The holiday

* Posts will be done by Dan Milja until my account is fixed - Dan *



We have had a great past week. Christmas was amazing fun. There wasn't much of a build-up in the first weeks of December and it seemed no-one was in the festive mood - not because they didn't want to be, but because it just didn't feel like Christmas was around the corner. It was hard to think that, on December 18th, that Christmas was one week away. Neither Milja or I had done any shopping by then (we 'rescued' ourselves by going to Canal Walk three days in a row for 5 hours each time during the next week).



The 23rd and 24th were spent with Minna (mostly) and I (for a bit) in the kitchen making food. The evening of the 24th was when we had the family dinner and Santa came. Presents followed.



On the 25th, we swam, played a lot of boardgames that the family got as presents, and ate leftovers. In the evening, Milja and I went to Charlotte's house as we had been invited by her mum to have Christmas dinner with them. It was great fun. We swam, played table football, ate a delicious meal and watched Thank You for Smoking.



Since then, the rest of the family here has flown to Finland until Jan 11th (!), leaving Milja and I with the dogs and an otherwise empty house. I was so desperate to go with them, but the cost was just too high. It was weird in the car as we were driving to the airport; a Finnish song (by HIM), came on the radio, which I have only ever heard in Finland. It took me back to the summer :)



Yesterday we had a small braai with Charlotte, Sean, Hattie, Jamie B and Jamie K (for a little while). We swam, ate and went in the sauna. In the evening, Milja, Hattie, Charlotte and I went to see She's The Man, which is not a very good film, but it's funny at times, and I liked watching some football :P



Today it looks as though we are going surfing either in Muizenberg or at Baker's beach house in Scarborough. I am a bit nervous using Heikki's new wetsuit as I left the last one on the roof of the car after I took it off and that was the last we saw of it. He just got a new one before Christmas :S I will be careful.

Blogger is messing up

A new version of Blogger has recently come out of Beta, and we are having some problems with it - hence me writing this from Milja's account :)

Please bear with us while I try and sort this out.

Dan x

Christmas is here!

Yesterday was Christmas Eve, which means the big meal, presents and Santa in Finland. We celebrated the Finnish way too, and we had a really good day.

We started off with a swim in the pool out in the warm sun, shopped for food and some last minute presents, cooked for a few hours to get everything ready, had a nap, cooked some more, ate our huge feast (prepared by Minna), went to the sauna, waited for Santa, then sat in the lounge and opened presents around the tree.

Milja had a very Bodyshop Christmas, lots to pamper herself with! I got some very nice shoes, CDs, clothes, books and a swiss army knife among others.

Although today is Christmas Day, for Finns it is spent relaxing, eating the leftovers from yesterday and playing with what we got from Santa.

Merry Christmas to everyone having Christmas today. Enjoy yourselves!

Birthdays

Happy Birthday to Nanny and Heikki for today :)

An African play and the World's best pizza

The Hugalls are over visiting their family in South Africa, and they invited Milja and I out to an African play yesterday afternoon. It was in downtown Cape Town at Artscape. The play was the nativity with an African twist, with songs and some of the dialect in Afrikaans and other South African languages. It was great fun to see another take on the nativity.

Afterwards we all went to Kenilworth, a suburb near Claremont, and went to Burruso's, where, according to the Hugall's relative Paul, they serve the best pizza in the World. The restaurant opened an hour after we arrived, so us 'kids' went to nearby Jake's for a chatter. The pizza was good, but we had to wait for more relatives to arrive before we dined. We ended up being in the restaurant for nearly three hours in total, but the place was buzzing and it wasn't hard to bare.

A brilliant time... continues

We had an awesome time with James... It's wierd him not being here still. Highlights include camel riding, drinks under Table Mountain, sunburn and talking to a turkey. James was mega burnt pretty much all week - the token Brit.



Today Milja, Charotte, Hattie and I drove to Kleinmond, a small town over the mountains that line the East side of False Bay, about 1hr 30mins from here. We went to pick up puppies for C H. The woman is a bit crazy, and she even patted me on the behind as we left. Anyway, the new dog owners are happy and so are the dogs, even Hattie's one who threw up huge amounts of rice in the car on the way home.



The Hugall's are in South Africa for a while this month. Milja and I are going to see them for drinks at their guesthouse in Tokai at 8 this evening, and then we are taking the boys out after.

What we did with James

This is our list on which we wrote down what we had done during James' stay...



Thursday 7th

- lunch

- school

- shopping

- charlottes house

- cubanas

- cafe vespa

- extreme hotel

- fun road



Friday 8th

- school

- fish />- world of birds

- clubbing



Saturday 9th

- breakfast/lunch at primi

- stellenbosch

- sean's brielfy

- tonic



Sunday 10th

- hout bay market

- lunch with charlottes dad

- cape town market

- james bond movie, blue route

- char's house

- CTFM



Monday 11th

- chapmans peak

- imhoff

- penguins

- teahouse

- scratchpatch

- imhoff - camels

- sean's

- chips

- beach (nearly)

- home

- beach

- drink

- sean's (quickly)

- jamie k's

- chicken burgers



Tuesday 12th

- seal island

- surfing/bodyboarding/swimming at muizenburg

- jamies house briefly

- seans house

- dunes

- chinese

- seans

- home

- 1/2 of film: hoodwink



Wednesday 13th

- 1/2 of hoodwinked

- to charlottes

- sean's

- peddlars

- bowling

- cancer



Thursday 14th

- canal walk

- mac shop

- christmas tree

- sean's house

- primi

- sean's house



Friday 15th

- to hout bay for a stand

- decorated christmas tree

- table mountain, signal hill

- waterfront, lunch

- home, sauna cleaning of pool

- charlottes - dinner

- tin roof

- party

- drive by capetown (waste of petrol)

- party

- home

- will and grace



Saturday 16th

- township tour

- lunch Will Grace

- brai

- airport :(

Chapman's Peak, Penguins, Camels and the Sand dunes

Photos by James

While he's here

Here's some more photos from James of things we have done these past few days...































