up and see how much the kids are growing.

Last night was our official going away party and we had a fantastic turn out here at Terry's parent's house. About 30 of our friends came by to wish us well on our next adventure and to make me promise to keep up the blogs so they can follow us and our adventures in the US. Thanks to loads of help from Mimi we had a fantastic night. This morning we hustled Terry off to the airport and I am following in three days time.

The itenerary in the US is for Terry to fly (via Dubai) into New York and immediately down to Florida from there for a conference he is then going to DC to meet up with me and some of our very close friends from business school for a long weekend reunion. From there he is off to Boston and New York for work and will then fly to San Jose to get stuck into work. My plan is to fly into New York; spend a day there (hopefully without doing too much damage) and to then take the train down to DC for the reunion. From DC I'm off to Austin for a few days with my family (I have to make sure they still are able to recognise me after all this time!) and will then fly onto San Jose to start settling us and sorting out our lives there!

It should be an interesting few weeks!

Guess What?! We're moving!

Yes, yes, believe it or not Terry and I are moving next week to either San Jose or San Francisco for a very interesting but risky opportunity Terry has decided to try out in California. Despite past false alarms on this move it looks like this time it is really going to happen. We are actually very sad to be leaving Joburg; I know some of you don't believe that I'm really saying that, but this city does have a tendency to grow on you... And although a but overwhelmed and nervous about all of the unknown we are looking forward to our next adventure, this time in the bay area. I have a feeling that the blog posts may be a bit less exotic for a while, sorry guys!

So if anyone is in the San Fran area from late July onwards drop us a line or give us a call (my cell number is staying the same).

Cheers!

Genevieve and Terry

What I've learned about life in the Big City

After our many raves about Cape Town (which can really be more like a distant suburb of Western Europe) I feel like it may be time to explain life in Johannesburg, a city where you know you are in Africa. It is very different but does have its beauty and as long as you go into it with a sense of humor you will usually manage. You may wonder what I mean by this, let me explain...Some of my favorite examples:



1. Terry whispering to me to discreetly take off a piece of jewelry or hide it when we go into an iffy area.
2. Having to stop on a busy road the other day to let 3 chickens across the cross walk.
3. Learning to drive on the other side of the road (over all I manage well but sometimes walk to the wrong door when I'm getting in).
4. Constantly looking at stops, or things that look like they should be stops to make sure the light is working or hasn't been knocked over by a drunk driver (knocking over traffic lights is a national sport here in SA), and if it is knocked over following the color of the light as it lays on its side in the dirt, assuming of course that it hasn't been stripped yet of its working parts
5. The frequent and random power outages (now I know how all you Californians must have felt a few years ago when you had all those rolling blackouts). It teaches you that it really is helpful to maintain power stations... The SA commission that reports on such things announced recently that last year there were only 1,500 significant outages in SA (only up by 400 from last year). People really get used to operating with no power, I have walked into grocery stores that were nearly pitch black only to find it full of South Africans acting as though everything was completely normal, some of the old ladies had even whipped out their mini mag lites to check their lists as well as the labels on the food. I was rung up by a very tired looking owner with a hand held calculator...
6. Learning the unwritten and completely senseless rules of the black taxis (old vans that are held together by wire and duct tape and then stuffed with about 20 commuters rather than the 12 they can actually hold). Defensive driving takes on a whole new meaning with these guys around, they pull some very impressive and gutsy moves on the roads here. But don't worry, there is a new program under way to try to create more of a cohesive system for taxis here.
7. Avoiding armored trucks at all costs. In the month of November there were 23 cash in transit heists ('tis the season, with all the Christmas shopping to be done and all...) most of these occur either with guns or when the gang bashes the armored truck off the road. Oh and also don't neglect the 420 other heists/hijackings that were reported last year.
8. Calling the phone company when our line went out and having the person on the other side of the line tell us that someone would definitely be out "sometime in the next week", but that they couldn't narrow it down any more for us. Makes the "we'll be there between 12 and
4" answer in the US sound just plain decadent!
9. Winter fires in Joburg. I have never seen so many small wild fires being completely ignored in my life!
10. Learning all of the new name for things in the grocery store, its a wonder my Thanksgiving pies came out tasting good and the right color. I often stand in an aisle scratching my head and looking really dumb trying to make sure that treacle sugar is really like brown sugar or that corn flour is really corn starch or that bicarbonate of soda is baking soda (thank God
for college chemistry), I could go on...

