Correction: the right number

Oops, I messed up with the cell phone number. Here it is:
+420 608 235 762
We look forward to hearing from you at some point.

New Czech Number

Our cell phone here is +420 608 236 762. This should be the number we'll use until the end of April. For the rest of the contact information, refer back to the first or second entries in the blog.

Goodbye summer, hello winter!

Oh my goodness, it is so cold in Prague! We arrived nearly on time last night, only about an hour or so late. We took a taxi to Celakovice and it took about 40 minutes. And we were going really really fast on some tiny roads (no traffic or cops, apparently, at midnight). So, we arrived and upon checking in, we got quickly unpacked and fell asleep. We had to be up before 9 am to get our breakfast (included in the stay). Breakfast was delicious--I love European food! Or maybe it's just the bread and butter I love so much...anyway, it was a nice start to our stay here.
After breakfast, Geo and I met up with two girls here from T-bird (Laura and Debbie) and we went into Prague on the train. This was after some hot beverages though, as it was really cold! I'm not quite sure what the temperature was this morning, but Geo was still able to run in his shorts...ice on the ground and all. So, we had hot drinks and went on the train. The train runs once an hour on the weekends and it takes about 35 minutes to get into the main part of Prague. It was awesome when we got there, and we walked around a bit to get our bearings. I had to buy a new scarf and mittens (I didn't bring any with me, since my Arizona clothes don't quite cut it for a true winter). We saw a bit of the old town and then we checked in our friends to a hostel (they're spending the night so they can see the opera tonight). We had a nice "traditional" Czech lunch, then we split off to go our separate ways. Geo and I had a few errands to run. On the agenda: IKEA, grocery shopping, and buying a new number for our cell phone. We wanted to get these done today, because who knows what we'll be able to do on Sunday (and really, tomorrow I need to do laundry)!
IKEA is half way between Prague and Celakovice. We got there easily from old town Prague via the metro, but getting home by the train would require us going back into old town. This would not be easily accomplished, with a big bag full from IKEA and several shopping bags of groceries. So, we had to cheat and take a taxi (yikes, that was almost $20 US). A small price to pay though for getting our little "house" up and running.
After IKEA, we went to a Hypermarket grocery store. It's huge and has everything under one roof...but nothing, absolutely nothing, is in English whatsoever. Talk about a hard shopping trip. Thankfully, Geo came in to rescue me, and we managed to get enough for a few meals on our own. With him pushing the cart, I could try to figure out what the labels meant. It was packed with people shopping and navigating and reading was more than I could handle. We ended up with chicken breasts, zucchini, red potatoes and a fresh loaf of whole wheat French bread. Everything has to be cooked on 2 burners on a hot plate. But, really, I can only use one burner, because the wok I bought is too big to fit at the same time with my 3 liter pot. Oh well!
Enough rambling now, can you tell I have good internet now and plenty of time to use it?!? The internet connection in our room is awesome. Maybe it won't be so fast when all the other students come and start hogging the bandwith, skyping all the time. Having said that, try to skype us whenever you want. Or else, I'll try to skype you!
We love Prague, even if it's freezing! You'll love it too if you can follow along with us and if you're planning to visit, make sure you let us know soon!

Fun stuff

We had a lot of fun as you can tell from these pictures. We got to pet a cheetah (apparently, this is totally unheard of) at the Nairobi National Park "Safari Walk" (from left to right, the cheetah handlers, Linda, Fred, and Krissy). This cheetah is 4 years old. She was injured as a baby, and is very content with people. Then, we have the Giraffe Park, where we got to feed and kiss the endangered Rothschild Giraffes. That was awesome. When I can figure it out, I'll put up a link to a video we took with our camera.
Then, the last picture is a family picture from "Carnivore", a meat-lovers' paradise. Fred's younger brother, Malik, and his wife, Veronica, came (they live in Norway) and Fred's friend Edna and Fred's mom joined us, as well as another friend, James.

Last Days in Kenya

While trying not to get too ahead of myself (easy to do when you don't get internet access all the time), I am going to try to summarize our last days in Kenya.
First, a few pictures. Here we have our group, shopping at the Maasai Market in Nairobi (sorry about the blur, we need to get the lens fixed still). From left to right, we have Linda, Krissy, J.T., 2 local salespeople, Geo, and Adam. Fred took the picture. The other picture here is an example of a town center in some of the very rural towns. People just set up shop, have meetings, do business of all sorts, right in between the main road through town.

