Week 3 London 18 -20 September 2008

Well we fare welled Jaci and Lee at the airport to head off to London for a couple of jam packed days. We had two boxes of souvenirs and gifts to check in to fly with as we had very little luggage. We planned to post them in London to increase the chances of them getting home safely. Alas British airways said no sir that will be 90 pounds ($180 aussie dollars) to check them in!!! This turned out not to be quite true, but under the pressure of the moment and given there was liquids in them Jaci and Lee were left to post them for us. Thanks!!!

Then began what seemed a really long flight 'cause it was over night for 12 hours which involved sleeping on the floor and muffins at 4.00 am in the morning.

We took a train out to Pax Lodge the World guide centre and then oriented oursleves for the day. We enjoyed staying at Pax Lodge which feels much like a youth hostel and had dinner the the young women who were volunteering from all over the world at Pax Lodge. We text Linden to say we were looking at her photo on the wall as the previous Chair of world Centres for WAGGGS.

Laura was in heaven as she had a misison to see the store where her favorite band "My Chemical Romance" had played a few years back and buy her CD. Which she did. The we went around the corner to a comic book store she had researched on the net to purchase the comic book written by the lead singer of her favourite band which was not available in Australia. We became really good at using the Tube underground rail system and loooved London enjoying chats with people on the train who gave us advice of where to visit. We enjoyed dinner in at Pax Lodge and everyone had the chance to speak with the young women from around the world who were working for Girl Guides and travelling around the UK and Europe.

The London Eye was great and Ben's choice of London activitiy.

Then we headed off to see the Tower of London and all it's history. The Yeoman or "Beefeaters" are the Queen's personal guards and are the oldest regiment in the UK.

To be a member of this regiment of whihc there are 30 at a time you need to have been enlisted not officer personnel; served a minimum period in the armed forces and had no midemenours against you.

The Yeoman now serve and live in the Tower of London and act as tour guides. They are excellent communicators and really fun to listen to. Shelley read about the first female Yeoman who was appointed and had her photo taken with her. We saw the traitors entrance which allowed access of kinds and queens as well as prisoners from the Thames.

Laura really loved the Ravens which are protected by Royal Decree and it's rumoured that the Tower of London will be breached if they leave.

Ben picked up his souvenir which is to collect a key ring from every country he visits and got a picture holding Big Ben.

We washed some clothes and got dressed up to

head to the West End on the tube.
We had booked tickets to the show "Wicked" which Ben and Laura were really keen to see which had recently opened in Melbourne. It is the other story to the Wizard of Oz and was very entertaining. I was sure that given the cheap prices we had paid that one of us would be listing behind a pole, but it turned out we could all see!!

This is at Wicked at the start or interlude outside of appollo theatre and it was 10:00 at night at other people around the theatre who went to see Billy Elliot and other musicals. It happens every friday in London in the tube there signs of tonnes of others musicals. When got back there hundreds of people in it the station. It was weird as we nearly got mugged by a guy at 8:30 pm at our station in Lilydale and it looked like dump but not in London. Wicked was great so seening it again the costumes of charcters were aresome and the set was cool BY LAURA.

We travelled home on the tube with everyone else which was great fun and arrived home getting to bed at middnight.......dreading our 3.00 am wakeup call.

Week 1 & 2 South Africa visit to Cape Town

Well we bundled up a boot load of medication for Shelley and Laura to deal with colds and asthma and jumped on a plane to Cape Town. Chris braved navigating around the city with our hire car to the apartment located not far from the waterfront. We had our first try of Crocadile kebabs which was nice and tasted like tough chicken really loud african music. We visited the Waterfront and had breakfast with Pearly who is the sister of a friend of Jaci's and hand delivered the quilt that was sent from Joburg to Cape Town. Poor Anna we really didn't charge 500ran to hand deliver the quilt which was a running gag! The Waterfront was lovely and we watched the AfriCan man play his petrol can guitar and it sounded cool!

Robben Island Tour
The tour around Robben Island was amazing mainly because after the bus tours around the main buildling we were shown around the prison cells by an ex-prisoner. The island had 1,500 people still living on it and a school for the 25 children of the staff. All of the tour guides were ex-prisoners. We visited the limestone quarry where Nelson Mandela and the fellow political prisoners were assigned the hardest labour with the guards being routinely changed so they didn't build a relationship with them.

A small cave was allocated for lunch and this is where Nelson Mandela and his colleagues taught other prisoners to read and write and educate them about the ANC (African National Party) political philosophy of working in partnership with white south africans.

This is the cell that Nelson Mandela spent his time in.....small hey! we saw the exercise yard with the small garden that Nelson Mandela buried all the pages for his book.

Week 1 & 2 South Africa Cape Town

Week 1 & 2 South Africa Visit to 2nd Sandton Girl Guide Unit Johanesburg

Laura and Shelley headed off to visit the a local Senior Girl Guide unit. We had made the connection with Rosemary Swemmer who is the CEO for Girl Guides South Africa through Linden. Both Rosemary and her daughter are leaders for the Unit. Shelley had met Rosemary at the World conference for Girl Guides in Jordan in 2003 as was re-connected by Linden who is no the Deputy Chair of the Board for the World assocaiotn of girl guides and girl scouts.

