Steph's Travels

After TopDeck, i spent a lovely relaxing couple of weeks in the UK with my grandparents, detoxing and catching up on sleep. I went shopping with Grandad and Eileen and baked and cooked and sunbathed with my Nana. Went to the Pub with Uncle Mike and Aunty Helen, walked through the woods and went into London for a day where i met up with Tarsh. We had a great day at the camden markets and went to an indian festival in regent street, near piccadilly circus where we had the most amazing curry!!! On the 5th september, Uncle Mike and Nana took me back to Heathrow where i somehow got away with a pack that weighed 29 kilos(as apposed to the 18kg i'd arrived in heathrow with some 6 weeks earlier) and boarded my overnight flight to Cape Town.
James picked me up from the airport in Cape Town and we came to his aunt and uncle's house here in Constantia which is one of the nicest places to live in Cape Town, and very safe. Dawn and Alasdair have a cottage in their garden with a full kitchen, lounge, bedroom and ensuite, which they are very, very generously letting us stay in! Dawn and Alasdair have 3 daughters; Alice (14), Frances (11) and Elise,the most mature and polite 7 year old you could ever wish to meet! They are great fun, its like having little sisters. They also have 3 dogs; a great dane, a gorgeous border collie and a bitzer which is unlike anything i've seen before. There is also a cat, numerous bunnies and a hamster!

The last 2 weeks has been a lot of fun. I have met so many of James' friends at various pubs and sport matches and parties and i get along with them all really well already. We went to a rugby game between the western province and durban (equivalent to going to watch the brumbies) and we've also been to a Bafana Bafana (South africa's soccer team) match against Zambia. It was incredible! Total culture shock and incredibly raucous but so much fun! I bought a vuvuzela which is a plastic trumpetty/horn thing that makes the loudest possible noise. The stadium was full of them and people were going crazy! I didnt take my camera because its not the type of game you take anything valuable to, but the stadium was FULL (not just the seats but the isles too) and it absolutely erupted when South Africa scored a goal. Unfortunately Zambia won 3-1.

We also went to the Australia - England cricket where the Aussies won!!!! James was covered in green and yellow paint and I had "GO AUSSIE" written all over my legs and we were sat in the middle of hundreds and hundreds of ammateur barmy-army, half of which were James' friends from Uni. We managed to get on TV heaps of times as we had huge Aussie flags and James was shirtless, loud and COMPLETELY covered in paint along with his good friend Tom who was also covered in paint resembling an english flag.

On Monday i walked up Table Mountain with Dawn and her walking friends and my legs are now so so sore!!! I'm now looking into maybe some volunteer work, although one of Dawn's friend's friend needs an Au Pair so I might end up doing that. we'll see. I promise to keep you posted more frequently now..... i mean it this time!!! Love to you all. xoxx

Well.... SO much has happened! I last left you in Rome i do believe! We then travelled to Venice, via Verona (the home of Romeo and Juliette). Both Verona and Venice were stunning. Though we only spent one hour in Verona, it was such a gorgeous little town with marbled streets and beautiful fresh fruit markets. Venice was incredible and we had such an awesome day just getting lost and finding great little restuarants and shops. We went on a gondola ride through the little canals which was an amazing way of getting around and we finally returned back to our campsite in the afternoon, exhausted from the toga party we'd had the night before! The campsite in Venice was great fun. It was run by an aussie and the pub there was pretty good. There were no less than 3 top deck groups there while we were there one night and i felt quite sorry for all the other holiday-makers! After reluctantly leaving Italy, we went to Austria and did white water rafting on the way, which was fun until i got a rock to the leg. Most people went either sky-diving, paragliding or canyon jumping in Austria. Their DVD's and photos are amazing. The scenery around where we were was stunning. I wanted to paraglide but couldn't as i couldn't run because of my leg. I'm definately planning on going back to skydive when im rich though,(as it was more than 200 euros and then another 70 for the DVD)!
After Austria we spent just one night in Germany in a castle with a gorgeous view and the next morning we had the chance to buy beersteins/birkenstocks and kuku(cucu???) clocks in the town before it was time to head on to Amsterdam for the big finale! Before we got to the city of Amsterdam, we were taken to a cheese and clogs farm which was hilarious. The cheese was fantastic and the guy that owns/runs the farm was a complete nutcase - wonderful example of what smoking too much weed can do to you in the long term! On our first night in Amsterdam we were walked through the red light district for a 'cultural experience'.... before being taken to a show...........enough said. The next day we discovered that Amsterdam really is a fantastic place to shop, and that kept us girls entertained all day until it was time for our farewell dinner. We went to a chinese restaurant for dinner and then had a canal cruise with all you can drink on board. The next day we stumbled downstairs and hopped on the bus for our return to the UK. We stopped in Brugge, Belgium and bought some amazing Beligium chocolates before driving to Calais and finally getting back into London at about 7.30pm.

