Videos

Now that I am home and not paying for internet by byte, I have uploaded several videos from my trip.

Ziplining



Otters


Castle of Good Hope


I've also added several pictures that I took the last few days in South Africa with the people I worked with. Click the photo album link on the right to see more pictures.

And lastly, while everyone else in my house complained of gaining weight, I lost weight! 16.5lbs (7.5kg) to be exact. It is an amazing feeling and I love the looks people give me who I haven't seen since I arrived back.

I drove a bit today, running some errands to the grocery store and it felt very odd to be driving. First the snow was a bit difficult for about 10 minutes or so until I got the feel for driving in the snow back. Additionally, the driving laws of both SA and the US are jumbled in my head and I have to concentrate to remember which is which country. If I'm not careful, I'll drift to the left.

I still think in terms of the South African standard of living. I bought a few toiletries at the local pharmacy and a 12 pack of soda for $44. R440? Crazy! Outrageous! Everything is so costly here. I got in the habit of splurging because everything was so inexpensive and now I must retrain my brain. I took some time to admire the differences between Checkers in SA and Kroger here and couldn't believe my eyes. In the US we have the "bigger is better" mentality and in SA, it's the opposite. In the US people want to buy everything in bulk. I didn't even see a 6 pack of soda cans, only 12 pack of cans, 6 pack of bottles, and 2 litres. In SA they have several coolers to buy soda's individually at the grocery. Here you'd have to go to a petrol/gas station to do that or find a smaller grocery.

I am not too jet lagged anymore, I am sleeping through the night, but I think my body just needs to catch up on sleep because the quality of sleep on the bed was not as good as the quality on my good bed here. I am exhausted in the afternoons and take a short nap. I love having my room back and being able to eat what I choose for dinner, but I miss having the staff singing while their work and hearing Xhosa and Afrikaans all around me.

My luggage is sitting in the hallway and I have yet to unpack. I have opened the suitcases and dug out the important things, but I'm in no rush to unpack my clothes, most of which I cannot even wear right now due to the frigid temperatures. It was -12 C today, 11 degrees at 9am.

More videos and pictures to come!