Shelley ran a Guide game for the senior guides and then we participated in a promise ceremony for 6 girls which was very similar to Australia. we also leant lots about the weather as the girls were working towards earning a badge!

Week 1 & 2 South Africa Visit to Soweto

All the family bundled into a mini bus to visit the area of Soweto which has 5 million people living within 30 townships. The Soweto townships were initially where the workers in the mines were housed when the diamond mines opened up in Johannesburg. Workers did not own the houses or the land and
accommodation were often built for men only. The huge hills around the township are the by products from the mines that were dumped. At one stage Lee said there was a drive in on top on a mound.
We visited a market area which was a mixture of extreme poverty amidst the new building of housing and roads in the area.This area shows the transformation that has been taking place over the past 18 years since Apartheid ended. There is a mixture of building old and new amidst 5 million people. Our tour guide spoke of his activism during the old regime and his role and the improvements in the housing with involve of the community in building child care centes, parks and the opportunity to buy their house and land.

Our guide let us off at the end of the street and drove off. It turned out he met us around the corner after we were joined by 10 tiny little pre-schoolers who played games and accompanied us to the end of the road.

We then visited the Soweto Museum which was built on the place where some of the 73 school children were killed during a student demonstration. Despite the past people are building the future, although implementing and monitoring the policies brought about by the fall of Apartheid will continue to prove challenging for the current government as some of their systems seem to be questionable.

We really enjoyed the visit learning about the history of the area.

Bon Voyage

Well we're writing to you from Barcelona after 3 lovely days here. It's take us a while to get the blog up and running 'cause of internet access, but finally here 'tis!!!

Thanks to friends and family we had a couple of celebrations before leaving which made it more exciting for everyone. A lovely dinner was had at Linda's house from Church with family of everyone in Shelley's Life group complete with Bon Voyage decorations.

Shelley was thankful as Kyle, Linda's son was able to use his IT expertise to connect her new Iphone so it was set for use with email for overseas travel.

We had a afternoon tea with the Van der Werffs to celebrate Ben's birthday and leaving on a jet plane.

Shelley also had a Bon Voyage afternoon tea with her work colleagues from the Surrey Hills office for Yooralla. What were Sep & Gaye talking about?

We travelled to the airport by train from Lilydale statation after dropping Chris's work vehicle off and travelled into Southern Cross station. It was a bit of an adventure as unfortunately we were threatened by a very drunk man who claimed he was just out of jail and was happy to punch up Chris. So we got off the train at 7pm on a Tuesday night!!! And people were worried about South Africa. We had to be at the airport for a very early flight to Sydney to get to Joburg.

Week 1 & 2 - South Africa with the family week

Well we arrived after a loooong 14 hrs flight very early from Melbourne to Johannesburg via Sydney. We've come to visit Shelley's brother Lee, his wife, their girls Keto (aged 6 yrs), Ruby (aged 4 yrs) and Piper (aged 2 years).

We stayed a total of 2 weeks with them with a 4 day Safari to a game reserve in the middle.

The household wakes early as Jaci heads off to the gym at 6.00 am and the Keto and Ruby go to Bumble bees pre-kinder and Keto is off to grade 0 or prep which starts at 7.45am! Ben and Laura can't complain about the early start again.

In the first week we were all up either because Piper was up (she had a cold and wasn't well) or because of jet lag. Our days were filled with picking up the girls from school; going shopping to which was fun to see all the variety of foods; having a haircut; visting Jaci's shop or hanging out at their house in the pool.

Mem lives out the back of Lee and Jaci's house and visits every day to help with the house work and look after Piper when Jaci is working. Jaci heads off to work for half a day to her shop Tinsel which specialises in designed jewellery which Laura thought was heaven. She was busy preparing for a farmers market she and a friend were organising at the shop complex to attract business.

We enjoyed dinner at Jane's place (Jaci's Mum) just around the corner from Jaci and Lee with a lovely roast! She has a terrific place with two small accommodation buildings in the backyard. This is not uncommon in Joburg as the buildings were designed for staff to live who work for the household. Jane has two dogs Ruffy & Chicken who reminded Ben & Laura of home as one of our dogs is called ruffy.

All of Lee's IT skills came into play as he gave us heaps of movies and music; jail broke shelley's Iphone and let Ben play his only just arrived Wii including Guitar hero. Ben was in Nintendo heaven. Chris braved the Joburg traffic and manged successully to get to Ruby's childcare and Keto's school as well as the local shopping centre!!!

We ate heaps of food; drank heaps of good beer and champagne; went out to lovely restaurants and enjoyed very good hospitality. Thanks heaps for having us and we'll see you in Vietnam in 2 years????

See Safarii for more installments.