Saturday, April 16, 2005
Coast to coast
And into Cape Town (not Chicago), the final destination on this whole Africa jaunt; the object, of course, being to attend the wedding of G. Matchett Esq. to Miss Lopez (along with giving a lesson in the rules of Rugby Football to the referees' association). Unlike Kaplan, I'll refer you to the camera (plenty of pics below). Suffice to say we had a great time - sunny weather, enjoyable company, knockout nosebag and wine. Congrats to Grant and Marnie - it was great to be there.
So what a shock it was to be back into a more 'westernised' environment. Not only in terms of the cost of the place (it was akin being back in London) but the fact that one didn't need to argue for, and over, everything. Of course, this takes out the fun of having to haggle for everything. Either way, it was all too much for my constitution - having survived two months on the road in deepest Africa without any sort of issues at all, two days in a developed city and my stomach revolted. This didn't, however, prevent me from undertaking the degustation menu at a rather fine restaurant in Franschoek. The eight courses were easily polished off, though the five hefty glasses of wine plus sherry, port and brandy took some digesting. All of which proved too much for some other gent in the restaurant who promptly collapsed on attempting to repair to the lounge. Cue Cinders to play nurse - he was called Ken and from (sophistication? I've been to) Leeds. "I only had the set menu". Well quite. Anyway, all this shenanigans resulted in Luce getting her feed for free - which was nice.
And so after such excitement, it was off to the airport. This seemed a little incongruous, seeing as we'd spent the previous weeks getting around by delapidated buses and also presented little opportunity for me to complain. But time to go it was, and with a certain degree of sadness we were out of Africa, as it were, and on our way to Perth (to Wait Awhile, no doubt).
So what a shock it was to be back into a more 'westernised' environment. Not only in terms of the cost of the place (it was akin being back in London) but the fact that one didn't need to argue for, and over, everything. Of course, this takes out the fun of having to haggle for everything. Either way, it was all too much for my constitution - having survived two months on the road in deepest Africa without any sort of issues at all, two days in a developed city and my stomach revolted. This didn't, however, prevent me from undertaking the degustation menu at a rather fine restaurant in Franschoek. The eight courses were easily polished off, though the five hefty glasses of wine plus sherry, port and brandy took some digesting. All of which proved too much for some other gent in the restaurant who promptly collapsed on attempting to repair to the lounge. Cue Cinders to play nurse - he was called Ken and from (sophistication? I've been to) Leeds. "I only had the set menu". Well quite. Anyway, all this shenanigans resulted in Luce getting her feed for free - which was nice.
And so after such excitement, it was off to the airport. This seemed a little incongruous, seeing as we'd spent the previous weeks getting around by delapidated buses and also presented little opportunity for me to complain. But time to go it was, and with a certain degree of sadness we were out of Africa, as it were, and on our way to Perth (to Wait Awhile, no doubt).
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Swatch
Remember when your haggling over your next Dingo ride, putting up with some Aussie who doesnt know what canary yellow is, or whatever, that you could be in England, working your way through some bobbins transition to International Accounting Standards.
Funnily enough, its driven (no pun intended) me to bring "Leyland" (as in DAF) back into my vocabulary.
Bear
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Remember when your haggling over your next Dingo ride, putting up with some Aussie who doesnt know what canary yellow is, or whatever, that you could be in England, working your way through some bobbins transition to International Accounting Standards.
Funnily enough, its driven (no pun intended) me to bring "Leyland" (as in DAF) back into my vocabulary.
Bear
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