Hello again and apologies for how long it has been since i last wrote anything on here.... we just haven't stopped!!!! It has been absolutely incredible so far on Top Deck and I really dont want it to ever end!!! We met all of our group (44 of us!) and our leader Gus, bus driver Husky and cook Frazer in London on 30th July and departed on the 31st to Paris. We made lots of good friends immediately and because it's a 'gappy' trip we are all 18 or 19 and its just amazing fun! Sometimes we feel like we're on a school trip. Paris was beautiful. We climbed the Eiffel tower, went on a bike tour and went on a Seine river cruise. Moving on to Switzerland next, we stayed in a stunning little town called Lauterbrunnen and went up the mountain (by train, not foot!) to the highest point in europe where we played in the snow and patted some husky's. Unfortunately the weather wasn't good so we didnt get very nice pictures from the top of the mountain, but it was still really nice to go up there and we stopped for drinks at this little town on the way down and we could hear the cow bells all ringing on the cows in the fields. Next we went to Florence, via Pisa to see the leaning tower. Florence was a buzz of excitement. Our first night there we had pasta and pizza for dinner which was just a fantastic welcome to Italy. We walked around the city and then went out on a shopping spree.... all those italian leather goods! We kept justifying the price of things with the usual "how many times am I going to be in Florence?!" We then headed to Bari, Italy where we caught the overnight ferry to Southern Greece. We learnt how to sail our little boats and then off we went! Everyone was so excited about sailing and it was everything we'd imagined! The water was amazingly clear and we had so much fun! On our first night we watched and participated in some traditional greek dancing and had plenty of shots of homemade ouzo, before stumbling back to our boats to sleep. I got quite sunburnt on our second day which isn't so great but hopefully it'll turn into a nice tan! After sailing we reluctantly left Greece on the overnight ferry again. Burnt, dehydrated and tired, we headed to Rome, Italy for some more gelato! that was yesterday. We did a walking tour of Rome and saw all the major sights, tasted 5 flavours of gelato and took plenty of pictures of the colosseum. Today we spent the day in Rome at our leisure and had another pizza/pasta lunch (how many times are we going to be in Italy?) and more gelato! Next we are off to Venice where we are going to go on those little Gondola boats!
Love you all and take care.
remember my e-mail is steph_way@hotmail.com
xoxx

Hey Everybody! I hope everyone is well and enjoying themselves. My apologies for my lack of keeping in touch, but internet is scarce and phonecalls expensive in South Africa. I am having an amazing time! After a big breakfast in Sydney airport and a sad farewell to Mum, Dad and Cat, my flight to SA was fine and i was very lucky in having a spare seat next to me. The plane was quite empty and there were heaps of people lying down across rows of seats etc. Upon arriving in Johannesburg I found that i had a long wait until my flight because we had landed early and I was extremely anxious to see James! I ran to the domestic terminal and checked in and tried to get an earlier flight, but failed because the next one was full and so waited anxiously for 4 hours. I made friends with a toddler and 2 grannies during this time. I then flew to Port Elizabeth where James, Craig, Eric and Celeste were waiting for me! It was so wonderful to see them all again! James and I went to the Grahamstown festival a couple of days later, which was a real cultural experience!!! We then embarked on a 10 day camping trip to the Kalahari desert, which was incredible! We stayed at Augrabies, Twee Rivieren, Mata Mata and Nossob campsites (google them if you're interested). We saw absolutely everything! We saw Leopard, Cheetah, Lion, Hyena, Honey Badger, Giraffe..... the list goes on! It was incredible and i was over the moon with my amazing little camera and the job it did! I'll let the photos speak for themselves!!!!! It was so special to see all those animals so close in their natural environment, nothing fencing them in. I am so grateful to Eric and Celeste for taking me to the Kalahari, i dont think i would ever have been able to without them.

Today I landed in London and met Caity. Grandad and Eileen picked us up from the airport and we went home, then out for a pub lunch and just relaxed this afternoon. Tomorrow we head back into London to start our TopDeck tour on Tuesday! I'll keep you posted.

Love to you all but i really must go now! take care. Steph. xoxx