Last day in Africa

It's hard to believe today is our last day in Africa. We are taking one of our party to the airport in 15 minutes...he heads home through Jo'burg...long flights for him. Tomorrow we all leave separately, except Fred, our host, who leaves on Saturday.
We had a very interesting trip here to the rural part of Kenya, where Fred's extended family lives, without water, electricity, etc. We spent one night there, but we had a nice "hotel"...it was a room with a bathroom for $10 a night. It was clean and we weren't bothered by any mosquitoes. We did have to use bottled water for teeth brushing there though...that was the first and only time we've had to do that in 4 weeks.
We've done some shopping here, which has been interesting. The salespeople at the markets will try to take everything you have to "trade" for things they are selling. We traded a key ring clip and a cheap hat of Geo's for some things. Not sure if that was a good deal or not though. It was a fun process, learning the local way of doing things.
Last night, we went to the famous Nairobi restaurant called "Carnivore". They serve all sorts of skewered meats, directly served onto your plate. We tried ostrich meat balls and camel. Those were pretty exotic. Interestingly, they offer a vegetarian menu as well, for about half the price as the meat menu (about $25 a person, all you can eat, soup, salad, desserts included). We had a good time and then we danced off our dinner at the attached club. We got home around 3 am...the rest of our group stayed out until almost 6 am. Crazy kids...
Today we should be visiting the giraffe center, where you can hand feed giraffes, and maybe we'll get to see some Kenya dancing.
We should be able to update some more from our layover in London tomorrow.

Karibuni Kenya

Welcome to Kenya! That's a greeting we've heard a lot of since we landed here yesterday at about 3 pm local time. It's one hour past South Africa time, so everyone adjust your internal clocks. It was lightly raining when we landed and 21 degrees C, cold by South African standards. We were greated with a large van that holds the 6 of us and all our luggage, amazingly. That would have made a great picture...but I didn't get one.
Our driver took us to Fred's aunt and uncle's house first. They live near the airport. We were greeted warmly and served a variety of cold sodas. A nice way to unwind after a 5 hour flight (plus packing and driving, it made for a long morning). We stayed about 30 minutes, then we made one stop at a nice indoor/outdoor market near Fred's mom's house. I had some espresso, Geo had a fresh (exotic) fruit smoothie and we went to Mama Fred's house. Her house is awesome...it's quite large and there is room for all 6 of us, plus the other cousins that live there as well. We had a wonderful home cooked meal (we haven't really had a home cooked meal in over 3 weeks now) and then it was time to visit with some of Fred's friends at a club in town. We were home by 12:30 am or so, but we all voted to sleep in today (Sunday).
Today we're getting caught up on email and school stuff (some have a deadline to apply for internships today) and we'll be going to a large Masai Market this afternoon.
Today the weather is beautiful! It's sunny, not too hot and there's a breeze. I think the weather is ideal here. Not too hot, not too cold, not too much rain, not too much sun. And it's not too humid either.
One more thing: our local number here is +254 72 564 6139. We'll have that number until Friday when we leave for Prague.
I'll post some pictures after I've taken some. Kewaheri (good-bye!)

Off to Kenya

Early tomorrow morning we will be departing for Nairobi. We're on South African Airways SA182 leaving at 9:50 am from Jo'burg to Nairobi.
I don't know what sort of internet we'll have available when we get there, so our departing flight is on 27 Jan to London then Prague, all on British Airways.
Thanks to everyone for following along on our journeys here. It's been fun seeing everyone's comments.
We'll be in touch as much as we can. Also, I think we'll be getting a new phone number when we're in Kenya. Just email for now, until I post a new number.

One more of the big 5

Here's a long-distance shot of an elephant. It was a breeding herd, so we saw dads, moms, and babies.
Unfortunately, I didn't get the shot of the leopard, so you're only get to see 4 of the 5 for now...

The lion through the binoculars

A few more shots, the animals were way off in the distance, but at least we saw all of the Big 5!
It's the lion's tail!

More pictures- 2 of the big 5 (buffalo and rhino)

My skills as a photographer are not good, plus the camera lens is slightly blemished following a disastrous drop on a bed of rocks :(

Pictures from Kruger

The entrance to the park and our first find of the day! A family of giraffes!

Safari!

