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