Dari and G Man in North America

Easter Weekend in PR

2007-04-08T17:48:00.000-05:00

As I am typing this, the 2007 Easter weekend comes to an end, which was for me, pretty quiet but actually again another weekend which was a great one in Puerto Rico.
We went out for dinner on Thursday night and played some pool at Douglas (love that place). And I seem to have developed a talent for the game after a few beers. Rob and I ended up unbeaten for the last like 6 games!

Friday was a good one.

We went to the beach for a while and then I took a walk around Old San Juan and took some pics of the restuarants which we frequently visit. I also took some pics from the walkway around El Morro.

Saturday I went to the Don Q (local great rum) tasting house - got to taste some 45 year old rum which is in the top 5 in the world. Good times.

Then to the Bacardi Factory - which was massive, and the tour was pretty good. Most of the Bacardi in the world is made here.

Also managed to finally watch 300 - it was good, not the ending I wanted but good. Blades of Glory is next.

Sunday I finally got round to diving in Puerto Rico. I had to drive about an hour East to Fajardo and then we jumped onto a boat and drove to the Palomino's islands where we dived.

The reefs are great, they are massive and full of life. We saw some sting rays which were pretty cool. One guy who was diving with us claimed to see a shark but nobody else did, then claimed to see a morey but again nobody else did - so we called hime Elvis.

Took lots of pics of the above, so check them all out.

Rob's leaving dinner

2007-04-08T17:30:00.000-05:00

So time came for Rob to depart and make his way back to SA, and like all others who depart the team, there is the traditional leaving dinner. It's like every other night at dinner (we always eat dinner out as we have to) except someone is leaving.
But due to this being Rob's (and Maria's actually)leaving dinner we did go pretty large and it had a great time.

We had dinner with the team and went to Douglas's Pub for a few more beers.

We also happened to make the pub record for Photo Hunt, Penguin Bashing (credit goes to other Rob) and Kids Photo Hunt - too much fun when you are drunk.

Check out the gallery for some winners...

Cock Fights

2007-04-08T14:57:00.000-05:00

So we heard(back when Rob was here) about cock fighting and we never really were amped to go until on Saturday afternoon we decided to go with other Rob who had been and said it was freakin awesome. So we went and it was!

We paid $10 to get in to the arena. As you walk in there are hundreds of glass boxes around the top of the arena each holding a cock - shaved clean and ready to fight (please read this post in context). So after examining the birds we bought a beer and sat down for the fights to begin.

Each fight lasts a maximum of 15 minutes or to the death or basically dead. No fights that day made the 15 minute limit. We watched from 3pm till about 7 and there must have been 40 fights that day!

Each cock has a ring on its leg - one blue (azule) and one white (blanco) and thats how you tell them apart. Betting is done by screaming at anyone who is screaming the opposite colour. After each fight, wads of cash are thrown around the stadium to all the winners by the losers. It is really unbelievable.

The cocks are brought onto the arena by a lift which moves their glass boxes above the arena then slowly lowers them down. They are then weighed and given a peck at each other and then put back into their boxes to be released.

The best part of the whole day was the waitresses who walk around the stadium selling chicken burritos! We all had one - freshest chicken ever!

Made a few dollar, had many beers - it was a great afternoon. Check out some more pics.

Rincon (Weekend 11)

2007-04-01T21:12:00.000-05:00

A couple of us, to celebrate Rob and Maria leaving, decided to head to the West coast of the island for the weekend. We headed for Rincon which is apparently a great surfing town. The plan was to leave at 8am and follow the girls because it is quite confusing to get there. That was the plan. The flaw in the plan was that all us guys only managed to crawl home at 4am from Old San Juan - 8am wasn’t looking to good at this point. So we decided that the guys would be leaving at 10 cause we can! So 10 rolls around the next morning and we leave in Dave's Camry with GPS but the GPS is pretty shit. So we select a random hotel in Rincon (of the 15 they had on the GPS) and started driving. When we got close we tried to hook up with one of the girls who tried to come find us but we both ended up getting lost. Then we decided to just follow the GPS to this random hotel anyway. This ended up taking us through town where we basically tore a hole in the front bumper of the car by going straight into a hole in the street and then almost had a head on collision when going the wrong way down a one way (or so we think).

Palm trees and beer...

So we tried to find the girls again who were trying to find us but with no road markings and/or English speaking people we decided again to trust the GPS and followed its dodgy directions to the random hotel. We eventually got to this hotel which was on the beach and had a beer and called the girls to let them know where we were, and can you believe it… it was like 200m from our place! Believe it cause its true.

The house we stayed in was pimpin, and had such a great bar and pool below it as well….

We also met the coolest dog, but we didn’t know his name so we checked his collar and it said 823 8135. Now that’s a pretty long name, so we decided to just call him 823 (who names there dog such a dumb name!!).

So anyway we had a beer and some lunch, hit the beach in the afternoon. That night we went for dinner and did a little drinkin at the bar on the beach. There was a "DJ" there who looked promising but actually set up her decks and speakers and then just basically turned one song lower and faded the new one in - so useless and disappointing.

The next day was a great day, so we hit the beach and played a little NFL which was so excellent. Finally got to catch a few waves - this has been the first beach since we arrived in the US that has had some decent waves.

All in all it was some good company and a great weekend.

More pics…

Back to San Juan (Weekend 9 & 10)

2007-04-01T21:03:00.000-05:00

We arrived back home to the Sheraton in San Juan on a Friday. Rob and I checked in and Rob got one of the dud rooms with a shower that didn’t work properly. I got the room that everyone in the team calls "The Suite". I don’t know why I got it, or what I had done to get it but it was fantastic. Its on the top floor of the hotel with 3 balconies, a dining room and a flat screen TV.

We went to work on Saturday for a half day and then went to the COCK FIGHTS. Which must be one of the most funniest things I have ever done, so fun that it deserves its own post (see COCK FIGHT post - still to come). So we went to the Cock fights from about 3pm and started drinking a few beers and then when it was done we went to some sushi restaurant for dinner and a few whiskeys, and then we headed back to "The Suite" for a round of beer pong. Such a great drinking game - all you have to do is throw the ping pong balls into the opponent's cup and they drink. So simple yet so effective.

We kept playing until about 11 and then hit some bars in Old San Juan for a while. At about 2 when I thought the night was over, Adfred insisted we go to Calle which is a club outside of Old San Juan and then to some other club somewhere in Puerto Rico which ended up being a sunrise drink cause we only got home at about 6am. Fun times.

Sunday we went to the beach with the locals from the team. We also bought a dog for our office. Her name is GiGi. She must be one the best behaved dogs I have ever seen. Sit GiGi sit… good dog.

The following weekend, Rob and I were headed for Boston to celebrate St. Patricks day, but to our surprise there was a massive snow storm on Friday and our flights were cancelled! Saturday we decided to go to one of the only Irish pubs in San Juan called Shannan's to celebrate St. Patricks day. We had a massive afternoon and were pretty wrecked by 7pm.

Sunday, myself Robot and Steve headed out to Vieques again to check out the rest of the beaches. We managed to get a flight there and back this time (no more ferry with bad hangovers) for only $50. We got there and rented a Jeep and had some lunch and beers at Banana's which was a winner of a spot on the coast. We then put the Jeep to work and managed to see most of the beaches on the southern side of the island. This was good.

Eventhough were didn’t make it back to Boson, we had a cracker of a weekend.

More pics…

Weekend in Tyson's Corner (Near DC)

2007-04-01T20:55:00.000-05:00

So we were in for another weekend in Washington cause we didn’t finish up our work in time, but this week we had to check out of our beloved Ritz Carlton and check into the Sheraton Premiere which was about 15 minutes away from work.

So over any other hotel now that I've been in the Ritz, its just not the same. Its like driving a Lamborghini for 2 weeks and then trading it in for an Citi Golf. But anyway, tears aside we moved to the Sheraton and for the weekend we decided to just hang around Tysons corner.

It was cold and we went shopping for anything really. We found a great golf shop but didn’t buy anything. There are so many car dealerships, all the cars just stand outside waiting to get bought. Here are some Hummers and Corvette's that we saw…

We ended up buying 2 baseball bats and a couple of balls just to mess around. On the way back to the hotel we stopped to get some water from a vending machine and my change got stuck inside. After pushing the button about 100 times we eventually realized that if we hit the machine the change came out. So this old lady walks past and there Rob is holding 2 baseball bats while I was screaming and punching the machine. Pretty funny (you had to be there).

We found a place to schmack the balls around in some park. Rob managed to smack a ball from the other side of the park and land it directly into the storm water drain - talented.

That night we hit Georgetown for a few beers. We ended up having about 15 and stealing straws and just causing shit cause nobody was really paying attention to us. Not one of the best nights out but what can you do!

Sunday we chilled, and Monday back to wek!

Check out a few more pics here.

Its been a busy month...

2007-03-25T21:34:00.000-05:00

Put some new pics in the gallery and I will add a story to them as soon as I get time!

The last weekend in Washington.

Weekends 9 & 10 in Puerto Rico.

This last weekend in Rincon (west coast of PR).

Peace.

Washington DC

2007-02-25T18:21:00.000-06:00

Due to working responsibilities, Rob and myself got sent to the place where we were originally supposed to spend our 6 months - Washinton DC. I left on Sunday and flew in to the freezing DC and caught a taxi to Mc Lean - Virginia, which is about 15 minutes outside the capital. The best part about the trip is that we are staying in the Ritz Carlton - so pimpin. It has to be the most awesome hotel I have stayed in ever - from the Ritz slippers to the chocolates on the pillows to the "only way to get to the top floors (my room) is to swipe your card in the elevator" to the free champagne after work. You appreciate these small things when a hotel is your home! View from my room...

We had a rough week at work and hit the town on Thursday night for a few beers with a couple of the guys from the team that came with us.

Ricardo and Greg and Marky Mark the rapper.

We headed out of Tysons corner to stay in a hotel in the city for the weekend to do some sightseeing.

On Saturday we headed out and started of at the White House...

We tried to take a short cut across the road and as Rob lifted his leg to step over the below pictured chain, we heard a "SIR". Out of the blue there was a police officer about to taezer him if his foot hit the tar. So funny.

Then we hit the Washington monument...

The World War II memorial - took a pic for every state we have been to - check out the gallery for the rest...

And the Lincoln Memorial with the reflecting pool (empty) where Forrest Gump run into the water to meet Jenny...

One more photo of the "Monument"...

We also checked out some of the Museums and US Capitol building.

After a good weather day (still about 10 degrees celcius - see the pick of the hairy guy playing soccer in no shirt?? in the gallery), Sunday I woke up and looked out the window and it was snowing, hard. We went out side, made a few snowballs and threw them at the Faragut statue in the park (until we hit him in the head) - that was fun.

We walked a couple of blocks in the snow trying to find a place to get a haircut but couldn't, so we went back to the hotel and phoned a couple of numbers and evetually found a place. When we got there it was slighly different to what we expected...

After the visit to the Barber Shop we called it a day - back to work (and the Ritz - Yessa!) tomorrow. Check out the gallery for some other pearlers.

Just chillin' - Weekend 6

2007-02-24T09:18:00.000-06:00

We had a rough Friday night and only stumbled back to the Sheraton at 3:15. Waking up with a hangover is rough, but waking up with a hangover and having to work is just plain unfair. So we worked on Saturday (planning to stay until about 3pm but ended up only finishing at 7:30pm).

Sunday we walked around Old San Juan and hit a few beaches on the way (snuck into the Hilton but the beach wasn't that great) - it wasn't the most exciting day, but what can you do!

Check out a few other pics of the city and the hotel.

Next weekend is Washington DC baby!

Weekend 4 & 5's Alive

2007-02-14T17:06:00.000-06:00

Weekend 4 was a work weekend, but we did get out of work at about 5 on Saturday so we decided to go to El Morro which is the fort at the end of Old San Juan. It was pretty cool. There are tons of people flying kites, so we bought one (to try and fit in). But we got bored after about 5 minutes so we bought and extra line of string to make it go higher. Then once we had done that we were bored again so we bought another line of string so it would be the highest out of all the kites on the field (cause I have to be the best).

The 1st pic is with one line and the 2nd is with 3 lines.

On Sunday we hit the golf course cause we couldn't leave PR without playing at least once, and we chose an awesome course - Dorado Beach East. Steven and Dari, you would have both loved it. It cost us a pretty penny - $100 to play and another $60 to rent clubs, but we did get a set of Cobra's - was deshtroying the driver!

I played alright, a birdie on a long par 5 was the highlight of the day, Rob played ok. Besides the golf, the place was unbelievable, check it out...

For the rest, we just had a party during the week with the team, which was greatness...

