Here we are

There we are. In South Africa. In Muizenberg. For the next two months. The first page of the book is turned. We arrived here yesterday. The trip itself is worth a few words. After getting on the airplane on Friday with some delay, we had to run for another flight in Istanbul. This was a close call. Thank God we made it. Even a bathroom stop was in a necessary hurry. When we had the shuttle bus to the plane, we were joking about suitcases that were spread over the road. “Nadine, I just saw your suitcase laying there!” It is terrible to fly at night. I nearly slept for three hours when we made a small stop in Johannesburg. After a two hour flight I could pick up my suitcase, too bad the suitcases of Jeroen, Melani and Nadine were left in Istanbul. Hopefully these suitcases will arrive today. We took the car to our apartment. It is very strange to drive on the other side of the road, but once you are on the road it is just fine. However some other things on the road have amazed us. Someone reading a book on the rails beside the highway, a man in a wheelchair riding on the highway against traffic and Africans who sell whips by the traffic lights. First culture shock was there.

The apartment is lovely. Furnished completely in light colours as beige and white. We have met Venecia, the assistant of our landlord. She has been making it a home for us, ready to live in. Electricity is pre-paid, so she arranged electricity for the rest of the week. The apartment is considerably small, however it has the perfect size for the four of us. The kitchen is pretty big and the living room small and cosy. We have been buying some decorations, in order to make it our home. Colour has been added a little.

After arriving in our apartment we went to the Open Day of the Muizenberg Festival. We met our supervisor Claire, she is very nice and directly came hugging us after she recognised us. And she is pregnant and very proud about it. We met many people of the organisation, who were all very excited about having us here. Personally I have forgotten many names already, however this is reasonable seen the number of people we have met.

We had some simple dinner afterwards, with a glass of wine. The red wine was lovely, the white wine was terrible. We were accompanie by Ted-Garston, our teddy mascot for the next months. Kinky detail, he has been sleeping with Jeroen last night.