Dari and G Man in North America

Okay, I swore I'd never go back to Cowboys after our first encounter - when John Denver's lesser known cousin performed live. But the Saffers convinced me Thursdays at Cowboys was like Thursdays at the Hatter. Just with HJOTTER chicks. After much begging and emotional bribery, I got my boots on and saddled up for the ride.

Oh my God am I glad I went... for the last biggie here in Calgary, it was HOOOGE!

And if you're still not convinced... 25 cent draughts - these three big spenders bought EVERYONE in the club a beer. Sheesh, must've dropped a whole 50 bucks or something!





We stumbled home at 03h30 that morn, which incidently was a mere 4 hours before the start of my FINAL day at work! And to kick off the morning, my final client meeting. Standard Friday morning questions were asked like, "Are you sick?".

Why do you ask? Cos I've got purple bags under my bloodshot eyes, speak with a croaky voice and smell of cheap girls?

And I almost overslept, and didn't have time to get spiffed up proper, so went in with the most deshtroyer of un-ironed shirts...

Mosey on over to the gallery.

So by sheer luck after not working particularly hard since I hit the shores of the US of A, Rob and myself get "transferred" from freezing Boston to the city of San Juan - Puerto Rico for 4 months!



Now for those of you who don't know where Puerto Rico is, it's in the heart of the Carribean. Between the Dominican Republic (next to Cuba) and the US Virgin Islands! It is an island about 100 miles long and 35 wide with some amazing mountains, pristene beaches and spanish speaking locals.

You might now say to yourself, "Damn Greg, that is the SHITE!". You would be correct - except for one little glitch - WORK. Yes, unfortunately my holiday is over and now I have to do what I get paid to do (I think). We work here from 8am to 8pm everyday and every second Saturday. Its the most frustrating feeling being in an office when the sun is shining and the beaches are calling.

But at least there are those couple of hours a weekend when we can do what we want. In the case of weekend 1 we decided to hit the islands on a catamaran, to do a bit of snorkeling and drinking.





We did both - there is nothing like drinking pina colada's and talking shit on the beach in the middle of the Carribean.

After a glorious day out we decided to check out the only rain forrests in the Continental US called El Yunke... There were lots and lots of trees, and it rained.



We are staying in the Sheraton in Old San Juan which is precisely in front of the harbour where all the cruise ships dock so it's always buzzing. Sunday we took a look around Old San Juan and tried to get some shopping done but our broken Spanish didn't get us far.



We had to finish the weekend off with some more work - cause sometimes I like to work! Or like Nacho would say "Sometimes I like to wear strechy pants in my room - it's for fun". The week started and there unfortunately will be no time for breathing out of the wrong nostril until weekend comes again.

Check out the gallery for more fotografo...

Spanish lesson of the week:
Aunque el mono se vista de seda, mono se queda.
Translate: You can't make a silk purse out of a sow's ear.

Holy crap, so four months has come and gone without any one noticing? Or did no one even realise that I was gone?

So, officially, I have FIVE more working days left!! FIVE. Counting down the hours...

So here's the plan going forward:
Jan 28 - Feb 3: Toronto to see my cuz. And Apparently Dangerous Dave is there? And a couple others from the P-town office, although they're all still working. Poor buggers!

Feb 4 - Feb 10: London town to see my big bruvva. Again. But this time my big sis might jet in from SA so that should be cool! And hopefully I'll see more of you mofos that claim to enjoy living there.

Feb 11: Chiggen and boerie braai. 'Nuff said.

Feb 12: I've got the day off, golf anyone? Judge and I vs Mr Price and Joel/Marty? I could do with the extra cash... hell, I'll even play with Pot (let's hope the new Taylormade and Ping putter have made a difference?).

Well here some random photos to make this post a little more interesting:

A sign in the change room at one of the stores.


And Cowboys. The cracker-jack club downtown. As belter as the bargirls are, I refuse to go there again - it's not a place meant for my people. This is from H's night there last week. He fits in perfectly cos cowboy dancing is similar to langarming at Presley's.

Here's the dealio, work there six months, and they buy you boobs. Even the guys. Check more chicks on Shhhmokin Hot Waitress.com. And check out the Back Alley as well - some of the guys wanna take me there for my farewell...


Excuse me ma'am, your boobs are stickin' out. Bumblebee tjoona!

Schanks was the name of the bar, not a description of my poor iron play...

We went for dinner with Farid and Narmin last night for some authentic East Indian curries. Good idea at the time, serious regrets this morning. Burn baby burn!

Then after dinner we went to Schanks (pronounced Shanks and not Skanks) Sports Bar.

What an awesome place. Pool tables, putt-putt that goes around the entire bar and two golf sims. I managed to play a whole game of pool before I dropped everyone to go shhmack some balls. Farid joined me later and we ended up playing for three hours or so. Until the waitress tjoons us it's $30 an hour and that we should pay at the counter.

So I did what any broke-assed Saffer would do - I made a sneaky exit out the emergency exit without paying. Followed by Farid! Dodgy fucking Africans!

I watched impatiently as they played pool, all the while I was itching to hit the golf sim...


Finally, I got to swing some clubs. Some serious antiques but what the hell!


Schanks gallery.

Hockey - Flames vs Stars

James from the office invited us again to his cheap seat season tickets to watch the Flames take on the Dallas Stars at the Dome last Saturday. Like I said before, ice hockey is not the most interesting game for me to watch. Although I do quite enjoy having a good ol' ogle at the girls at the games. Just a reminder - Canadian girls are hot! Seriously hot!