A - for Africa

Besides that, we went back to f#cken freezing Boston for the weekend to do some admin. We met up with a few new SA secondees and had a bender at one of the many night clubs. Here are some after photos...

Note that the bodylining is from left over pasta (thats all we know how to cook).

Check out the gallery for more.

Culebra - weekend 3

2007-02-11T16:20:00.000-06:00

Culebra - we finally get to go there after 2 failed attempts. This time we went big and organised to stay there for Saturday and Sunday night and get there by plane.

So after a big Friday night out with the team in Old San Juan, we woke up still drunk at 6:30 to check out the hotel and jump on the plane. The plane ride was amazing. It was a 10 seater so it was pretty tiny but we flew over PR and I got some fantashtic pics...

These two are pics of Flamenco Beach from the air.

So we managed to get a villa on Flamenco Beach (one of the top 5 beaches in the world!). The villa's were great and the beach has the most amazing clear blue water and white sand. It is unbelievable.

We also hired scooters to get around the island...

We spent most of the day on the beach and we also took scoot over the rest of the island.

We also went to a beach where you can see the islands Saint Thomas and Saint Croix and we walked to a beach to snorkel at which had an awesome reef as you stepped into the water. Really incredible snorkeling, the reefs are like the ones in Mozi but the are only a couple of metres into the clear see.

We flew back early on Monday morning to get back to the office and back to work, but the whole trip was machette.

Check out the gallery for some more great pics.

Red Beach - Weekend 2 in PR

2007-02-11T15:46:00.000-06:00

So its been a while since I've updated due to the large amount of work we are doing down here. The team I'm working with is pretty cool and the work is different but still auditing - what can you do!

We normally get back to the hotel at about 9pm every night and then go out for dinner and by that time its bed time (need my 8 hours). So nothing much happens during the week. I will take some pics of Old San Juan and post then cause its really amazing.

So for the second week here, we worked on Saturday and decided to take the Ferry on Sunfay to Culebra (island off the east coast of PR). We were staying in a different hotel at that stage - one on the beach. Here are some pics:

View from my hotel room, and Samai, Rob, Sung and myself on the biatch. They are working with us on the job.

So anyway, we went out to a festival on Saturday night and got home late. We had to get up early on Sunday morning to drive an hour to Fajardo on the east coast so we could catch a ferry to Culebra. Due to the night before, we got there a little late and the ferry was full. So we decided to go on the other ferry which goes to Vieques, which is another island (bigger than Culebra) off the coast.

The ferry trip was long and tought to swallow with a hangover, but we made it.

Check out the guys box boat - pretty funny.

So we had finally made it out to the island and now we wanted to hit the beach. We thought we could just catch a taxi but due to the island being and old bombing target of the US (closed in 2000), most of the roads are dirt, so we took a taxi to a place that hired jeeps! Then they were out of jeeps cause we didnt book, but after a bit of convincing we finally got the lady to rent one to us. So we were finally off to the beach - Red beach (one of the many, but apparently the best one). But before we got there there had to be one more delay... We got pulled over by a cop cause I was speeding (doing 50 mph on a dirt road with a limit of 25). The traffic officer was a complete chump who thought he was the hero of the island for stopping me "speeding" on a dirt road with no cars on an island with a population of about 2000 people - nothing better to do. And nothing made me happier than whipping out my SA drivers and him squinting to understand it and leaving him not much of a choice but to warn me.

So we eventually reached the beach and all the crap was worth it, check it out...

We swam for about 2 hours and then had to make the long trip back again. Before we jumped on the ferry we had a few sundowners at a pub with the most awesome view evers...

So for the one day a week off, it was a good one. Check out the gallery for more pics.

Yee-haw!

2007-01-26T22:49:00.000-06:00

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.

Puerto Rico Baby!

2007-01-18T20:58:00.000-06:00

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.

4th anniversary

2007-01-18T17:49:00.000-06:00

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 for coming!

2007-01-14T18:19:00.000-06:00

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.

Back to the Dome

2007-01-14T15:08:00.000-06:00

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.

Doing Louise

2007-01-14T15:01:00.000-06:00

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!

New York, New York!

2007-01-07T10:23:00.000-06:00

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!

Snowboarding in Stowe

2007-01-07T10:04:00.000-06:00

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...

Universal Studios - Orlando

2007-01-07T09:31:00.000-06:00

After a 5 hour ride from Miami in our SUV that looked like a pimped up Toyota Venture, we finally arrived in Orlando. We were only there for 3 days and we had bought passes for Universal Studios and Islands of Adventure which are a couple of miles from the other Disney resorts which we decided not to see.

Universal was very cool, the rides were pretty lame but the whole theory behind it was interesting. There are so many shops and places selling toys that if I ever see a sponge bob toy again I might mini-puke. We pretty much finished all the big rides in Universal in the first day as the queues were tiny. The best rides were definately Jaws and Shrek 4D - I love donkey.

Islands of Adventure was much more exciting with more rollercoasters and rides. We first went on the Hulk and waited in the queue to sit in the front row which was worth the wait. All the other rides were fun, I thought it would be more exciting but to be honest with you, you get over it really quickly. Still great to have gone though.

Check out the gallery for some more...

Welcome to Miami

2007-01-06T21:39:00.000-06:00

So after a hard working start to our secondment we finally got our 3 weeks leave and the girls flew in to check out our pad and go on holiday with us.

We hit the much anticipated Miami on Saturday the 16th for 4 days. We stayed in a great little hotel called Hotel Shelley which was on Collins drive which is a block away from Ocean Drive and South Beach. We had free drinks every night at the hotel and breakfast every morning at Hotel Leon next door. We hit a club called Opium Gardens on the first night and the club was really amazing but the weather was shite, so it wasn't as busy as usual. The next morning we hit the beach for some long awaited sunshine.

South Beach:

We did a bit of shopping on Lincoln drive and went out the next night to Nicky's Beach which is a club right at the end of South Beach - it was packed with crazy people, but we still had a great time.

We spent most of our time on the beach which was excellent. On the last full day ther we took a tour of Miami which was brilliant - we drove through all the main suburbs and we went on a boat to go check out all the stars crib's. Coral Gables which is one of the most expensive suburbs was really pimpin and right in the middle of it is the Venetian Pool which is actually a pulic swimming pool - check it out:

The boat ride in the bay makes you wish you had a house there. We got to check out such massive machette party houses that I would give a left toe nail to own.
Check the gallery for all the rich and famous mansions we got to see - like the one below who belongs to the guy who invented Viagra.

So we had a great time for the little time we were there - we hired a SUV (a dud one) and hit the road for Orlando. The only thing that I was dissapointed about is that I didn't get to see Horatio *sigh*.

You must check the gallery out for the other 83 pics which explain it all.

Crazy-assed London

2006-12-29T05:20:00.001-06:00

I've seriously done more in that week in London than in three months in cold, crappy Calgary! This place is totally dick-riculous and always vibin' and stuff! It's awesome, although I doubt I can live here. But it was totally awesome - shot to my bro for entertaining me!

Circus and Squares
I arrived at 10h30 at Heathrow with surprisingly very little hassle - usually I get the full security pat down and cavity search for uncut diamonds, perlemoen, mandrax and 12 year old sex slaves hiding in my hand luggage... this time when they interrogated me at customs, they actually believed I was there for holiday, and not some dodgy smuggling deal!

We went straight into town for lunch in Chinatown, and then randomised our way through Trafalgar Square, Leicester Square and Piccadilly Circus.

Christmas at the in-laws
People always ask what we eat at a Chinese Christmas. Well, see for yourself - three different roasts, tons of side dishes - 12 courses at least! And back home it's even more!! And then afterwards we played mahjong into the wee hours...

The Palace
Buckingham Palace is hardly anything to write home about. It's a big stone building with gawdy gold statues that The Donald himself would be proud of. And apparently the queen doesn't even stay there? Actually, highlight of the day was hitting the Nandosh for lunch! Yoh, I miss Nando's!

The river and everything alongside it
We took a walk through to Westminster Abbey and Houses of Parliament which are all close to the Thames River, and then we mosey'd onto the London Eye. Queues to the Eye are insanely long and winding, so I decided to postpone that ride til Feb... And I finally polished off a plate of one of England's national dishes - no man not curry and rice... bangers and mash you silly sod!

Update:
Sushi'd out
We went for all you can eat sushi. 'Nuff said. Just pick your plate of the conveyer belt and deshtroy as many plates as is humanly possible. It was SO great - 33 plates of sushi and two bowls of noodles! I was a lil sick, but not nearly as sick as Judge was after the infamous "two platters of salmon sushi" night. Good times...

Old Year's Day
New Years was pretty chilled - dinner at the in-laws, playing with sparklers (haven't done that since forever!) and then karaoke in Soho which was actually quite hilarious. What's up with Asians and karaoke? Seriously I don't get it?!

And I saw probably the greatest fireworks show I ever did see - they set up 10 minutes of crazy explosions on the London Eye and boats on the Thames, which was pretty awesome!

The walk back to the car was crazy mad too! Firstly, we parked 30 minutes from the restaurant, and secondly, I got to witness some good ol' fashioned British thuggery and hooliganism - such liberal use of the bad words, near rioting and abuse of passers-by! Unfortunately there was no looting and or stone throwing - I would've loved that cos God knows I can throw far and accurately!

And then after four hours of sleep, I was up, packed and off to the airport for my flight back to Calgary. And so with that, ended my whirlwind tour of London! There was a lot I never got around to, but I'll be back in Feb so hopefully I get to see some more of you monkeys out there! And after 9 hours of flying we touched down, only to have a startling reminder that I live in Calgary - our baggage was delayed cos the cargo doors at the airport were frozen! Well, imagine that?!

Check the highly condensed gallery of the billion photos taken:
Circus and Squares
Christmas
Buck Palace
The River
Sushi
New Years

Interlude - Things I won't miss about London
- Fast and reckless bus drivers. And taxi drivers. Actually English drivers in general.
- Busy London streets filled with thousands of rude, non-English speaking Europeans.
- A real shower.
- Toilets that don't flush! (You have to crank the handle a couple times to build up some voema to get a half decent flush - good thing I didn't need a power dump at the in-laws after the three roast Christmas dinner - coulda been mighty embarrassing!).
- The tube.
- Cold rainy-ness.

Saffers in Calgary

2006-12-27T16:05:00.000-06:00

Wednesday, December 20, 2006

Another three Saffers arrived in Cal last week - Herman's mate Gerhard arrived for holiday bearing Rooibos, biltong and Province jerseys. And Craig and Andre arrived from our Jozi office for a work stint to the end of March some time.

Anyway, we hit Melrose on 17th Ave for small biggie, rep'ing SA all the way... Gerhard (WP), Dari (Jozi), Craig (Boks) and Herman (WP)... and Andre taking the photo (dof oke didn't bring any jerseys or Saffer gear! I offered my Amakhosi top but what the chances?!

Friday, December 22, 2006

And then we hit the Maid, our favourite "French" restaurant to treat Gerhard to his first gentleman's club. Good times...

Saturday, December 23, 2006

And then just before my flight to London town, I took the guys down to Chinatown - dim sum!

Squiz the gallery here (NSFW, rated R - not suitable for sensitive viewers, viewer discretion is advised)!

Kreesmis box!

2006-12-18T21:27:00.000-06:00

I got my first Christmas prezzy today - the "Internationals" had a Secret Santa Christmas lunch.

So here's the deal:
- Buy a gift for $20 (strictly no over spending!).
- Pick a number.
- One by one, choose a mystery gift off the table, depending on your number.
OR
- "steal" a gift from someone who has already chosen and opened a gift before you (pretty dof rules, dunno whose idea that was, I can only imagine it was one of those Swiss okes').
- If your gift gets "stolen", you get to pick another off the table, or "steal" someone elses again...
- Being the dodgy Saffers - three of us now - we stole other peoples' gifts. Much to everyone else's shock, shock, horror.
- BUT RULES IS RULES!!!

Craig (I'll introduce you once we get a photo) was the first to steal someone's Calgary mug, Herman stole a bottle of wine and I stole this hat!

It's like some tsotsi's hat off the streets of Jozi - seh-ri-us loxion cul-cha!

Quite embarrassingly, my chocolate and sweet basket was chosen second last, outta 25 gifts or so... pretty funny if you ask me!

3M

2006-12-17T22:18:00.000-06:00

Three months???? Get the fuck outta here - I haven't been here three months? Have I?

But that's what the moons say, and who am I to questions the moons?

Well not much has happened since I last wrote the big Two Month mail. For those not good at maths, that was one month ago!

