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.