Tuesday 5 April 2011

Africa

This may be well the last blog post before I leave tomorrow afternoon for the airport. I've just finished packing to African music, and eaten the last of my 'Bon Voyage' cake. Managed to get everything into a small suitcase, - had to be pretty ruthless! As my clever, well-travelled friend said, 'you will always pack more than you need, and buy more than you think you will.'


Tired out still from yesterday's shopping trip. Felt like I had spent a  massive sum of money, but most of that is still there, just in South Africa Rands on my travel card or in cash form. I did come back  yesterday with something that wasn't on the list though - a Kindle! I read quite fast, so the thought of taking books was not one compatible with packing light, feel a bit bad spending money but still.. her name is now Serenity.

Met a few strange shop assistants yesterday, including a girl that was putting Vaseline on her lips whilst I was asking her about the difference between the standard Kindle (which I got) and the more expensive 3G Kindle. I asked about the Internet function and this was her reply:

'Well, depends what you want to use it for. It's good for reading books, if you like books, it's good for that. Instead of having to go to somewhere like McDonald's to get your book, you can get it anywhere. Do you like books?'

I was reminded of the Black Books sketch when Manny welcomes a customer into the bookshop with 'Books, old and new!'

Another shop assistant asked me how much I knew about binoculars, to which I replied, 'Erm, not much really! Well, except for the bringing far things closer part.' He didn't even smile. Oh dear. He gave me a crash course in binoculars and I held the first pair the wrong way round. Hey, I wasn't lying when I said I knew nothing about them.

The last one was in Superdrug, I was looking for compression bags for the suitcase. I caught the assistant's atttention and explained that I was looking for ones where you roll the air out instead of using a vacuum. The guy looked at me briefly, gave his head the slightest of shakes, and then walked away with his back to me having never said a word. He was definitely working there as well. 

Anyhow, I need to send a couple of emails and sort out hostels and routes so I need to get off now. I have downloaded mostly free ebooks but I did pay for the books below. It's scary how easy it is to buy a book with one click! 

1) The Lord of the Rings - Tolkien went from South Africa to B'ham!
2) Confessions of a GP - Already half way through, it's so funny :-) 
3) In Stitches: The High and Lows of Life as an A+E Doctor - Got this for a friend but yet to read myself.
4) But Can You Drink the Water - About a working-class family moves from Liverpool to apartheid SA.
5) The No. 1 Ladies' Detective Agency - I loved the BBC adaptation, I look forward to this muchly.

Wish me luck! 2 months in Africa, where I come!

Edit: This is Fiver. 



You will see photos of him in various places around Africa in the next few weeks, if the net holds up. 

I was going on to the boyfriend about how cute this crochet bunny was but thought I'd be good and sleep on it before I buy him. Then I checked Etsy the next day, I saw that he had been sold. :-( I was in the middle of writing to the seller to see if she might make another, when boyfriend walked in. Told him what happened and how I shouldn't have waited etc. Boyfriend chuckled and I got mad at him, because bunny was gone and he was laughing. Turned out he bought the bunny for me as a present. So that's the story of how I came to own Fiver. 

1 comment:

  1. Online sic bo sees you roll three 우리카지노 cube to attempt to get a certain rating

    ReplyDelete