Work-wise
I've done some awesome work, when I've worked. But I've also been lazy and openly criticized the culture of working long nights and weekends - that made me SO unpopular with the partner it's just not funny! Although I find myself in the office most Sunday mornings, to make up for the time I fucked around after the big Friday lunches - but that's fine, its gives me an opportunity to use and abuse the office telephone to make random calls back home, right? But unlike most you you with play-play jobs, I still have to work this coming week! Aaargh!

Sociableness
So there's still fokol to do in Cal - I keep myself busy by surfing the net for Chump-worthy material, watching thousands of Youtube clips, shopping at the Saturday Sears sales and relaying the randomness that is my life! Oh, and running from cougars and former strippers...

Happy holidays
I'm not gonna wish you Merry Christmas cos it discriminates against us non-Christians and heathens. My people have suffered enough... Everyone's already put up their "holiday lights" and "holiday trees" which makes the place look quite festive. But the Christmas carols in the malls and offices... killing me! Over and over the same songs!!! It's about time someone wrote wrote new carols!!!

Anyway, in case you haven't heard, I'm jetting to London, Inga-land (and not London, Ontario like all these Canadians think?) for Christmas and New Year! For those of you that are there, you better prep the sleeper couch, whip out the two ply, stock up on peanut butter (Black Cat, preferably) and prepare an entertainment itinerary to keep me outta trouble! Apparently I need to visit Soho... So, ho, how much?

So lemme know what all ya'll are up to? I'm out!

PS. I found a place that sells pies. Hmmmm, pies... but not so nice... I think they dropped a bag of frozen veg in there...

A walk in the park... (Week 7)

2006-12-11T13:43:00.000-06:00

So after a great evening of Goo Goo Dolls, we had 2 visitors from out of town again staying with us for the weekend, so we went sightseeing again. This time it was a great day so we hit the parks - first Boston Common and the Public Gardens (a block away from our place), then we went walking through the "rich" suburb called Beacon Hill:

The ice rink in the Boston Common and Boston Common:

Beacon Hill:

After Beacon Hill we decided to cut across the highway to the Charles River. This proved quite difficult as we got stuck somehow between the two lines of traffic and we just kept walking down the island in between until it ran out. At that stage we were both too stubborn and pissed off to walk back so we sat and waited for a gap in the traffic... 25 minutes later we sprinted across in the only gap probably that
entire day!!

But it was worth it as the river is very cool, its the same river where the Harvard boat race takes place and both Harvard and MIT (Massachusetts Institute of Technology) are both on the River.

We then paid a visit to Fenway Park - Home of the Boston Red Sox. We went for a tour of the stadium which was brilliant - we are just in between the seasons and won't be here for a game, which is so dissapointing.

Here is a point by point recall of the tour from our blogs one and only Robbie:

The Curse of the Bambino is lifted!!

So on Saturday Greg and I went to Fenway Park, the famous baseball stadium where the Boston Red Sox play their home games.

We went on a tour of the Stadium, and found ourselves enjoying the history the Stadium had to offer, including the most famous sale in Baseball history in 1918. The Red Sox won three world series in the past (1916, 1917, 1918), with support provided by well known Babe Ruth. Babe Ruth was then sold off to the NY Yankees in 1919, and never won a world series for 80+ years!! This was later better known as the Curse of the Bambino (Curse of Babe Ruth). Their luck later changed, and finally won world series in 2004.

There was a lot more history involved, like the seat in the right field bleachers is painted red to mark the spot where the longest measurable home run ever hit inside Fenway Park landed. Ted Williams (famous left handed baseball player for Red Sox) hit the home run on June 9, 1946 The blast was measured at 502 feet. Legend says that the ball crashed through the straw hat of the man sitting in the seat- A Yankees fan. To this day the man that was hit has passed on, but his family still gets to sit in the seat where he was hit!! (check the pic in the galleryfor a better view)

and the retired numbers of well known baseball players who have retired from the game, and with them, their numbers also retiring.
Retired Red Sox uniform numbers hung in right field in numerical order: Bobby Doerr (1) in 1988, Joe Cronin (4) in 1984, Carl Yastrzemski (8) in 1989, Ted Williams (9) in 1984 and Carlton Fisk (27) in 2000.

The stadium is also unique, in that it offers the longest and shortest home run distances to hit in baseball, the shortest home run being 302 yards… and the longest home run boundary (420 yards).

For those who like to drop it like its hot, the stadium was also recently reconstructed to accommodate a VIP area….

This seating area was renamed the club seats the ".406 Club" (in honor of Ted Williams' batting average in 1941), six days after his death. (Williams is the last player to hit .400 or better in the major leagues.)
During the fall and winter of 2005-2006, as part of the continuing expansion efforts at Fenway Park, the existing .406 club was rebuilt.
The average price per game to sit in one of these blue pimped out seats will set you back an average of $ 275 per game (2006: $ 286 per seat).

The stadium is most famous for the left field wall called the "Green Monster". This wall is 37-foot high and 240 feet long, has a 22-foot deep foundation, and was constructed from 30,000 pounds of Toncan iron. Previously, a 23-½-foot tall screen protected cars and pedestrians on Lansdowne Street. However, the screen was replaced after the 2002 season with more seating atop the Green Monster (in an attempt to fit as many seats as possible in Fenway).In 1947, advertisements covering the left field wall were painted over using green paint, which gave rise to the "Green Monster" name.

Check out the gallery for more pics...

News from one fucked up weekend - 12.8.06

2006-12-09T16:17:00.000-06:00

Friday, December 8, 2006

For the first time in a long time I felt like going out. We had VIP comps to the notorious Cowboys - pretty much Calgary's version of Drop Zone or Odds... stay well away (but you have to see it for yourself).

Handle bar 'staches. Pointy snake skin boots. Big belt buckles. Cowboy hats. I stood out like a sore thumb! But I'll admit, the waitresses and barladies are crazy HJOT - far better looking than Manhattan's... uh huh! How's this for club policy - work there six months, and they buy you new boobs! Anyway, we chose a real crap night to go, some two pence country singer was playing live. Sorry for this, but no pics from inside the club - as much as I wanted pics of the barladies and a real-life cowboy, I was way too scared!

So we ditched that place and made our way to our local pub in Kensington - The Yardhouse. But along the way we ignored all warning signs and stopped to play on the semi-frozen Bow River. Quite funny, we almost made news headlines when Herman almost fell through the ice! One leg went knee-deep through the ice into the frozen water! I've never shat myself that much. But he survived to tell the story, and being the trooper he is, he still insisted we hit The Yard'! That's m'boy!

Get this: It's been a warm zero degrees out - and we were just wearing light sweat tops, no gloves, scarves or beanies! How hard to the core are we?!

We met this dodgy, drunk mofo that introduced us to these chicks. The chick on the left falls into the Cougar category - a cougar is Canadian slang for ladies who are 30-something and single, and looking for nothing but young, virile men and a night of sordid, all night long marathon sex. The chick on the right? A 25 year old, former stripper... 'nuff said?

Just to state things explicitly: we're not that dodgy, okay? We're officially poes-teazers... basically the opposite of cock-teazers - for once, the guys teazed the girls. We left all together, flagged a cab, and then shoved them in and hauled ass in the other direction! Way too fucken funny!

See the rest of Friday night's gallery.

Saturday, December 9, 2006

We went bus-trippin'... pretty random, eh? Still a warm zero degrees - loving this weather.

Saturday night was the office year end functionon the observation deck of the Calgary Tower - 38 storeys, 520-something feet above ground. I suppose it was an alright evening, very respectable - nothing like the crazy office parties back home. That's pretty much cos drinks are only free from 7-8pm - half the people haven't even arrived by then - pretty cheap if you ask me! There was a belter or two, not gonna lie.

The Tower from the ground. And the ground from the Tower - on the glass floor - 525 feet (175 m about?).

But we left at midnight to chill at this stylish lounge on 8th Ave. And then we braved the cold walk home at 02h30 with Gordon the Scotsman, singing "Flower of Scotland", as he froze his bits off in the ten-below zero temps. He made us promise that if some Calgarian thugs came to fuck him up cos he was wearing a skirt, that we'd be honourable men and jump in to help. You should see how much abuse he took! We topped off a fun night with the inevitable 2.30am pizza and fried chiggen being stuffed in our faces...

Check the year end function gallery.

Wakey wakey, eggs and bakey...

2006-12-04T10:35:00.000-06:00

So after getting home at 1am on Sat night I get woken up at 4:50am buy the sound of a waterfall of water in the kitchen???
A opened my bedroom door and there was a fountain coming from my ceiling - it was beautiful.

There was a burst water pipe on the 20th floor and cause there is nobody staying there yet, nobody turned it off! So the water came through all the way from the 20th to me at the 10th (and all the floors between) and it eventually stopped on the 9th.
So I spent the next 3 hours emptying buckets of water into the sink and mopping up the mess.

When it finally slowed down I created the "towel supported bucket 2 bucket system". This patent pending invention gave me at least another 30 minutes of sleep between emptying.

It finally stopped at about 10am and now my apartment smells like a hamsters cage cause my wooden floor got very wet. When the maintenance crew came in to help the guy too the lid of the light out and all the water that had built up inside poured over him and he ended up sopping wet - it was hilarious! But the engineers and everyone were in the whole day and it looks like things will be back to normal soon.

GGD

2006-12-04T08:42:00.000-06:00

Definately one of the top 3 concerts I've been to in my life (and I have been to a few).

Our seats were brilliant and so was the sound and the crowd. There were only 2 things that were crap:
1. My camera stop working properly but I got some great video's (took it back the next day and they gave me a brand new one!)
2. They only played for an hour (maybe they are getting old) and they didn't play Big Machine!

But besides those 2 the concert was brilliant, so glad I finally got to see the Dolls live in concert, I would do it again tomorrow.

So check out the following video's:

Opening
Slide
Name
Iris
Give a little bit

And check out the gallery for more pics...

These voices...

2006-12-03T15:57:00.000-06:00

The Colonel called, the devil himself... he was calling me... I tried to say ignore him, I tried... I tried, I promise...

My head was saying, "YES!", my arteries were saying "No!". Five hot wings, chips and an 7up later, my stomach was concurring with my arteries, should've been a "No"...

Seriously though, I've been eating well, lotsa veggies and not too much fast food - hardly the fubby tucker you think I am. Although from some of G's pics he can't quite say the same...

Recycling

2006-12-02T13:20:00.000-06:00

Canadian's are real green-loving, tree-hugging, raccoon-saving people.

Here, everything get's recycled. Blue rubbish bags = recycleable stuff only. But at my apartment, it's ridiculous. There are like ten bins, each for their own type of recycleable material, which is all fine 'n dandy... but where the hell do you throw normal rubbish?! So we just used to whip our bags in the big "Cardboard Only" dumpster and make a quick dash!

You have to sort your crap into the different bins for cardboard boxes, wine bottles, condiment bottles, pop (cooldrink) cans, beer cans, platic bottles less than a litre, plastic bottles more than a litre and fruit juice bottles.

So what do you do if you have 1.5 litre fruit juice bottle, wrapped in cardboard and made of glass?

Eventually after two months of living here, we figure out that this is where you throw your normal crap - the big green compacting machine. Throw your shit inside and close the door. And it compacts everything one time, pretty awesome!

Fire alarms and hockey

2006-11-29T20:33:00.000-06:00

First we had the alarm go off on Sunday morn. Then, yesterday I run back to my office for a quick meeting, only to have the fire alarm sounding. So I call to cancel the meeting - thoughts of having to evac 24 floors down being the reason - especially after the 42 floor evacuation couple weeks back.

I then strolled back to my client, catch the elevator to the 42nd floor, where I'm greeted with more flashing strobes and shrieking alarms, and being ordered to commence the evacuation!! Another 42 floors!! Thankfully, after going 10 floors down, the evac was aborted.

It was just after 3pm, so I went home any - we were watching the Flames play the Avs. We met for dinner at Juan's Mexican restaurant. And guess what? Starters hadn't even arrived when yet another fire alarm sounds. But here's the interesting part. We hear this rumbling and crashing in the ceiling, followed by waterfalls of water pouring into the restaurant. Four fire alarms in three days!!!

This is our host, Juan, pouring his gourmet tequilsh. And the waterfall in the window of his fancy clothing store neighbour.

Well anyway, we went to the hockey hungry where we scoffed the dirtiest Pocket Dawgs ever (they're like hot dogs, but dodgy!). The game was quite exciting, but the Flames totally embarrassed the Avs 5-2. It was quite a pity since the Avs are the team from Denver - my American home town!

But firstly, G, I want to apologise for dissing your cheap seats - we sat so high in the rafters, there were sleeping pigeons all round! Free tickets, what can you do, eh?