But like I said, just take it all in stride and be able to laugh it off. All of the above being said it really is a wonderful city when you learn to see past and appreciate the craziness. The majority of people here are genuinely kind, attentive, and willing to help. It is AMAZING to have a maid, especially our maid Daphne, thank goodness we found her. The food in this city is wonderful once you know where to go. Waking up to the unusual sound of Ha-di-das (I have no idea how to spell this) which are very unusual burds that make a niose a lot like their name. And the conquer at all costs mentality of the culture is inspiring, and has given rise to epic events such as the Two Oceans, the Argus, the 94.7, and of course the Comrades- all true endurance events. It is the people of Joburg really make it what it is, as Joburgers like to say, "Cape Town may have its beaches but in Joburg people are our beaches".

This and That

Sorry for the lack of postings lately but things have quieted down quite a bit from our crazy busy April/May holiday season and there just hasn't been as much to chat about... The last month has mostly been busy with the World Cup and the hunt for a new apartment here in Joburg. I'm sure there isn't much I can say about the world cup to keep anyone's interest but it has been nice having it occur in the same time zone, I'm still having flashbacks to the Korea World Cup and a number of sleep deprived nights watching the finals (on the up side breakfast became a much more eventful meal!). The apartment search has been a unique experience though. After weeks of looking for a nice furnished apartment I finally found one that didn't provoke feelings of unease and queasiness and signed a lease, picked up the keys and prepared to move only to find out the night before the move that the apartment had been rented to someone else and that the owner would be needing the keys back... I'm pretty sure that this can only occur here in Africa! But luckily Terry's parents have a nice big house so we have temporarily nestled in there until we can work out another plan. And I must admit that the views from the Angelos house are quite a step up from our previous location! It's just a shame that it is winter now, in a few more months the Jacaranda trees will be in bloom and the view from the house will be studded with purple everywhere.

But all in all I really can't complain about Joburg winters, the evenings get pretty nippy (flirting with freezing point) but most days warm up nicely so that all you need is a sweater and the weather has been nothing but big beautiful blue skies and sun. The only real issue in Joburg in the winter are the fires. Because of the crystal clear weather the grass (felt) dries up nicely and burns at the drop of a hat. God only knows how all the fires start but start they do. Actually, it's probably a mix of genuine accident and the campfires used by the homeless, people tend to camp for the evening in open fields. But I've never seen anything like it before. Granted, we do have our fair share of raging wild fires every year in the US, but at least people are busy trying to put them out! Here the fires just spark up and people will let them burn themselves out. I can usually count at least 3 or 4 new fires a day!

Enough though of my rambling about wild fires... Terry's sister Tina was in town last weekend with her husband Jonny, and despite the fact that the weekend seemed to slip right by it was great to have a chance to catch up with them for a few days. I went out with the boys that weeked to the outdor expo that was held here and I probably should have known that it was going to be a testosterone fueled event but I guess you win some and loose some. Any way, after far too much time standing in front of quad bikes, camper trailers, kayaks, and various other boy toys we stumbled onto a very Genevieve friendly thing. There was a non-profit group there thaht rehabilitated wild animals and they had brought some of their monkeys and a baby lion along to the show. I wish I had a camera with me to prove it but the baby lion (which they had received as a 3 week old cub) had been nursed and raised by a pair of daschunds and while we were there the lion was busy wrestling with one of them, it was really one of the funiest things I've seen in a while.

Oh yea, the one big-ish adventure I've embarked on in the last few weeks was a weekend trip withTerry's family to Sun City (South Africa's largest casino) to see my first big Greek concert, Antonis Remos, I must say it was a very nice although unique event, and even though I didn't understand the songs it was a lot of fun and I'm pretty sure that Sun City sold more Whisky and had more tables broken by dancing fans than any time in recent memory, putting a thousand Greeks into a room with music and alcohol is a pretty solid recipe for trouble! While we were at Sun City we decided to take advantge of the Pilanesburg Game Park and went on a drive one afternoon, it was definitely not the usual overwhelming Simbabili exerience but we did get to watch a beautiful herd of Giraffe.

Kill the Robot!

After much nagging by my dear Terry I'm going to try to add a new component to my updates. Whenever I find something remarkable, crazy, interesting, befuddling or otherwise notable while blundering my way around South Africa I am going to try to explain it to you all (hopefully with pictures attached). My aim is to try to impart some of the more interesting nuances about South Africa to you all. And as an added bonus since I'm not from these parts I haven't yet become jaded when it comes to some of the "normal" things that occur here that either make you laugh or just shake your head in amazement...

So for part one I have chosen to highlight one of the unofficial South African past times/hobbies/national sports. While it is common knowledge that games steeped in British tradition like rugby, cricket, and soccer are popular here to the point of distraction a little known past time here is killing robots. For those of you not yet introduced to the South African vernacular, robot does not as you might think mean one of those little gear box machines that has been created and programmed by humans to relieve them of their work load. No, here robot means traffic light and I can only guess that it is so named because if you squint at it just so as you flash by in your car it may possibly resemble a very sad B grade science fiction version of a robot.

