As I mentioned a few days ago, Al and my parents and I went to Italy for Christmas this year. It was a big trip for a couple of reasons: first, it was a belated (by one year) celebration of my parents’ 40th wedding anniversary (wowza!), it was the first time I’ve spent Christmas with […]
On Saturday, Al and I drove an hour outside Cape Town to Franschhoek (“French Corner” in Dutch), which is considered the food and wine capital of South Africa. Our plan was to go wine tasting and also check out a few of the area’s restaurants. The day started off cold and drizzly. Our first […]
Happy Black Friday! May none of you be trampled to death today and may you all enjoy many leftover-turkey-and-stuffing sandwiches! Al and I are in Cape Town. We came down yesterday morning and are staying at the beautiful home of Al’s former boss, Hillary, her husband, Alfred, their two sons, Boden (7) and Asher (16 […]
To take my mind off my many health woes, I spent this afternoon making a pumpkin pie from scratch. And I mean SCRATCH. Scritchety-scratch. This was my first time making pumpkin pie, so I was going into this thing blind. And, since canned pumpkin and pre-made pie crusts don’t exist in this country, I was […]
No, I didn’t temporarily lose hold of my senses while trying to spell “neighborhoods” – Neighbourgoods is a fun, partially enclosed market in the central business district (CBD) of Joburg showcasing local merchants selling all manner of goodies: organic wine, raw chocolate, French cheese, thin crust pizza, empanadas, fresh baked bread, fruit smoothies, raw honey, […]
As a writer, I feel that it’s part of my job to constantly read. Which is good, because I would do this anyway. Even during my law school and attorney days, after long days of reading dry-as-a-bone legal documents and cases, I’d come home and read fiction for hours. In fact, looking back over my […]
This weekend marked our first real weekend away from Joburg, and it was all I hoped it could be. Al and I and three friends (Josh, Ken, and Elli) spent the weekend hiking, braai-ing, and drinking in the Drakensberg Mountains and, let me tell you, it was glorious. The Drakensberg Mountains run along the western […]
I’ve been in Joburg for over a week now and I am still trying to get a sense for the city. It’s difficult, since, as I mentioned, until we get a car, I’m effectively housebound and can only explore on foot the small radius of shops and restaurants immediately surrounding our apartment complex. And a […]
On Saturday evening, Al and I hosted our first braai (barbeque). Braai is the Afrikaans word for barbeque or grill. In a traditional braai, the meat is cooked over wood, but nowadays a lot of South Africans use plain ol’ charcoal briquettes just like everybody else. Al went to the store on Saturday and purchased […]
… To say that things are somewhat coming together over here. We don’t have the stuff that we shipped from DC (but it’s being delivered Friday, supposedly). I still don’t have a desk. Our toilet leaks. We only have one (rental) car and one set of housekeys between the two of us. And last night […]