The game is made of of three 20 minute periods, with 17 minute breaks in between! Fucking crazy. Who can handle three periods in one night? Imagine that PMS!

I was probably the only doos in that place not wearing a Flames jersey, but at $200 you can fuck right off. Rather be a doos than drop a R1400 on a jersey that will only open me up to abuse back home!

Photo gallery - click here!

TENACIOUS!

2006-11-29T10:35:00.000-06:00

Thursday 28th November 2006 - Tenacious D - Orpheum Theatre - Boston

What a great concert!
I bought a winner hoodie - too funny - Cleveland Steamers on my chest!

It started off with a comedian called Niel Hamburger who was so bad that people eventually started screaming at him to get off. He was absolutely terrible - on purpose.

Then THE D came out, they were absolutely excellent, and we had great seats. JB has to be the funniest person on earth.

Check out these clips I got of the concert (including sound):

Jack and KG
Jack's sax
Sometimes you have to .... her hard
Tribute

Check out the gallery for a few more pics. Goo Goo Dolls on Friday - can't wait.

Thanksgiving weekend - Boston (Part 2)

2006-11-27T14:33:00.000-06:00

So we got back home pretty late on Friday night after a long trip in the Chinatown bus on which I sat next to the toilet - bad idea. We didn't do much that night as we were pretty bushed.

The next morning we took the visitors to Harvard, it was an awesome day so it was really great.

We went to a restuarant on the harbour called the Barking Crab when we got back from Harvard. There was massive old South African flag inside which was unbelievable!
The food was excellent, the seafood in Boston is amazing. We all had the seafood platters and a couple of Stella's (best beer around - all the local beers taste like dam water).

That night we had a poker evening at my place before we hit a club down the road called the Gypsey Bar. We had a huge night and I woke up the next morning feeling sorry for myself again. We didn't have much time on Sunday so we went for some breaky to Quincy Market and on the way back I came across the sale I had been looking for since I arrived - 80 gig ipod for $ 280! What a bargain bargain. Bought it and I am now at peace with myself.

The guys left and Robot and myself went to REI and bought some ski pant, so we now have everything we need to snowboard except snow! Its a pity the bad weather Dari has been moaning about has not moved down here yet cause it still warm (50 degrees) and we wanted to hit the slopes this weekend.

Check out the gallery for some more pics and Tenacious D is tomorrow (Tuesday) night so there will definately be tons of pics coming from there.

Peace out.

Thanksgiving weekend - New York City (Part 1)

2006-11-27T09:51:00.000-06:00

So week 6 started with a trip to New York City to celebrate Thanksgiving with some of the secondees there. Mike and Deshan flew into Boston from Detroit and arrived on Wednesday and then we all took the Chinatown Bus to NYC (only $15 each way!) on Wednesday evening.

We got dropped of in Chinatown (we first got taken down to chinatown) and then we caught a taxi to the apartments where we were staying. We met up at a place called the "Sway" lounge, the sign outside said McGovern's Tavern but the bouncer said it was called Sway? As we were going inside a lady rushed out and said to the bouncer not to let any more men in cause its full - luckily we had booked a table so we got let in, but when we got it there were like 6 other people inside? And it stayed like that all night!! So there weren't tons of people but we ended up having a huge one.

The next morning we rose at about 9am to a rainy day. We went straight to times square for the Thanksgiving Parade of which we caught about an hour of, but it was pouring with rain. We met up with Aneen and Joy (secondees from SA living in NY) for lunch at Planet Hollwood in Times Square which was awesome, the food was great - deshtroyed a bacon and cheese burger.

After that we took a walk around, we saw the Rockafeller centre and the ice rink below it, but it started raining harder so we went to a small pub and had a few beers for the rest of the arvy.

That night we got invited to a Thanksgiving dinner (including turkey) with a friend of a friend from SA. Her place was in New Jersey and we caught the subway which is located just below Ground Zero. Ground Zero is crazy - it is a massive hole, the buildings must have been enormous, it must have been unreal to be there at that time.

The dinner was great, we packed in turkey, dessert and some Bacardi. On the way back it was raining again and we ran into a guy taking his dog for a walk and the dog had a raincoat - priceless.

When we got home at about 12, the girls went to bed so we decided to hit the town. We caught a taxi which we drove around in until we found an open club, which happened to be a Jazz Club with a live band. We watched them for about 1 song and became their biggest fans. We then on the way out found another club called the Asylum and we had a few more drinks there and sang Karaoke including "New York, New York". We were terrible but it was too fun. We then got swept out at about 4:30am and we went back to the apartment where we met up with a guy from SA who invited us for some vodka and orange juice. At 6am after no sleep yet I headed back into New York cause the biggest sales started at 6 (day after thanksgiving), when I got there the shop was closed! Bad idea - it seemed like a good one at the time.

Finally I got to bed at about 8am and we woke up at about 11 to go have lunch with Steve who used to go to Boys High with us. We went to TGI Fridays in 5th Avenue. The food was okay. We then walked around the city (saw the Empire State). The streets were packed, you can hardly walk. Later we went back down to Chinatown to catch a bus back to Bosty.

The short two days we were there was great, I will take more pics of the sites when we go again over New Years.

Check out the gallery.

Sunday morning, wakey wakey!

2006-11-26T12:03:00.000-06:00

09h00: Indoor climate, +24C. Slight man smell. Outdoor climate, -24C. Flurries of snow.
09h01: {Fire alarm sounds} Wake up with a fucking heart attack, disco flashing lights and ear piercing whoop-whooping going on. Run around a bit all messed up, don't know which way is where? My new afro in total disarray.

Eventually I wake up enough to realise that it was the fire alarm making the shrieking alarm sound. So I start getting dressed in my snowboarding gear, head to toe - I saw this happen last year in Denver, where the apartment across the road from us was evac'd when the fire alarm went off, and everyone forced to stand in the snow!

Fire alarm strobe in my bathroom, and the emergency exit.

Luckily, it was a false(ish) alarm - a water pipe burst and set off the fire alarm. So no scrambling for possessions in a last ditch effort to salvage all cheap and cheesy Made in China trinkets I've collected since arriving. Although I did think about taking my passport, air ticket and all my dolleros stuffed under the mattress and in the septic tank and freezer. And my golf clubs. And the last blueberry bagel...

And thank God no 42 floor trundle down the stairs...

So I made my way downtown to clean up on the last Sears sale items and make some (free international) calls from the office. It was freezing and a lot of snow fell - by mid afternoon you couldn't tell where the sidewalk ended and where the street started - which explains why I almost got hit by a car after waiting in the street to cross!

Just check how dead downtown is on the weekends!

I went out once more at 17h00 to buy some groceries and shit - a 10 minute walk in 30 below temps! At that temperature, exposed flesh can get frost bitten! So you gotta wear lots of layers...
Top: thermal beanie, neck gaitor, undershirt, tshirt, hoodie and snow parka.
Bottom: long-johns, jeans and Trojan triple-lubed, double glazed, but amazingly thin (for extra feel) condoms - gotta get all the protection you can get, man! Check this, snow and fogginess actually freezes on your glasses!

Hard to find good help!

2006-11-26T07:56:00.000-06:00

I bitched about this last year, and I'll bitch about again this year! First there was this rant about washing and ironing, and then there was the infamous bathroom brawl I had with Rox.

Housekeeping in North America is totally different from SA - no paying minimum wage that borders on slavery, as they're forced to clean up after us! No, they vaccuum and make beds. That's it. No washing, ironing, dishes or even taking out the rubbish.

G, I don't know if you guys have housekeeper in Boston (I'm guessing you'd need it more that us, exactly when does Big Rach' arrice?) - but here they come twice a month to do nothing but drink my milk and steal my Viral Choice cold 'n flu tabs that I smuggled from SA (really, bottle of 30 of which I had two last month... they left me with one!)

Seriously, these are the first cleaners that actually take your jammies off the bed and throw them on the floor?????? This is how I find my stuff when I get home - on my putting cups... have some fucking respect, man!

A picture paints a thousand words...

2006-11-23T21:42:00.000-06:00

I don't think you understand how cold it is...

Take note, those are minuses before the numbers!!! As in below freezing!!! They say at -30C a glass of water freezes within seconds, shattering the glass. Can't wait to see if it's true.

Note to self: Must take glass from work tomorrow (stuff we break in our apartment, we have to pay for!)

What's in the box?

2006-11-22T19:20:00.000-06:00

Seven long days, the clock tick tocks,
Parcel in the mail, what's in the box?
Jumpin' up 'n down, like I shat my jocks,
Shiny bright - my gold 'n black Nike Shox!

Shit, it's like Princess Di flew down from Heaven and blessed my feet herself!

EBay, gotta fucken love it - paid less than of half of MSRP! That's North American advertising speak for "Manufacturer's Recommended Sales Price".

News from one fucked up...

2006-11-20T17:36:00.000-06:00

...fantashtic-international-ChumpStyle-machete-deshtroyer weekend ever!

Saturday, 18 November 2006

Like I've said, Calgary is full of foreigners since the job market is so hot, and there aren't enough skilled Calgarians (yip, they call themselves that) to fill those positions. Which is why I've been sent here. So at work there's a social club for the "Internationals" - the people who talk funny and have no friends - and were invited to watch the minor league (ice) hockey game: Calgary Hitmen take on the team from Moose Jaw????? I don't find hockey the most exciting game - I don't see any structure or game plan, other than hit the puck at goal, or if you have a chance, fuck each other up until one of you falls to the floor.

But it was a fun evening out, free food and drink! I actually spent the whole night talking cricket with the Pakis! The Hitmen totally destroyed the Moose Jawians 6-1 in a totally one-sided affair.

Note to G Man: if you're gonna watch a game, you gotta get tickets in the corporate box. No having to squint your eyes cos you're in the cheap seats that are so high up you get altitude sickness.

Check the gallery.

...and the players warming up... pretty cool.

Apologies for the low resolution, forgot to set the camera up properly!
Update: video link fixed!!!!!!

Sunday, 19 November 2006

07h45: Get picked up.
10h00: Arrive at Sunshine Ski Resort.
10h01-17h30: Totally carve up, shake 'n bake and fluff some powder (that's 'boarder talk for "snowboarding merrily along one's way").
20h30: After some really bad indecisive-ness and umming and ahhing by the people, and agreeing to drop off the rental car (being the nice guy I am), and then walking home (12 blocks) from Avis, I arrived home dead tired.
20h31: Shit, shower, shave.
20h40: Zzzzzz...

But I had an awesome time. After the first run, it all came back to me and so I pretty much kept up with the Swiss mofos - Swiss are famous for clocks, banking, cheese and producing Olympic skiers. I think the Swiss people I work with were Olympic skiers in their past lives!

Check the pics!

It was an awesome day out, friggen expensive though - the whole day costing me a whopping $150 - so pretty much dropped a grand - Judge, you happy?!

So up until now, my most daring ever was to look Jan Pierie-Wiet in the eyes and call him a raging homosexual Dutchman. As of today, my new most daring is skiing down an advanced slope, after sunset*, to get back to the parking lot (we were skiing so high, we had to catch two cable cars going up to get there).

* After sunset, there's no light, duh? So you can't see fokol. Like humps and ditches. Or the edge of the fucken mountain. And the snow turns quickly to ice, which makes it that much harder when you fall.

So after going the entire day without landing on my head or face - I took an almighty tumble after I hit a ditch, then a ramped up a hump, then cart-wheeled in the air with one-and-a half-twists. And landed my skinny arse on the ice. That's like 9.9 - for height reached, velocity, difficulty and artistic execution! If it wasn't for losing my goggles (and consciousness), I reckon a perfect 10 was on the cards!

So on this fine Monday morning at work, I'm walking with with a limp, and one shoulder dropped - it's not cos I'm gangsta, but cos I'm fucken all buckled outta shape!

Week 5's Alive

2006-11-20T09:56:00.000-06:00

The week was pretty quiet, we attended a staff meeting on Thursday afternoon followed by an office Poker Tournament which was fun and ended up being a pretty big night. I forgot the camera at home, so no pics.

On Friday night we went to Tom and Mara for some dinner which was a lot better than the dinner we cook, so it was a welcomed surprise. They have a great place about 25 minutes out of town.

Saturday we hit the ski and snow expo, which was pretty big. We won tickets to go from an sms competition and saved ourselves $ 20. The show was really cool and Rob and I hooked up some snowboarding gear (socks, gloves and jackets) to prep for our Dec trip. We also met Amos the Moose, who gave us some great tips (always use mousse not gel, try the chocolate mousse, stay away from camel toe... etc.)

Rob tried on some goggles but they were a bit big so he didn't get them, we also ran across a pearler of a bumper sticker...