Jamil, Herman, Dari and James - the photo is being taken by one of the belterest belters of ever, pity no pics of them though...


See the gallery of the hockey.

Lacrosse - Roughnecks vs Stealth

Any way, I worked pretty hard last week and wasn't planning to do much Friday night (and cos temps have dropped to the -20s), but then managed to organize tickets to the office box to watch the season opening Lacrosse game - Calgary Roughnecks vs San Jose Stealth. I called them the Rough-Riders by accident (Freudian slip?) and got some disapproving nods from the mothers that were there.

Lacrosse is like a stoopid combination of a couple sports - the fighting bumpiness of ice hockey and American football, the ball movement of soccer and skimming your swimming pool with your pool net. There don't seem to be many rules - get the ball into the other team's goal. Or if you're defending, shhmack the dude with the ball upside his head with your net, elbows, body and head! A kick to the head or groin when he's down is optional, but recommended.

I totally offended all the Canadians when I said that lacrosse was more interesting to watch than ice hockey. But truly it is! Much more crowd participation and screaming, almost bordering on football-like hooliganism. And goals. Lots of them! At full time they were 16-16. But the 'Necks lost to a sudden-death golden goal in overtime.




'Scuse the blurry photos - H's camera - crappy Sony's...

I might go next week again to watch the 'Necks play the Colorado Mammoth. Dumb name but, hey, they're from Denver!

Lacrosse gallery.

I've already sent the photos and summary of my last ski trip, but just have to whack it on the blog quick.

So Esta (one of the internationals from Spain), invited us to ski Lake Louise - a two hour drive from Calgary.

This was probably the most best ski outing I've had ever - I went the whole day without any cart-wheeling or scorpion falls. Only problem was this time I had to babysit my scraper of a colleague down the hills. But it was still good fun - until he thought he'd be cool and said he was ready for the narrow winding blue runs.

Apart from almost falling of the mountain a couple times, he had two of the biggest backward falls onto his head I've ever seen. Six-foot-five, 112 kgs - he doesn't fall lightly. I was actually surprised he never lost consciousness after his second fall. And his dutch courage made him to cool to wear a helmet. It's only about the billionth time I've had to tell him "I told you so - Dari knows best!"

Concussed, with no ability to stand, speak or stop himself from drooling, we had to somehow make our way down to the club house. Only problem was we were two gondolas up the mountain, probably a 40 minute ski down. But were going so slowly it took us two hours!

And then when we finally reached the clubhouse, I had to keep him from losing consciousness and all that good stuff you have to do to stop a concussed person from actually going to sleep forever. But on the drive back I fell asleep, and then he fell asleep. All I can say is I was glad he was still alive when we got to Calgary!

Dari and Herman at the ice castle. And me on the top of the mountain, psyching myself for the first run down, all snow-ninja's up!



The slopes, with prime powder (it snowed the whole day). And then us rep'ing the Boks. Don't be fooled by Herman's smile, after his falls I doubt he knew where he was.



The gallery!

So it was the second time I have been to the Big Apple and I can't explain to you how great it was. This time we drank a bit less and therefore managed to see a bit more of the massive city and I am so impressed. We caught the Chinatown bus again from Boston ($15!!) and arrived in NYC on the 30th. We stayed with some secondees in NY which was a bonus - they have great apartments in Battery Park about 2 blocks from Ground Zero.



We did some sight seeing on the first day and had to hit 5th Avenue for the girls to shop. We also went into Times square which was getting pimped for New years and it was packed and amazing - there are so many lights that it is like daytime.





For New years evening we booked to go to a club called Cain with al, the other SA secondees in NY. Aparently it was the place to be as mentioned on MTV - and it should have been for $200 a ticket. It was open bar and there were a few snacks here and there. The place was a bit dodgy compared to what I expected, but we still had a huge party and I got pretty trashed.



The first of January 2007 was raining and miserable. We went to Pier 17 and Wall Street and just chilled.



On the 2nd we went for a tour of the city, which was excellent and then after went to Central Park and the Museum of Natural History.
We also went on the Staten Island Ferry and passed the Statue of Liberty on the tour.







The whole trip was great, but the ending of it means back to work. We arrived back in Boston and the ladies left for SA on Saturday.

Check out the gallery for all the other pics (about 100 of them).

Rob and I are flying to San Juan in Puerto Rico to work for the next 3-4 months (check it out at www.gotopuertorico.com). Sounds brilliant as it is an Island near Cuba and Jamaica but the only downfall is that we have to book at least 60 chargeable hours a week, which is some heavy work. So I will keep things updated as much as possible.

Adios for now, bambinos!

The morning after arriving back from Orlando, I picked up a Chevy Monte Carlo which would be the equivalent of a in SA - pretty sick. So we stuffed all the bags in (and just fitted) threw the chicks in the back and headed for Stowe in Vermont (state about Massachusetts). The only problem was that it has been the warmest winter in a 100 years or something here, so there was not much snow at all.


When we got there Rob and myself went for a lesson and after about an hour and a half we had it cooked! The instructor was impressed and said we could move onto the next slope the next morning (which was coincidently the only other slope open).



Julie joined us the next day and she is an excellent skier, so she cruised past us while Rob and myself scrapped our way down the slopes.

On Christmas eve we went for dinner at some Italian restaurant which ened up being a cracker (a christmas cracker).



The next and last day Rob and I started getting used to it and we were carving our way down the slopes without hitting any other skiers or trees. The only thing that was crap was that there weren't many slopes open and the big snow started as we left but it was still brilliant and I can safely say that I would out of my limited experience give Dari and Wes a whippin on the slopes.

Check out the gallery for more...