We had an amazing time at Kruger National Park this weekend. We were split up into groups of 6 or 7 for the ride there (5 hours, then 3 hours of safari). We had cute little huts for sleeping (3 to a room) and our tour guides fed us dinners and breakfasts (lunch was on our own). So, Saturday, we were in the van from 8:30 am to 5:30 pm. Then we did some swimming and had dinner at 8:30. We were awake at 3:45 am on Sunday to go on our early morning safari (it's a good time to see the animals) and we got back to the camp around 2 pm. We had lunch and then swam some more. We took a night drive at 5 pm until 8, then had dinner and went to bed. We got up around 6:30 this morning (Monday) to drive home. We stopped at some neat sites on the way home to see some other natural sites, and we stopped in a cute "tourist town" for lunch (called Graskop?), where they make the best "pancakes", a dish inbetween a pancake and a crepe. You can have any sort of filling you want. I had butternut squash and feta cheese, Geo had fruit and ice cream. We got back to Joburg at 6:30 pm and checked back into our hotel. We got a larger room this time, but it's a 1 bedroom unit, as opposed to out last room, which was simply a studio. More on that later. For now, enjoy the safari pictures!

Lesedi Cultural Village

Good times in Sun City

Today, my travelling buddy Arthur (husband of Katrina, a fellow student) and I went to Sun City. The drive was 2 and a half hours each way. We got there and it stopped raining...that was nice. The establishment has 4 hotels, a lake, a water park, casinos, and a variety of other fun things to do. We spent a few hours in the water park and walking around the beautiful grounds.

Last night, we went to the Lesedi Cultural Village enjoying African lifestyles, dance, and food. I'll put a few pictures from that event up.

On Saturday, we are going to Kruger National Park for our "safari" adventure. That will make a great birthday event for Geo (email him to say happy birthday if you can!).

We wrap up in Johannesburg on 20 January, and we leave for Nairobi on 21 January.

Johannsesburg

We arrived in Jo'burg on Sunday the 8th, it was raining. It's Tuesday now and it's still raining. I guess the summer here in Jo'burg is the rainy season. Geo and the rest of the students are going full speed with the business tours that make up their grade for this course. I and another spouse have been entertaining ourselves with the cultural aspects of Jo'burg that are not to be missed. Today we toured the Apartheid museum and Gold Reef City, a casino, amusement park, and gold mine tour. What an interesting day!
We are really looking forward to Saturday, when we depart for Kruger National Park. That's how we'll spend Geo's birthday.
I'll try to get some more pictures up. We're at Nelson Mandela Square at Sandton City. The internet is free and the restaurants with internet access are plentiful. We are thriving despite the rain!

Laundry Day

Today after recovering from tour after tour of the beautiful cape, it is finally time to get caught up on laundry. The hotel has one washer and dryer, so Julie and I are sharing the job to get it done!
We're having lunch while we wait for the washer to finish at a great restaurant across from the hotel that gives you free internet while you eat. What a bargain.
I hope you enjoy the pictures. There are so many more that we could put on.
Tomorrow we go to Robben Island and then probably the Spier Winery near town. It should be a great day! Stay tuned for more postings...

Pictures from Table Mountain, Cape Point and the Penguins

Weather Report

According to weather.com, it's 84 degrees F right now. I believe it! It's sunny and just a slight breeze. Really nice weather. The forecast is great for the whole week! We'll be the most tan people when we get to Prague!

Seeing the Sights

We've been busy the last 2 days. We went on a city tour of Cape Town on a double-decker bus. It was unfortunate that it was New Years Day since most of the attractions were closed. However, we did get our chance to go up on Table Mountain, and it was awesome! I'll post some pictures here in a day or two.
We spent yesterday in a rental car driving around the Cape. We saw the African penguins, the Cape Point with the old lighthouse, and baboons running around everywhere! We drove through some beautiful scenic areas and had wonderful meals and stopped for some tea and coffee in a cute village, with an atmosphere a lot like a beergarden of Europe.
Today the seminar began and Geo's going to have some great experiences. I'll get to tag along on a few visits, but there are a few other significant others that I'll be able to hang out with when we can't go along.
We're staying in a refurbished prison, now part of the Graduate School of Business in Cape Town. What a neat facility. It's adjacent to the Waterfront, the most happening place in Cape Town. It's called the Breakwater Lodge, if you want to see it up close!
Stay tuned for pictures soon. I promise!