Saturday afternoon after the show we started a pub crawl with some of Tom's mates. The pub crawl began at HOOTERS (always wanted to go there):

We were there for about an hour, and then we moved onto the next bar which would become bar 2 of 11 (I think 11, I lost track and could only recall by pictures the following day). The pub crawl was excellent. Check out the gallery for the run down of all the pubs one by one, but here are some pics throughout the trip which deserve to be posted....

We spent Sunday partly recovering from a horrible hangover and partly trying to do grocery shopping (worst thing ever!). We met some guy in the park as well, he didn't say much but we are pretty used to that here...

So the weekend was good, looking forward to Thanksgiving which is on Thursday, and we are going to New York City on Wednesday night to celebrate there.

And last but not least we managed to get 2 tickets for the TDBanknorth arena to go and watch WWE SMACKDOWN on the 12th of December featuring King Booker and THE UNDERTAKER and many more... so excited.

Check out the bar to bar episode and some other great pics in the gallery.

Two months...

2006-11-15T20:17:00.000-06:00

Two down... two and a half to go!

Sheesh! Two months already?! Time flies when you're having fun, eh?

I suppose things have been good here, still no issues. Apart from my housemate who's somewhat losing his mind at times? And the fact that my SA salary converted to CA$ is just over half of a starting FIRST YEARS' salary!!!!!! And five times less than a manager's!!! How do I survive?

Anyway, temps are seldom above zero, but I can easily walk around in -5C temps with no real shivering as long as I'm wearing my insulated, double thermolated and triple warmerized snow jacket, beanie, scarf, gloves (one of which I almost lost remember?), two undershirts, thermal socks and my Walmart long-johns.

But I should be positive and focus on the good things like:
- Central heating.
- Really high quality two-ply paper (can't live without it, hey Pot?).
- E-Bay - the world's largest online stolen goods store ever!
- Internet so fast I haven't had time to even look at ALL my downloaded por... tuguese soccer clips that I have stored in that hidden folder called "Portuguese soccer clips".
- Gorgeous Canadian ladies. Seriously, they're good looking. No, seriously...
- My Safrican accent.
- Due to all the internationals in my team, I have added Venuzuelan (she's no beauty queen), Kazakhstani (I would!), French-Belgish (if I was REALLY drunk) and Kuwaiti (hell no!) accents to my repertoire.
- And train noises. No sound auditor is complete without train noises.
- The huge-assed Chinese buffet downtown.
- Tim Horton's donuts.
- Price tags that are red or yellow. And price tags that are red AND yellow.
- The looks on people's faces when I tell them I'm 24 (and a half), and a MANAGER in RISK AND RESILIENCE (Mel, you probably had that look!).
- Snowboarding this weekend (with the Kazakhstani and Belgish chick) at Lake Louise (pic).
- AND FOR BEING ALIVE!!! And not in that gay, spiritual way that Oprah goes on about. Literally, for not being cancelled earlier this eve while walking home - there I was on the street corner admiring my newly acquired suit when two cars collide in the intersection! The SUV spins off and hits the lamp-post right next to us. It happened so quickly I didn't even move. But here I am, to tell the tale!

Okay, let me know of anything random that may have happened in G-teng, the west Ealing Massive, Oz (like if the Force ever score a point?) or Boston, Massatooshits. Or wherever the hell you may happen to be! Not like I care any way but reading your mails makes me look busy when at the clients...

The freakin weekend (Week 4)

2006-11-13T12:39:00.000-06:00

Friday night Rob and I decided to visit one of the clubs that are pretty close to us in a place called "the Alley" which is basically an alley full of bars and pubs. We ended up going to a place called the Liquor Store:

It was a pretty stylin club, until we came across the mechanical bull then it just reminded me of the Pretoria show or something. We had quite a good time, bought a few rounds of drinks, spent a couple of thousand doing so...

But we ended up having a good time and we only had to stumble 2 blocks to our apartment!

The next morning we joined Rob & Niall to watch the SA/Ireland match at a pub near Harvard. We had to travel about 25 min to get to the pub that was showing the match and pay $ 20 to watch us get a hiding in an Irish pub!
R2 a minute to watch the Irish run through the holes in our defence. Enough said.

The best part of the game... the national anthems.

Rob and I then found a pearler of a department store called TJ Maxx right near our place which has the greatest clothes and stuff ever for such great prices (you just have to search cause nothing was in order). Here is a pic of Rob posing in a jacket and a pic of the most Pimpin Playboy light that I just had to buy for my place. Too great.

Saturday night we walked down Newberry street which is a street with all the big name brand shops like Gucci, Guess, Victoria's Secret, Niketown etc etc. Stephen you would love it there. Will take pics during the day and post them later cause it is a really awesome place.

Sunday we didn't do much but washing again (miss you Rach). And we played some indoor soccer in the evening with some irish guys we recently met along with a couple of people from the office.

Check out the gallery for a few more dodgy pics...

NFL Baby!

2006-11-13T12:17:00.000-06:00

So we hit a fundraising function last week Thursday organised by Tom's girlfriend Mara, which was at a restuarant in the middle of town which has a club above it. The function was not that busy, but we got to meet some big time NFL stars.

The guy who was "hosting" the function was none other (as if I knew him) than Lonnie PAxton from the New England Patriots (New England being the collective states around this area). The Patriots have been doing pretty well to date (except for their last 2 games) but their matches are sold out and the tickets are pretty pricey. These guys are pretty big celebs in Boston:

Far left: Goliath
Far right: 66 Lonie Paxton LS 6-2 260 3/13/1978

Go check out their website, it is pretty cool. Tried to find the guy on the far left but they all look pretty similar.

So the function ended up being pretty cool and we got given $30 food vouchers for a restuarant which nullified our last round of 3 single Johnnie Walker Red whiskies which cost $31 with tip.

Fiddy off, yo!

2006-11-11T15:18:00.000-06:00

So Sears is this huge department store, pretty much like Edgars and Stuttafords, only that it's friggen HUGE. Four storeys huge - and they sell everything from clothing to sports equipment and even lawn mowers. And then there's also The Bay Co, which is exactly the same. And between these two places, this is where I do all my shopping. Anyway, today was Sears' Super Saturday Scratch 'n Save day - you ring your stuff up, and then you get to scratch a coupon, giving discounts of 10% and upwards.

So I rang up my K-Swiss (Tongue Twistas - blue tongue, white tongue - you choose!), a Nike hoodie, a trenchcoat and couple odds and ends for gifts. And then I scratched - and got fiddy percent off!! My total sales were $250 about, and so in the end I only dropped $125! Joh!! But the worst thing was I was gonna buy a suit, but didn't like the cut of the collar so I put it back. I also looked at a couple watches but nothing stoked my fancy... just imagine if I picked 'em up!

The trenchcoat is getting fitted at the tailor's - G, aren't trenchcoats the most pimp jackets ever?

And while we're on the topic of clothes, I wore my Che-Cooba shirt last night and it became the topic if much conservation. So I started telling them how freaked out the Americans were last year when I wore my other Cooba shirt, and cracking jokes about dumb Americans, when they all go, "This is Alex (six-five, 120 kgs), he's American!"

Needless to say, we did not get along too well...

Explain this again?

2006-11-11T15:02:00.000-06:00

So you can bring you car and/or dog to the car and/or dog wash, 24 hours... but then have to wash the car and/or dog YOURSELF? And this you pay for? Coin op? Alrighty then... and then you wonder why there are unemployed people on the streets?

This was taken at 23h30 on a Friday night as we left the pub!

Apparently it's illegal to wash your car (and/or dog) in the driveway since car (and/or dog) shampoos are not bio-degradeable or something - these overly sensitive, Earth-loving Canadians!

Celtics crack Bobcats

2006-11-09T10:10:00.000-06:00

First NBA game ever... and I was looking forward to it cause when I was in Std. 5 I really thought I would become a NBA star (irrespective of my height). I even had a Jordan tracksuit (that was so cool).

So Rob and I bought tickets for $20 a ticket in seats that were average. We caught the T to the stadium and bought a hot dog and soda and waited for the game to begin.
So the game is split into Quarters. Each quarter is 12 minutes, and due to both teams being drawn at 100 all at the end of the 4th quarter, there was overtime on 5 minutes. So in total, there was 53minutes of game time. This took 3 hours to finish!
There are so many timeouts and cheerleader dances and give-aways that you sometimes forget you are there to watch basketball.

Anyway, here is a shot of the court before the game and of the start (from our seats):

The game itself was a bit boring with no massive dunk's, but it did come down to the wire and was 100 all at full time and the winning basket was shot in the last second of the game by the Celtics which was brilliant.

Final Score:

We actually had a very cool time and we will probably be hitting another game before we leave. Check out my next post for some video's from the game.

There are a few more pics in the gallery, check it out...

This is why I hate Canadia...

2006-11-08T19:41:00.000-06:00

Yesterday was sunny and warm, +11C. Today was snowy and freezing, -11C!!! Do the maths, 22C drop in temps OVERNIGHT!!!

But when I left work at 6pm this eve, it wasn't snowing - it was raining. But your typical rain, like as in falling water... no, here it rains frozen rain - little frozen pebbles that sting your face when they hit you.

And to make matters worse - for the second time in as many weeks, yet another dude oozing too much knobly juice, in that typical "I can do eet" kinda mentality, got himself hit by the downtown C-Train, which I, incidentally, need to catch to get home. Needless to say, he's now a perfect people pattie - defrost before serving, best served with fries (serving suggestion).

My point being, I had to walk the 10 blocks home in -11 temps and frozen rain. With my Mario's meatballs and pasts dinner wedged in my bag.

Shit like this is so NOT cool - fuck with the weather, that's fine, but DON'T fuck with my food!

PS. While taking this photo of this poor plant outside my apartment, I dropped my glove somewhere along the street. But I re-traced my foots in the snow and found it again! Yay me... okay, fine pretty gay I know. But at least I have my glove back. You don't wanna be the doos with one glove, eh?

Which reminds me - YO MOMMA so fat, her ass covers her tracks in the snow!

This is why I love the US...

2006-11-07T10:04:00.000-06:00

CONCERTS!

Not that SA is bad, in fact most of the big names have been to SA already, but here there are just tons of great bands coming through all the time. Rob and I managed to get tickets (at a price) to both sold out shows of GOO GOO DOLLS and TENACIOUS D (Jack Black).

And there are more to come including JT and John Mayer.
Too great.

Harvard... week 3 part 1.

2006-11-07T09:08:00.000-06:00

Rob and I, after a long week of planning our December holiday, decided to hit the town on Friday night with Tom and Mara. We should have just stayed home cause nothing was going our way. We got to the T station (carrying plastic bags of beer for the house party - cause we don't have any other bags)and the station was packed full of people from the movies, and we didn't have a ticket and the lines were lang! So Rob ran back to the other station got us a ticket, we then waited 2 trains for some space, took the train and missed our stop and by the time we arrived, the house party was over and everyone had gone to Model Bar.

So we walked to model bar carrying plastic bags full of beer looking like hobo's and when we got there Tom met up with us outside and we drank the beers in rapid succession in some dodgy parking lot (you can't drink in public and a beer is like $5 - so we had NO other option). We then hit the club which was OK. It was pretty GANGSTA, Dari would have loved it! We had a couple of drinks - Rob did a bit of pole dancin and then we decided to hit Mickey D's (our experimental steak supper at home just didn't work out - again). Mickey D's was closed so we got a slice of pizza.

At that stage we decided in our brave state - why should we catch a cab home when we could walk and save $35. After another pizza slice and 10km (6miles) we eventually reached home at 3am with icicles on our noses like on Dumb and Dumber (we are actually Dumb and Dumber).

Sorry, no photo's - forgot my camera.

Saturday brought better fortune and we decided to visit Harvard.
We caught the T at the Boston Common which is the park about a block away from our place, it is where everyone goes on the weekends. The pic on the left was a protest in the park to stop global warming, people were singing and dancing with posters... it reminded me of home.

After that we went back home, put on warmer clothes, walked back to the station and hit Harvard.

The whole place is big and full of massive buildings, but its got nothing on TUKS!

Rob and I took a few photo's as if we belonged there...

Then we took the classics: The university notice board and the squirrel...

Then we had to take one with John Harvard...

The place was pretty cool, we bought some Harvard coffee mugs (cause we don't have mugs) and a South Park Poker set and some Simpson's coasters!

Check out the gallery for a few more pics...

Blue Man Group

2006-11-07T08:44:00.000-06:00

So even though most people who know me would say that I wouldn't step foot into a playhouse (bad memories - i was always a sheep in my primary school plays) I heard about the Blue Man Group from one of my work colleagues who actually talks (I think the rest of the office is mute)and we managed to get tickets at only $35 each on special, apparently in Vegas there are $ 100.

