Happy New Year!

Happy New Year!

Seeing as this post is being written the second week of January, I accept any and all reprimands, but do thoroughly hope everyone enjoyed their holidays as much as I did!

As I'm sure you all know I spent 2 weeks in Cape Town for the holidays with Alexio. We had a fabulous time. We did almost everything on my critical To Do List: 

• Get a picture together on top of table mountain (see below), 
• visit the Simons Town penguins, 
• eat Thai food (we had it TWICE! and I bought a ton of Thai curry packets so no longer will be deprived in Lilongwe), 
• have a Big Mac (was as delicious as I remembered)
  
• go to the movies (we went to 6!!)
• Eat a slice of baked cheese cake
• Have some hard, scooped, ice cream (Haagen Dazs baby!)
• Spend lots of time in malls (and we certainly managed to do this)
• Get take away chinese food (was more difficult than we had thought, but we were victorious in the end)

Now I know that many of those seem like silly things to top my list of "Must's" for Cape Town, but live in Lilongwe for a year and you'll understand.

In addition to the "Must's" we did a bunch of other stuff including a trip to Robben Island (a "must" on Alexio's list), a hop-on hop-off bus tour through the city and sourrounding areas, visit Greenmarket Square, check out the Slave Museum, and of course, eat, eat, and eat some more (grapes and cottage cheese were particular favs becuase they aren't available here).

It was great to get to just hang out, which is what we did majority of the time.

We were fortunate enough to have some really fantastic accommodation. For our christmas gift my mom treated us to a room at the Westin Grand Arabella Quays, a 5 star hotel near the waterfront. It was heaven! The bathroom had heated floor tiles and the breakfast buffet included sushi! We didn't want to go, so got as late a check out as possible so we could soak up every moment of luxury. We spent Christmas Eve at a gigantic shopping mall (and were literally there all day - leaving our hotel at 9:30am and returning around 10pm) and then Christmas morning opened presents in our room before going for breakfast. As a Christmas gift for Alexio (and me!) I had arranged for massages late Christmas morning, and then we enjoyed the sauna before returning to relax in our room. It was wonderful!

For New Years we wanted another nice place and stayed at the 4star Townhouse Hotel which was also lovely. While trying to take advantage of having a/c, I think I gave myself a cold, but it was worth it. We tried to watch Fireworks at the Waterfront, but there were SO many people that we didn't manage to find a place to eat a late dinner, and then our vantage point wasn't very good for seeing the display, so we ended up watching the finale while standing beside a taxi so we could jump in and be whisked away before the hoards could block all the streets.

I couldn't bring myself to sit down and write blogs while I was away, so as a consequence I can't really remember many of the little things I'm sure there were to write about.  Certain female members of my family have been requesting "juicy tidbits" and to that I have to say, those that I remember and aren't included here, are staying right where they are!

I can say that I was startled back into reality as my plane came in for landing in Lilongwe because I was caught off guard by the sight of grass topped mud huts and little boys hearding cattle across the road. Funny how being away from it all, and back in a developed city, can make you forget so quickly.

I cried a little as we landed because I don't really want to be back here, but am determined to stick it out and to make the best of the remaining 5 months of my contract.  I never make New Years resolutions, but this year have decided to make 2:

1. Be positive about my life in Malawi.

2. Christmas and New Years in Canada next year.

Hope your 2009 is off to a great start!

View of the waterfront from our wonderful Westin Grand room for chrismas eve and christmas day. We didn't want to leave!

Turn your head a little left and this was the view continued (gotta love floor to ceiling windows!)

Enjoying the good life with room service

Views from Table Mountain

Visiting the penguin colony at Boulder Beach in Simons Town

On the way to Robben Island

View of Table Mountain from Robben Island