There will probably be only photo posts this next week as I don't have time to write up what we're doing - far too many things to be doing :)

Cafe Vespa, Cape Town

James is here

James arrived this morning... and brought the best of English winter rain with him. We have been out for lunch, to Mr Price for some bargain clothes and we are now readying ourselves to go out for dinner...

A 'free' evening

Today, Milja has gone on a trip with her school. The top two grades (I think) have travelled about an hour South to a camp, Parmalat Enviro Centre, for activities and a one-night stay. It is supposed to be a treat for the older kids, but there has been reluctance at going from pretty much everyone.

I will pick her up tomorrow morning in time to be able to pick James up from the airport when his plane arrives at 10-something. Only 19 hours now, it should be a great 10 days. Milja has written a huge list of things to do and places to visit while he is here - expensive but jampacked with fun.

I am at home alone trying to learn hard Java, finding it hard to concentrate with all the bangs from upstairs. The thatch is still coming along nicely, an today the workers cleaned up most of the mess and are taking down the last of the old roof structure. They are also chiselling away at the old gable at the front of the house so they can build on top of it - it needs to be made higher to match the new gable on the other side and the new roof beams.

Countries I have visited

I stumbled upon this fun little map thing...

create your own visited countries map

I love how being to Hong Kong means that the whole of China is coloured :P

Independence Day

December 6th 1917, Finland became an independant state from Russia.

Happy Independence Day, all the Finns out there.

Hyvää Itsenäispäivää!

Independence Day of Finland
Finland's declaration of independence

The most December I could find

The most December I could find Hosted on Zooomr

It is December already, but the sun is beaming down on us and our unfinished house. We are having many-a-jolly braai, lounging by pools, wearing t-shirts and shorts, visiting the beach. It is minus degrees in Finland. I found a tiny reminder that it is actually time for winter when I found these old leaves in the corner of our back yard.

CPUT

Acceptance Hosted on Zooomr

This morning I received a letter (finally) from CPUT saying I have been accepted on the Multimedia course starting at the end of January. This will end a run of 9 months without studying (bar the Java course), as I finished EVTEK at the end of April.

Flying high

This is a very cool photo by my cousin Tim from when they came and visited us in Hout Bay in August.

Thatch

Our new roof is nearing completion, at least from the outside. Thatch has been going up for the past few days and is looking a lot more watertight :)

Facebook hates me

"Hey, your account is temporarily unavailable due to site maintenance. It should be available again within a few hours. We apologize for the inconvenience."



Hmph.

The quest for 007

Our Sunday evening tradition is to go out to see a film. This last Sunday, we were excited to go and see the new Bond film, Casino Royale.



As usual we (Sean, Charlotte, Milja and I) headed to Blue Route, the cheapest place around, but as we got there it was obvious that it was faaar to busy. There was a notice on the poster saying that it was sold out. Our back-up plan was to dash up the M3 to Cavendish, a larger cinema, where there 'had' to be space. Charlotte phoned around and eventually got through to the cinema who said Bond was sold out.



Destitute, we went to Primi for a lovely hour or so eating, talking... and history revision for the others who had the exam the next morning.



Yesterday was the guys last exam (woohoo for them, they are now essentially free until the end of January - lessons, but nothing to learn for the rest of the week). This meant that everyone was up for doing something to relieve the stress of the revision and exams they had in the past week. We went to Peddlars first for a spot of food and chit-chat, and then decided to have another pop at seeing Bond. Again, we (this time Milja, Charlotte, Jamie K, Hattie and I) went to Blue Route, but the film had started half an hour earlier and it was, too, sold out.



Yet again, we rushed to Cavendish, but alas! it was sold out there as well. Humph. We went to see if we wanted to go to Tin Roof, but instead we all slumped home.



Maybe next time.

Joy at the beach

Joy at the beach Hosted on Zooomr

Hout bay beach last Tuesday evening.

Happy December

It's time for advent calendars and the run up to Christmas. Have fun eating your daily chocolates and/or seeing what picture is behind your door. Also, have fun in the rush to buy presents.

I have a calendar, but I haven't even thought of presents. I am enjoying the beautiful weather too much. I love this change to the usual pattern of dark Decembers, but I do feel like I am missing out on the waiting, anticipation and the mood of the Christmas month.

New light for AIDS Hosted on Zooomr

Today is World AIDS Day. Do what you can to help those with AIDS, wear a ribbon, buy something (RED). AIDS is a very common topic here in South Africa, and it is important for people in other countries to help.