I did not have a clue what we were going to watch and that was a good thing. The playhouse is about 2 blocks from our apartment building which I have now actually realised is on the border of Daritown and the Theatre district. So when I get home I will be an actor who can make spring rolls.

So we took a walk through the Theatre district until we arrived at Charles Theatre:

The show was brilliant, it is performance art by 3 guys who are BLUE! They play drums with paint on them and they do the wierdest things, but they never say a word.
I can't explain it, you have to see it.

We couldn't take photo's in the show, but Rob and I managed to catch a blue man on the way out. I tried to get him to say something, but alas.

Check out the gallery for larger and more images...

News from Van fucked up weekend

2006-11-06T18:46:00.000-06:00

Thursday, 2 November 2006

The weekend started on Thursday (as it always does!) - I left office at 3pm to jet to Vancouver for a strategy session Friday. The cheap-assed Canadian office weren't too keen at first to invite us since we were working here short term, but I managed to convince them that if I was to be a part of their team, I better know what the fuck the strategy's on about - such negotiation skills I should've been a lawyer!

So we booked into the fancy-shmancy Metropolitan Hotel downtown ($200 a night might I add), and then walked in the pouring rain for 45 minutes as Jamil tried to find the Indian restaurant that he made reservations at. I ordered the lamb vindaloo, medium hot - my medium and their medium are obviously totally different!!! Fucken tears...

And then the inevitable - being five young guys in a new city, we ended up where all Vancouveran (??) roads lead - the Cecil (pronounced See-sill). Looks dodgy (notice the first two letters aren't lit), but a helluva lot better than the Maid!!! No photos though, its one of those types of clubs, nudge, nudge, wink, wink.

Seriously, Vancouver night life is crazy. The whole of Granville Street is just clubs, pubs and restaurants, and the streets are packed 'til way late!

Friday, 3 November 2006

06h30: After a mere four hours of sleep, the vindaloo woke me up. 'Nuff said.

And then after 8 hours of strategy presentations and the fighting the burning effects of the vindaloo (how descriptive is that?), we headed to the Steamworks for the all expenses paid dinner and drinks where the big bosses told us about growing weed and getting arrested and crap! So great! Get this, in Van, you can smoke dope on the streets, and the cops don't do jack!! I saw kids lighting bongs right next to a cop car!!!

Then we went to the first years' office drinks at Kingston to meet Andy - the Aussie on secondment in Vancouver - we were crashing at his pad the rest of the weekend. And there shit got fucked up. There were more Poms, Aussies and Saffers than there were Canadians which was fucking hilarious. And I met a pretty lady or ten, but for some friggen reason, they're all got rocks on their fingers the size of dinner plates!!! So no photos of them either... fuck! I may, or may not have wrecked a marriage or three...

So we bounce from Kingston at 2am after we got kicked out and randomized in the rain for an after hours club. We hit Nerd No 3 or something but it was quite random so we left.

Like I said, we were staying at Andy's crib, but had to go fetch our bags from the Metropolitan, and then meet him back at his place. But when we get to his place, he was so passed out and didn't hear the bell or phone ringing. So there we are fucking stranded in the lobby of his apartment block. Security eventually arrive and want to call the cops cos we've entered the building illegally and trespassing and shit - more convncing and negotiations ensue, eventually we are let free on the grounds that we vacate the property immediately! How fucked up is that? So we have no choice, but to walk in the rain to check back into a hotel. The Metro was booked out, and so the Four Seasons it was... $270 (R1700) for the king room, fine and you? And we just slept there for six hours!!!!!

Saturday and Sunday, 4 & 5 November 2006

We just spent Saturday and Sunday walking around downtown Vancouver, which is fucking amazing - tons of shops and restaurants and stuff! Pity that it rains non-stop! Thankfully Sunday was a dry one - we went for my second Yum Cha Chinese breakfast in Chinatown. FYI: us Chinese just called it "town". And then we made our way to the water and stuff. Jeez are there some pimp apartments with yachts to match!! Of course, I did some shopping, bought some souvenirs - for those of you that are nice to me I may have a lil summin' summin' for ya - but only if you're nice nice to me!

Apart from the rainy-ness, Vancouver is fucken awesome for wanna-be rockstars like us. Definitely will try go back some time!

Check the rest of the gallery!

PS. Thanks to the Four Seasons for "donating" a couple brollies for the weekend - I'll be sure to return them next time I'm in town, mmmkay?

Sea time... week 3 part 2

2006-11-06T14:52:00.000-06:00

So part 1 of week 3 is still to come but I will post it soon. Part 2 is just from this Sunday (5th November).

Roberto and myself decided on Sunday morning to hit the sea. So we caught the T to the Aquarium and bought 2 tickets which got us into the aquarium and a show on the 3D IMAX screen (with those funny glasses imax).

The aquarium was excellent.

The jellyfish were pretty pretty:

The penguins looked damn pissed off.

The ones on the left are the African Penguins and on the right are the Eyelash Penguins (just kidding - Rockhopper Penguins).

DANGER:

Sharky and Piranha (eat eat eat!!!)

Capybara (for Candice):

We then decided to go on harbour cruise to see the city, it was right next to the aquarium so we thought we might as well kill two seagulls with one oyster.
Here is where we launched from:

Here is Greg, Rob and Boston:

This is at the Charlestown Navy Yard, the picture is of the oldest commissioned warship afloat in the world, the USS Constitution (Old Ironsides) launched in 1797.
Behind it is the Bunker Hill Monument (bloodiest battle in the Revolutionary war) fought in 1775.

This is a great picture of State street which runs straight into the city and if you look carefully you will see the State House which is in the centre of town.

Enough of the history lesson.

We then had a bit of time to kill before the Imax so we went to the North End (home to the Italians in Boston), and there was this damn Italian who kept getting in the way while I was trying to take a picture of the North End sign. He wouldn't mave, so I just had to take the picture with him in it!

We walked around the North End (see below) and found and Italian restuarant and bought a prosciutto pizza, it was massive, and we packed it in, then rolled back to IMAX. The proscuitto wasn't as good as the one from home though.

We then rolled past this shop which I had to take a photo for the Gardenrooters:

IMAX was great, the glasses looked good and we made a new friend - Murtle the Turtle.

Overall it was a succesfull tourist weekend in the city.
Check out the gallery for all the photos and better images of the ones above...

Till next time... keep it clean.

Video's from the Bruins game

2006-11-06T08:23:00.000-06:00

Bruins winning goal...

The bus is full...

Boston - Halloween weekend...

2006-11-03T11:00:00.000-06:00

After a huge night on Thursday at the halloween work function (post still in progress) we passed out early on Friday night and woke up to some shitty weather on Saturday. Rob and I decided to go visit Circuit City (best deals on electronics) and so we googled the closest one to us, but our map didnt extend that far, so we thought we would be able to find it anyway and we headed off for the T.

The T is the train system that is used in Boston (like the Underground in London) and is pretty great. For $1.25 you can jump on and go pretty much anywhere in Boston and its on time... too easy!

Here is a pic of Rob and I on the T (look closely). We call this photo "Reflections".

We took the last stop on our map and started to walk, it then started to rain, hard.
As if it wasn't bad enough already we only had 1 umbrella. Basically we ended up walking about 9 blocks in the rain, but we eventually reached it!

(If you want to check a bigger version of the pics below, they are all in my Picassa gallery, so just click the link to the gallery in the right hand task bar. Over.)

Rob ended up buying a laptop (Hp - very cool)and I was about to buy an ipod, but i didn't. We had to wait 1/2 hour for them to load the software onto Rob's laptop so we decided to go visit HOME DEPOT (its like a big Makro)!

As you can see we were bored, so we took a few photo's. Check out the gallery for some more.

After we were done at Home Depot we hit Bed, Bath and Beyond to finish off our nice little Saturday (Old School!).

We bought tickets for the Boston Bruins (yellow & black) against the Ottawa Senators (Canadian) ice hockey game at the TDBankNorth Gardens stadium which is about 10 minutes from our place on the T. This is the same stadium that the Boston Celtics (Basketball) play in, they just move the ice. Our tickets were near the back,but they were still awesome! It was such a great game.

There were about 5 fights during the game, at one stage 2 guys were just belting each other and the whole stadium, inlcuding the ref's were just watching. The stadium is awesome and it works perfectly, no lines (except for beer) and there are about 109 places to get food. The final score was 2-1 to the Bruins who haven't been doing well lately but due to the presence of us South Africans managed to scrape a win. In my next post I will post 2 videos of the final goal and of the game.

After the match we met up with Tom (from Boys High) and his girlfriend Mara. This was the beginning to a harmful partying relationship. We went to the Dockside Saloon for a drink or 2.

Things got out of hand after about 5 beers and 6 shooters bought for us by one of Tom's friend.

On the way home I stopped for a little power nap in the passage of our floor. Rob found me there and sent me to bed. Thanks Rob.

Both of us felt a little sorry for ourselves the next day.

We scraped through Sunday with the help of our friends Panado and Disprin, and decided to go have some dinner later that evening with Rob at ZUMA's in Quincy Market (just to feel more at home)... it had been a good weekend.

Check out the gallery for more great pics...

Iced up!

2006-10-31T19:18:00.000-06:00

So it's been snowing here in Calgary since Sunday, and temps haven't gotten warmer than -5 Celcius since then.

Things are really dangerous out there - 114 accidents on Sunday alone, one right in front of us. It's so funny, it happens in slomo as your car slides on the icy roads and there's fokol you can do until you hit the car in front of you! And saw at least half a dozen people see their arses on the sidewalk - that's also hilarious - until it happens to you though!

But never in my life have I seen anything like this - this actually happened yesterday. Herman and I standing were outside having a smoke, when all of a sudden there's this crashing thud about a metre to Herman's left, followed by shatterings of ice along the paving! We fucken haul ass outta there, and check above where we were standing - whole blocks of ice are frozen on the roof above us, obviously they were melting and beginning to fall!

Imagine that, freak death by falling block of ice! That's one for the papers... Well they put this sign out this morning!

Boston - Week One...

2006-10-29T17:18:00.000-06:00

We arrived in Boston at about 2am after our delayed flight. Our apartment building is right in the middle of the city. To the left of us is China town and to the right is one of the main streets. Rob has a great view of the only strip club in Boston (Centrefolds) and I have a view of buildings, lots of buildings.

Our apartments are pretty jacked and they include everything, from a dishwasher to a tumble dryer (recently mastered) to a fridge with and ice machine to cable TV with about a billion channels including view on demand which is a whole bunch of shows and movies we can watch when we want. I have watched about 7 episodes of CSI: Miami - Horatio is my hero.

So here are some pics:

The lounge and the living room (combined).

My bedroom (with walk in closet) and the view from the lounge.

The gym and the pool.

So Rob and I hit the shops last week Saturday to see the town.
We had breakfast at Wendy's - it was OK. Better than Mickey D's.
I had a cheeseburger and asked for chips and they almost gave me Lay's - Slang lesson 1 - chips are fries.

I bought a trenchcoat for work and some Levis which were on sale at Macy's. When stuff goes on sale here it stays on sale till its sold - pretty cool.
The city is full of people in the streets and is busy all day and night.

Rob and I met up with Wendy (also from SA) and hit a bar in town called Kitty O' Shea's. Pretty cool, it was a $5 cover and beers were only $2. Cheap in these parts.

We woke the following morning and met Rob (no. 2) from SA and his friend Niall and went down to Quincy Market. Such a great place. It is like a massive market with tons of small restaurants to eat at, with hot meals that you dont have to make yourself, which is what im used to! We had lunch at a place called Dick's Last resort... the food was OK, the owner was a dick.

We also went to Rob's apartment and check how great his view is...

So after lunch is where the start of our continuing problem began. Shopping for food.
Unfortunately there are no Spar's or Pick n Pay's in town. Just small 7-11's and CVfreakinS's. So we dropped a 100 at them both and ended up with nothing much to show for it...

Which lead to our first homemade dinner...

Monday morning we headed for the office which is about a 10 minute walk from home, and 20 minutes on the first day after getting lost. The office is in a 15 story building in the centre of the financial district and it is pretty pimpin. Its very quiet inside, unlike in P-Town where the office had a bit more life to it.

Here is the common area on the 15th and the front of the building...

The building has a great view. This one is of the harbour with the airport behind it and of the streets below. You can see there are renovations being done, this is called the "big dig" which was one of the most expensive city change in the US where they took away the elevated highway which was running through town and put it underground. You can see the streets going under...

