Dari and G Man in North America

So my mother's been wondering what I've been eating, and what's in the fridge.

- Rows and rows of Coke and Sprite, it's like $7 for a case of 24!
- Two 500ml bottles of water (they were in the fridge when we moved in, but I'm drinking one as I type. I'll let you know if my tummy begins to hurt).
- Canadian beer - Molson's (Even if I drank beer I wouldn't drink Molsons, I seem to remember one of Judge's "Friday's Financial Reports" where a can of Molson's was used as a prop. But not to be confused with Mountain Dew.pps!).
- Eggs - real food.
- Heinz ketchup and Miracle Whip.
- Milk (2%, gotta watch the waistline, hey?)
- Another 2 litres of Sprite (??)
- Pepperoni pizza. Very American. Canadian, I mean.
- Onions - more real food.
- Bacon and cheese. Hmmmmm, bacon and melted cheese...

Okay, so that was probably the most random post ever. Not much happened today, okay. We don't do much during the week - no car. And it's cold out, in fact I awoke to cold raininess this morn. And then at 08h30 it began to snow. This after the awesome weeekend weather. Go figure?

Saturday's temp was like 24 Celsius, perfect golfing weather. Then again, I'd play in snow - I didn't lug my clubs 10,000 miles to have them sit pretty in my apartment. So get this - at public courses like Shaganappi, the morning tee-offs are first come, first served. So we frikken jumped our tired asses on the bus this Saturday morn at 7am (still dark!) to get to the course, where we stood in line for an hour, only to be told there was frost and the course wasn't open yet. We finally got a 09h15 tee off.

For a public course, it was quite well kept. Only problem - too many fallen autumn leaves, so balls get lost easily. But found hundreds! And yet I still managed to shoot a crazy 85! And the course is damn short, par 3s at 100 metres, par 4s are less than 300 metres, par 5s just over 400 metres. But whose complaining? Golf is golf.

Oh,yes - then there's the problem of translating yards to metres and stuff.







PS - check the view of the Calgary cityscape. Cool, eh? And take a squiz at gallery (13 photos)...

The sales are on. And we got paid last week. And we got our allowances yesterday. And I don't really need any excuse to shop.

By the way, ya'll haven't met my housemate / colleague from our Jozi office - this is Herman. Get this, the Canadians can't pronounce his name (he's Afrikaans), so it's been changed to Isak. Much easier.

The weather was awesome this weekend, hitting the twenties. And after the coldness of the week, it was flippen good to show off my perfectly toned, tanned and scalpted calves (hehe!). So we spent a lot of time on the balcony, checking the out all the other fancy-shmancy apartments on 6th Av'...





And the view of the river from the top floor.



Warm weather equals golf - but it was all booked up since preference goes to people with booking cards. So we had to settle for the driving range. Still destroying the Taylormade R5.

For the first time, I killed an hour in the hospitality lounge before I left - just swiped my card to register and I was good to go - for free. Damn it's nice in there, dunno why I never popped in before.

Free food, free drink. And I mean alcohol. Including the hard stuff. So G, before you leave, make sure you and "Robert" get wrecked before you get on the plane, which will hopefully make the flight, food and bad service half-bearable. And they have showers, massage seats and places to clean out your pipes in case...

So to whoever may be reading this, if you are fortunate to own any Investec, Diners or any other fancy credit card, be sure to make your way up to the lounge to kill a couple hours.

So my flight to London, Heathrow was quite uneventful. I ate diner, watched The Sentinel, listened to the whole Gnarles Barkley (quite crap, eh?) and then went to sleep.

The flight from Heathrow to Calgary on the other hand was not too cool. Bright sun all the way. And it's even brighter cos you're closer to the sun. I just made that up but it makes sense... so I didn't sleep much, and was forced to watch crappy French Canadian television. I then read the Golf Digest from cover to cover, followed by the September Men's Health.

Never have I been so shunned by the people next to me after they thought I was reading through a porno mag!!!! To them, that pretty much explained why I was the only guy covered in his blanket, while everyone else was in shorts and shirts. But seriously, I read the MH every month, but never have I noticed the amount of nekkidness. Holy shit balls!







Note to self: keep this in case of tough times ahead.

I was told last Thursday morn at 08h30 that I all visas and administrative issues had been sorted out, and that I was shipping out Saturday night!!! Two days' warning. Typical...

And with that started two days of crazy running around, having to organize my life, do some warm clothes shopping, do my taxes, pack up my house, learn French, play one last round of golf and organize a deshtroyer of a farewell. And that's pretty much the reason for the lame-assed looking blog - we're still under construction, so bear with us - I can't even put headings for my posts!!!

Anyways, I flew out Sat night to Heathrow. Got mistakn by three different airline people for being American (??), but at least they didn't check the Most Wanted Terrorist list like last year. So I asked to be bumped up to Business Class, but got snarled at, so I said I would settle for sitting next to a hot chick with big boobs. Crash and burn. Airline check-in people must get a life.


After 9 hours of flying, I landed at London Heathrow where my big bro "Larry" (not his real name), came to pick me up and show me around sleepy Ealing for a couple hours.




Gallery - Ealing, London (10 photos)

And then it was off for another 11 hours from Heathrow to Calgary, where I was met by a dude holding a card with my name on. Nice! And then he bundled me into his limo. Doubly nice. And onto my downtown apartment. Triply nice.

This is where the driver thought I was living. Phhwoar! But alas, I was on the next block at The Marquis, 1108 6th Avenue.



Not great looking on the outside, but fancy on the inside, nice and big (over 140 sqm)!! Main bedroom with TV, en-suite bathroom and big closet. And the living room.


Dining room and kitchen.


Extras include cable TV, high speed internet (muchos fast), central heating and underfloor heating in the bathrooms.

Bet you're wondering what this is all about? Here's the dealio - amazingly, after much slacking off at work, telling clients/managers exactly where to get off, long lunches and golfing while we were "sick", we've both been rewarded by being sent to North America for the next couple months to do some work. Myself to Calgary, Canada and G to Washington DC, USA.

So the next couple months should be interesting - new countries, new cultures, new everything. I was sent to Denver, Colorado last year and so have a good idea what to expect. G Man on the other hand might struggle to get by at first. But it should be cool, (or just frikken freezing), all while working really hard, trying to fight off frost bite, dirty girls and driving on the wrong side of the road.

Dari's ETA in Calgary, Canadia: 17 September 2006
G Man's ETA in Washington DC, USA: 12 October 2006

Anyways, that's what this blog's about - our travels, our new friends, the DESHTROYER nights out and things that make us go, "Hmmm?"

Update: D.C. was scrapped for G and "Robert", so they're off to Boston, MA instead. Potato, potarto...