The rules of the game are quite simple as there really are no rules except that in order to consider yourself victorious you must have flattened the robot (street lights are an acceptable option as well) in question with your car, or if not entirely flattened it must be teetering at a precarious angle. Generally speaking, South Africans are rather proud of their cars; if you are here for more than a few days you will begin to note that an inordinate number of cars on the road are the products of the proud German tradition of auto making. This being said, they would not generally be inclined to bash them into a metal pole, but if you introduce a tot or 12 of whisky into the equation suddenly it becomes quite a sport to nail and obliterate unsuspecting and/or cheeky robots. Depending on the severity of the knock some robots will stop functioning while others continue working at a very horizontal angle, and as long as the lights are flashing (regardless of the angle) you must obey them, it can make intersections more fun...

But don't worry, the resources that go into replacing and resurrecting said robots does not go entirely to waste because the native South African population is a very enterprising group. If a robot goes more than a few days with out being repaired (it usually takes a week to 10 days) you will quickly start to notice that pieces are being removed and recycled probably in some township somewhere. If I had to guess, if I drove for more than 30 minutes a day here in Johannesburg I would say that I would probably manage to find a dead robot every other day, what a sport!

More fun at Simbambili

We know it has been a little ridiculous lately, what with all of our crazy adventures and weekends away, but you all know that you are always invited to come along; we'd really love to have the company!

Last weekend was yet another beautiful trip to Simbambili, I'm sure you are tired of all the wildlife pictures by now but every time we go out there nature just keeps treating us to new and fantastic sights, and of course this past weekend was no exception... If there was a theme for our latest trip to the bush it would have been cats. With the help of our rock star ranger, Lazarus, and tracker, Joseph, we were positively bombarded by leopards and lions this trip. I think the total cat count was 7 leopards (some seen on multiple occasions), 11 lions, a genet, and a civet (not sure if he is a cat but looked a bit like one). Aside from the very cooperative cats we also saw giraffe, bush buck, waterbuck, kudu, wharthogs (some being chased by lions), a hippo out of the water (a first for me), chamelions, duiker (one being eaten by a leopard), elephants, african buffalo, impala, baboons, a honey badger, owls, grey louries and I'm sure a few other things I have forgoten...

The highlight of the trip for us was finally getting to see the 5 month old leopard cubs that we have been looking for since they were born. Their mother, Safari, has been doing a great job hiding them from us, but all the hard work was worth it! In addition to this we saw Mfufenjan ( the dominant male leopard in the area) on a very active "honeymoon" with a female from the area, we saw Seseka and her one year old leopard cub on a duiker kill, a pride of lions at play on a termite mound, a lion chasing down a wharthog(she missed), and two lions cullering (roaring) in the full moon light.

Now that winter is upon those of us in the southern hemisphere we also spent quite a lot of time bundeling against the cold on the night and early morning drives. I think we brought a full closet with us on the car each time we went out, and were definitely well branded with Simbambili gear. As an absolute treat on those cold nights we always had a beautifully made fire waiting for us in our room when we got back in the evenings.

As I said before, it was a wonderful trip and we are already counting down the days until we can make it back out again! Here are more pictures for thouse of you who are interested (Simbambili May 2006).

The SAMA Awards

Our latest adventure was a short trip up to Sun City, a huge and elaborate casino and vacation club, two hours north of Johannesburg. Terry and I drove up to lend our support to Ange and Eleni at the South African Music Awards. Ange is in the music business here and his artist, Etienne Steyn (a very good Afrikaans musician, go buy his CD) had been nominated for the best pop artist of the year. Despite some really crossed fingers on our part Etienne, unfortunately, did not win the award this year but we are all pretty sure that next year will be his!

We all stayed at a sweet little guest house owned by a lovely French couple and we can highly recommend their lodge, the Authentique French Guest House for the cute rooms, friendly owners, and lovely breakfasts.

After our arrival we had a few free hours to explore the area before we had to get ready and it was recommended that we make a visit to the Lion Park nearby. I can definitely say that we all really enjoyed our visit there and were spoiled by getting to play with two 3 month old male lion cubs! Its hard to imagine that the little babies that were attacking our fingers and camera bags will be such imposing and deadly animals in a year or two. So even though we weren't able to get pics of the wild cubs on our last trip to the bush we got you a few of babies that in another two years will be released into one of the national parks here in South Africa.

After a bit of prepping and posing for pictures we headed off to Sun City to see the awards show which turned out to be a fantastic and very cultural experience for all of us. The fashion, music, and vibe were a unique blend of western and traditional African sights and sounds. It was an amazing thing for us to be able to see the changing tides of South African culture from our seats in the theatre. Here are more pictures from our weekend (SAMA Photo Album).