So we spent the first week getting admin done and training done. Got new cellphones and social security numbers. We also had a work Halloween party which was great (we went as sumo wrestlers), i have put 2 of these pics in the gallery, but I will make a post about it when we get sent all the pics from the office. Also check out the gallery for some other cool pics.

Stay tuned for scenes from my next episode.

Update: Fixed your pictures. But listen, I'm not Big Rache, I'm not here to clean up your mess!

News from one fucked up Halloween weekend

2006-10-28T19:18:00.000-05:00

Friday, 27 October 2006

Halloween isn't nearly as big here, as it is in the States. In Denver, we even had Halloween parties in the office. Or maybe Calgary is just too much of a sleepy town. I know G and Rob had a crazy Halloween, so stay tuned for that.

There were no real major parties going down, nothing. And that is what made the weekend fucked up. So we just randomised to our local pub where we friends with some real nice people, who've invited us for a weekend to the cabin in the mountains. Score! And then I got harassed by an old, demented and serial-killer like old man who wanted to wear my face for Halloween...

Saturday, 28 October 2006

The second fucked up incident of the weekend was the fact that we woke up at 07h30 (that gave us 4 hours sleep), to play golf. Apparently, the max temp was set to be 17C. By 8am, the temps were still at a crazy -5C!!!!

Check the frost and ice on the course. Naturally, I wasn't pleased. BTW, that's four layers of clothing on top and two on the bottom. Ever worn a snow parka to golf?

Senior meteorologist, Mike Mills, or whoever seriously fucked up, or at least pulled off the prank of the century, cos temps were below zero the entire day!!!! Dude, you pissed a lot of golfers off today!

It turned out the big Halloween parties were happening on Saturday night. But we had already accepted an invite to Farid's birthday - Grick food at Manie's on 17th. Farid is from Kenya - and his wife Narmin works with us. And they're like our new best friends, and the ONLY people from work to have offered to drive us around and take us out to the cool places. And they're muchos funny! Shame, all the Canadians had to listen to dodgy stories of Kenya and Safrica that only we thought were funny!

So this is Narmin getting licked by Farid. And their friends Sharoz and her husband, but I can't remember his name.

Sunday, 29 October 2006

I woke up this morning, and realised that it was an hour earlier than what my watch(es) said - I am now the proud owner a couple watches. Apparently at midnight, the clocks were turned back an hour.

And yet more fucked up-ness... when I looked outside - snow. As pretty as newly fallen snow is, from now on, it's only downhill from now - cold temps right through to when we leave.

It's too cold to type, and I'm sure you all hating reading so much, so here's my story in pictures...

Jadey-Poo, if you still can't see my pictures then this post is gonna make fokol sense! Or click here to see the gallery.

And how to carve a jack-o-lantern, by Dari Dawg, circa 2005.

Training...

2006-10-26T08:58:00.000-05:00

So all the secondees left Chicago, in a bus, heading for the Q Centre just about 50 min out of town. This was the first time that we got to see some of the suburbs during the day, and they are exactly like the movies.

For example:

The houses are all pretty massive, but they are made out of wood, and they all have Halloween decorations outside and a 'hot tub' in the 'backyard'. They are all pretty similar, but the great thing was that none of them had security fences, gates or even walls (besides the white/brown pickets). There is just green everywhere, we drove past a couple of golf courses which would put PCC to shame on a bad day.

We also passed a "Gentlemen's Club" which reminded me if home!

So we eventually arrived at the Q Centre which is absolutely massive. It can hold up to 2000 guests and has 2 clubs, a miniature golf course, sports fields, a fitness centre, a games room and everything else you can imagine.
This is at the reception area:

This is the dam with the clubhouse on the left where the bar and clubs are:

So we had training all day (from 8 till 6) which was long and more boring than watching paint dry. But the cool thing was that when it came to meals, the yanks didn't hold out. There must have been about 20 different dishes to try all buffet (pronounced: buff - it) and there was every type of food you could imagine, from stir-fly to hamburgers to sushi to turkey to a stir-flied turkeyburger made of sushi. There was even a soft serve machine (no pink - only choc and white) with all the toppings including crushed M&M's. Then there is the 'soda' fountain, which is in all take-aways here. It is basically a coke machine and you pour yourself any flavour of any drink as much as you can drink - large is a 1 litre! We even had Haggen Dazs (or however it is spelt) ice cream fridges for tea time.

Besides the eating there was another big first for Robbie and myself… washing. Yes, I haven't washed before (thanks Rach) and it wasn’t that bad. We argued for about 15-20minutes on if the shirt was supposed to go with the whites or the colours, but besides that we managed. We even tumble-dryed - big steps!

So we had a few big nights at the local club - nothing great. The beer that they serve is mostly Miller Light (not that you would say so) and Sam Addams, which both taste pretty crap but they were on special ($8 for a pitcher - 2litres). On the last night we were there we caught a yellow school bus to a club called " The Cadillac Ranch", I so regret not taking my camera because it could have been Drop Zone 6000km's away. Ok, maybe not that bad, maybe Recess. But it was a fun experience, Rob and I ended up doing a Karaoke duo in the early hours of the morning - I think it was U2?

I had to take a pic with the view from our training room cause I basically stared at it all day (I can tell you how many leaves on each tree). It is fairly beautiful out here at this time of year.

So we left training in a stretched limo, like pimps... Accounting pimps. Here is a picture of the limo, and a picture of me getting used to the future.

So overall the training was fun, we ended up waiting at the airport for 4 hours due to another delayed flight, but eventually borded and landed in Boston at about 2 in the morning waited another 45 minutes for our bags and headed off to our apartments.

The moral I got out of the training week was, "Wash your pants inside out so you don't get those little white things on them that take forever to pick off."

If you've read this and want to leave a comment please click on the blue 'comment' below and leave a message.

Check out the Picassa Gallery for more pics and stay tuned for scenes from my next episode.

Shikaka, I mean Chicago.

2006-10-24T16:34:00.000-05:00

So after a day delay due to "technical problems" Rob and myself left Jhb (O.R. Tambo/father of people of the south) International airport for a greuling 19 hour flight to Washinton DC. The flight was damn long and I must have watched at least 6 movies (including Nacho Libre twice - lovin Jack Black)and eaten at least 6 packets of peanuts. Eventually we landed in Washington (after a stop over in Dakar which looks like Mozambique but poorer)and we had to stay in a Holiday Inn for the night before flying off again (3 hours later) to Chicago.

Eventually 2 days late we landed in Chicago and hit the office for training and then headed off to the "Hard Rock Hotel" to drop off our bags and hit the town. That night we deshtroyed the Hunt Club and Mc Faddens and ended up eating Subway (new replacement for Boerie rolls) at about 4 in the morning.

Woke up and hit the town, and now as you all have been wondering, the story becomes illustrated because I finally bought a camera (such a great deal at Radioshack).

The Hard Rock Hotel:

We started off with the tourist ride on a ferry up the river which was awesome. The city is amazing. The buildings are massive and pimpin' unlike the Tshwane city centre. To work in the cities here is the place to be unlike back at home.

View of Lake Michigan and the Chicago river (looks like the sea doesn't it!):

So the HIGHlight of the boat trip had to be the Sears tower:

and of course the new TRUMP tower which is in the centre of town (with Trump written all over it, which will be the 2nd highest tower in the city when it is done):

We then went to the Navy Pier which is like a huge carnival on the Pier. Rob and I made some new friends:

That evening we hit the Hancock tower and had a $7 beer (R 56) beer at the "Signature Room" on the 95th floor. It tasted like beer.

The Sunday morning we decided to find the famous "silver bean" so we caught a cab from the hotel to Millenium Park. Little did we know it was about a block away and the cab drive cost us $5. I now know exactly where millenium park is.

It was worth the $5 cause the bean was good for the heart:

The city in the bean & the bean taking a photo of us!

Millenium park was also pretty grand:

Then there was the changing faces water fall (the face actually blinks and looks like Steve):

Chicago was awesome and it was a pity we where only there 2 days.
Sunday lunch time we left for training at the Q Centre about 40minutes out of Chicago.

Check out my Picassa gallery for more great pictures.

Stay tuned for scenes from my next episode.

One month

2006-10-23T19:01:00.000-05:00

...and counting.

Hard to believe it's been one month since we last deshtroyed Manhattan with a couple running-man dance-offs. One month since I last took Brian's and/or Martin's and/or Joel's cash on the course. One month since I drove a car... on the left side of the road. One month since I last had to put up with Judge's and Pot's abuse. One month since I chowed braai'd chiggen...

It's even harder to believe that it's been one month since I was given a day and a half to shut up and ship out here to Canadia. With nothing but my snow parka on my back, 55 kilos of luggage, one set of golf clubs, a thousand dollars U.S. in my pocket and a box of Rooibos tea, I made my way to this side of the Atlantic. How was I going to survive for four and a half months in freezing Calagary, I did not know?

My mind was plagued with bad thoughts and what to expect, if my stint in Denver was anything to go by - until my chauffeur-driven limo delivered me to fully paid for downtown apartment. That was real nice. And then my "welcome to Calgary" consultant introduced me to my banker who gave me my bank details - salary and allowance already deposited. Doubly nice. And then the HR people showed me to my office and introduced as "manager". Triply nice. And then G Man and Boston Rob arrived, and we planned the most international-ChumpStyle-machete-deshtroyer December holiday ever. EVER!

And since then, things have been going well. Met some cool people (and by people I mean chicks. And by cool I mean hot), been to some beautiful places, done some crazy-mad shopping, completed some good work for my client and played some really good golf (this is by far the most important criteria on which the success of this stint here will be measured). Which means it's been good so far. Then again, this is Canadia, how bad can things be, eh? Apart from the fact that they finish all their sentences with, "Eh?", eh?

Let's hope the next three and a half months are just as good.

PS. Judge, kindly do not wish any bad luck upon me. Thanking you in advance.

Attachment: Email to the peeps!

Ya mun, me punkie!

2006-10-23T16:21:00.000-05:00

I've decided to grow my hair. New country - new hair. Actually, cold country - more hair. So my hair's been a bit bushy the past couple weeks, so I decided it was time for a trim. Please hold back the laughter until I'm done.

So we book appointments at the hairdresser just around the corner for last Saturday, just cos its close, and I walk by everyday and it looks decent.

So we walk in, only to see two Black dudes (otherwise known as African Canadians) reading the Canadian equivalents of Bona and Drum magazines in the front, and others getting some greasy jerricurl do and Luda-looking cornrows in the back. You should've seen their faces when we walked in! Actually, I would've liked to have seen ours. But we were beyond the point of no return, so we just sat down and waited uncomfortably. I think Herman shat solid rocks. He was all panicky any way about how someone, other than his normal barber back home, would be cutting cutting his hair, let alone a soul brother.

You should see this place, just like Barbershop the movie. Marvin Gaye and Bob Marley jamming, all the dudes singing the soul. They were just missing guys playing checkers in the corner and Cedric the Entertainer eating fried chiggen in the back.

And so I got my hair faded by Francis, the West Indian owner from St Vincent. You should hear these guys talk some pure Caribbean smack. They talk so fast I missed most of it (it's English mixed with Caribbean slang), but you can tell they're whipping out some serious dirt. And they were loving us, couldn't believe we had the balls to go through with the whole deal! Too funny!

I've declined to post pics of my new fro since it's a work in progress - still growing. But patience young one, patience.

Here's Herman in the hot seat. And the poster from which I chose my new hair - a mixture between number 14 and 15. Not bad, eh?

Apologies, cellphone voyeur cam again.

Sinking balls

2006-10-19T22:07:00.000-05:00

This is how I spend a lot of my time - putting my stolen driving range balls, with my brand new Ping putter, into four foam holes that cost me two dollars at Sears.

But that's not why I'm writing tonight.

Here's the deal: the interior walls of our apartment are made of dry prefab, just like 99% of the houses in North America. And we have this dude that lives above us. We call him "Thumper" for good reason. This boy and his nympho girlfriend must be half rabbit, half triathlete cos they go humpity hump all day, all night. And we can hear the thumping through the walls. He actually keeps us up at night sometimes.

Anyway, there I was surfing the net, while Thumper was at it for the fifth time that night, when all his thumping made my putter, which was leaning against the wall, fall right over, and knock the lamp over!!! You don't believe me, right? Fuck, I don't believe me, but it happened. Seh-ree-us!

G-G-G-Uniiit!

2006-10-15T21:59:00.000-05:00

Is in da house!!! G Man landed a couple days back in the US of A, sipping on a margerita in his hotel room as we speak, staring at the awesome Chi-town skyline. Had a good ol' chat through GTalk (Judge's greatest invention since powerpoint porn) for over an hour now, so GREAT!!!

This will hopefully be the last pictureless post... I'll let G post his own pics when he has a chance!

Links from my visits:
The Windy City
Chillin' in Chicago
More of Chicago
Home of the Bulls

Ladder 42

2006-10-14T11:41:00.000-05:00

So there I am admiring the view from my 42nd floor office when the fire alarm starts ringing, with the loudspeaker going "Please stay calm and remain where you are. We are busy investigating an incident."

BTW - The Saddledome hockey stadium in top leftish of photo, and the Calgary Tower which is one of the Calgary cityscape wonders - it's quite gay cos my office on the 42nd is higher than that!

I'm like, fuck that, gonna bounce. Grab my files and laptop. Those things I'll protect with my life, I'll be burnt dark and crispy long before those two ever get damaged!!

Then the siren goes totally ape shit and the loudspeaker is like, "FIRE! FIRE! FIRE! GET THE FUCK OUTTA HERE!" and crap. How exciting! Until I realised I was on the 42nd floor.

There I am, snow jacket on, laptop backpack and files in my arms, I head down 42 flights of stairs! It took about 20 minutes to get down. I sat at Tim Hortons for coffee and lunch, hoping to see the building burn down or something, but it never did. So I went home. It was 13h30! Nice!

But surprisingly, people were really calm, no fears of 9/11 coming into play. Then again, this is Canadia. The only people Canadians ever piss off are the Americans. Oh wait, they seem to be bombing anything their president can't spell...

Here some howlers

2006-10-14T03:05:00.000-05:00

And I'm not talkin' timberwolves or nothing. I thought Americans were dumb, but you should have heard some of the pearlers. These are just two of the brainiac responses Canadians have given me the past three weeks.

The Sean Paul Likes Jerk Chicken Award goes to Dude at the strip club urinal:
Dude: Hey buddy whatsup?
Me: Just chilling bru, chilling!
Dude: Oh my god, you JAMAICAN?
Me: Ya mun, now shut it cos Jamaican me piss skew!

The Extra Sensory Perception Award goes to Pretty but dumb girl from Tax:
Pretty dumb girl: South African, eh? Interesting. But you don't look like a typical South African. Are you maybe part Asian?
Me: Hun'ed percent Blackanese.

I wish I could record them and play it back to them. I wonder if they would even realise how fucken stoopid they are?

Check some of the responses in the US of A.

Oh, and I almost forrrgeting. I eez mitting Kazakstani girrrl. She worrrking in offeece. She nice. I go "High FIVE". She no theenk I funny. I laff. I give self high five. I laff more. I go now.

G on the way

2006-10-09T10:28:00.000-05:00

So G Man is to be arriving on Thursday on the east coast of the US of A - Boston, Massatooshits. It was supposed to have been D.C. but shit got changed.

Seriously I don't know how he's gonna cope. Dude's 25 and still living at home, never been a day out the house without Big Rache by his side - packing a lunchbox filled with chips, muffins and Milo drinks, making sure he's wearing his thermal jocks in the winter, walking him across the road and along his merry way to school/work. Maybe you can have your crumbed chiggen FedEx'd over? But at least you'll be joined by Boston Rob (mmmm, mmmm - hippo - private joke!). Then again "Robert" is just as useless - 50 years of life between them, yet no independence to show for it!

Six months is a long time buddy, gonna miss a lot things from home!

Say goodbye to the warm and sunny weather...

...your friends...

...MACHETE DESHTROYER nights at the MadHatta... that continued to the Steers...

...and of course, your Me-Julie.

Oh, yes, and your fam and Big Rache. But don't worry, I'll be back in Feb or so to take care of them all - it's what a good brother-in-law should do...

Some tips - take sleeping pills, magazines (but not the Men's Health), a travel pillow and Imodium for the dodge scrambled eggs in the morn. Pray you don't have a crying American brat kicking your chair behind you, or a fat women who's overflowing from her seat onto yours. But be a gentleman and let her use your tray to eat her food. Oh, and don't get offended when you get called Australian.

But it should be a good one, you and "Robert" should deshtroy that place one time. So when in America, do as the Americans do. Be loud. Be proud(ly Safrican!). Work long. Drive slow. And be fat. You maybe wanna brush up on your Afrikaans or Sotho or something, so you can point out the hot chick, fat dude or Larry Bird when you're on the train.

And count down the days 'til "News from one fucked up American holiday". My visas are approved, flights are paid for. It's on. Like Donkey Kong!

Travel safe, and catch you on the flip side. Pieces.

Bears - in case of attack

2006-10-08T12:08:00.000-05:00

Amazingly, you're allowed to get out your car and hike the trails, even though there are bears, cougars and wolves walking about. So at the entrance to Banff National Park, you get this pamphlet with all the necessary info, but with this whole section of what to do in case you're attacked by any animals.

This is pretty much what they say about bear attacks:
There are two kinds of bear attacks, DEFENSIVE and PREDATORY.

Defensive:
The bear feels threatened, and needs to protect itself, its cubs or its space. In this case, PLAY DEAD! The bear will no longer see you as a threat and should leave you alone.

Predatory:
The bear wants to chow your fat ass in preparation for hibenation. DO NOT PLAY DEAD. Fight back or run fucken far, fucking fast!

Come a bear attack, I wonder if any of us would remember what to do. Play dead? Don't play dead? Make Yogi Bear noises? Offer it some honey?

Even funnier is that a defensive attack may have changed to a predatory attack, if the attack has lasted longer than two minutes. So have you an egg timer handy too.

News from one action packed Thanksgiving weekend

2006-10-07T22:47:00.000-05:00

Monday, October 9, 2006 is Thanksgiving in Canada. It's strange cos I would've expected Thanksgiving to fall at the same time as American Thanksgiving, which is the last Thursday in November, if I'm not mistaken. So there goes that plan to visit G Man in November...

This is our second weekend here, and now that we're settled and know what is what, we decided to do as much as possible while the weather is still half warm.

Friday, October 6, 2006

We were planning to hit Whiskeys, which apparently is the latest and greatest club downtown, when the guy who sold us our cellphones reckoned we should spend our evening at the French Maid (nudge, nudge, wink, wink). We obviously cottoned onto what he was getting at, but Googled it, just to do some research.

Girly bars are totally different from Teazers in SA, and totally different from Shotguns in Denver! Here in Calgary, there is to be no physical contact with any of the girls. So what you do is you sit around the stage while they drop their skants. And then you play a lil game of coinage - they stick a Looney ($1 coin) on their, um, on their thingie, and you have to whack it off (whoa, not like that!) with your Looney. This is actually a lot less sexual than it sounds. In fact, its flippen fun! And if you get it off (the Looney), you win a prize. Per game, the chicks must make about $100 for about 10 minutes of work! Cash money, tax free!

Well, thank God for our pinpoint marksmanship learnt from hours of marbles at primary school, cos between Herman and we won a helluva lot - signed posters, fridge magnets and Polaroids of the nekkid chicks on stage - pictures from a strip club, gotta be a first!!! Sadly come 2am, the lights came on, the music went off, the clothes came on, and we were off. We'll do that again, no doubt. But it cost a pretty penny, so not too often!

Saturday, October 7, 2006

We rented a car for the weekend from Enterprise - an out of the box, black Kia Maginko or something, and took it road trippin' out west to the mountains.

Along the way we stopped at the Canada Olympic Park where they held the 1988 Winter Olympics. How deshtroyer - they have the ski jumps, luge tubes and all the other cool stuff! But since it's not snowing yet, it's used as a killer downhill mountain biking circuit!

Check the gallery (7 photos).

Then off to Banff National Park, and a quick drive through the Banff town – one of those small towns where everybody knows everybody! But we didn't stay there too long, and drove another half hour to Lake Louise. Now I've seen some good looking scenery in my life, but this must be the one of the most beautiful places I ever seen, ever. Lake Louise is a bright turquoise lake, nestled in between the huge pine tree and snow capped peaks of the Albertan Rockies (I think I read that off the flyer?). We then decided to walk a trail to one of the lookout points, not realizing that the 1.1 km walk would be a lot tougher when it's a crazy uphill climb, through a dark snow covered pine forest, at really high altitude. But we got there eventually - such a view of the lake and the hotel.

Check the gallery for more of Banff and Lake Louise (18 photos).

Sunday, October 8, 2006

I can't remember what we did yesterday. Yeah , we just chilled during the day I think? Later that eve we drove out to Tequila's for the big Thanksgiving bash they were punting on the radio. Seven bucks bought us entrance into a real cricket fest, about 20 people in the entire club. So we went back to the French Maid, but just played pool in the bar area - there was to be no more throwing Looneys at no one's goen last night. Shit got pear and we made our way out at 3am, only to get harrassed by (damn fine) hookers. And that's why I was online chatting to all ya'll at 03h30!

Monday, October 8, 2006

Happy Thanksgiving! It's quite a non-event here, not like in the US. And we didn't even get a single invite for dinner. And they said Canadians were hospitable. Definitely a calmer Thanksgiving this year for me, especially after last year's deshtroyer in Vegas.

So I went to the zoo, seeing as though it was warm and sunny. And by warm, I mean it was about 6C when I got there at noon. It's amazing, and everyone is wearing T-shirts and eating ice-cream!

It's not the greatest zoo in the world, and for 18 bucks expected a lil more. Randomised my way around in just over an hour. Then I ot lost and took me a half hour to find the exit. And 10 minutes to find my car. And another 20 minute detour to get home!

But I got some good snaps - Canadian wildlife - bears, and elk and mooses and wolves and things...

The African section was quite lame. It's indoors, in this flippen humidified dome. But I've never been that close to a hippo before though. This dude wondered if giraffes were edible - so there I was - "I'm Safrican, and yes, some restaurants do serve giraffe. Tastes like chiggen. My pleasure".

Then onto the crappy Aussie animals.

Tree kangaroos. Huh? Who would've thought? So another dude was wondering if roo's were edible. And in my stock standard Saffer accent whipped out, "I'm an Aussie, and yes, them f'cken roo's are f'cken edible. If only you can f'cken catch 'em. Bouncy lil f'ckers."

Reckon the Canadians really hate Aussies now. My pleasure. So the Aussie display was really second hand, it was embarrassing.

And that was pretty much the whole zoo. So I decided to go home, and then got lost in the maze in the Prehistoric display {yawn}. After I deliberately skipped that section - big plastic dinosaurs, who cares?

Calgary Zoo gallery (25 photos).

And that, ladies and gents, was what went down this weekend. Probably a bit tamer than a Manhattan weekend out, but definitely more action packed.

'Til next weekend...

Laundry conundrum

2006-10-04T21:15:00.000-05:00

What I hate about this place the most is that having a maid to make your bed, wash your clothes and dishes and make you scrambled eggs and muffins in the morn is just too expensive. Apparently there's this rather expensive minimum wage thing they have in place. And some law about slavery.

Thank god we have a dishwasher.

If you mentioned front-loader to me, I picture Kenwood 50W sound systems, hooked up to two 15-inch Rockford amps. Alas, front- and top-loaders refer to our washing machine and tumble dryer.

But I seriously have very little idea how to use it. I actually had to call my mom to ask her. And at almost $2 a minute from the useless Bell phone card the office got us, there was no time for chit-chat and "How you doing?" crap.

All I need to know - do I use hot, warm or cold water? And what do all the other signs mean? And how long do I put them in the tumble dryer for? And on the clothing label, which is the sign for dry cleaning, and which is the tumble dryer symbol - the circle, or triangle or what?

Billy-May Cyrus spotted in Calgary

2006-10-02T23:35:00.000-05:00

And then on the way home, there was this guy, wait it was a woman - with this crazy long, home-peroxided moolay sleeping on the train. So for the second time in a day, I whipped out my cellphone - normal camera with flash and click-click would be way too obvious - to snap a classic.

Chowing Doos

2006-10-02T22:05:00.000-05:00

So this is where I ate lunch today, some dodgy Chinese take-away in my client's building. Cost me five dollars. Which is probably about right? So there I sat, taking pics with my cellphone, dirty grin on my face. I wonder what them Canadians were thinking?

I'm still chuckling...

Very MTV Cribs-like

2006-09-30T23:31:00.000-05:00

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?

Shaganappi Point Golf Course

2006-09-30T23:13:00.000-05:00

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)...

Death by red stickers

2006-09-30T23:10:00.000-05:00

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.

Housemate / colleague

2006-09-30T23:08:00.000-05:00

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 weekend and stuff

2006-09-24T20:21:00.000-05:00

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.

Porn on the plane?

2006-09-21T10:24:00.000-05:00

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.

Welcome to Canadia, eh?

2006-09-20T08:12:00.000-05:00

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.

Dari and G Man in North America - Intro

2006-09-19T15:01:00.000-05:00

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...