Today's Achievement

For quite some time, I have loved eating sushi with K, but I had always wanted to try making it. So, today I decided I'd make some and depending on how it turned out I'd take it to the departments yearly picnic. To save $, I decided that a California roll (with imitation crab meat) would be the best option. As a guide, I followed my "How to Cook Everything Vegetarian" cookbook (except for the whole meat thing). Below are a couple of pictures I took of the rolls.



They could have been rolled tighter and looked better, but I think I have a pretty good handle on them. One tip though, when purchasing equipment/ingredients... don't under estimate Kroger's inventory. I could have saved myself some $ by purchasing everything there. Also, the prep for these things took 45 minutes as opposed to the 15 to make them!

Moving In

So, I can't let my wife be the only one who posts on the blog. On Wed., Thu. and Fri., my mother and aunt S and uncle L move me into my new apartment. It was a horse barn now converted to a duplex. It's a nice, spacious, relatively cheap place that will work for this year until K and Shadow make the trip to VA. While I have no pictures of the apt (they are coming), I do have some of our afternoon trip on Thurs. All four of us went to Lake Pandapas and the Cascades. It took some time to find the proper trail to the Cascades, but we found them and hiked around both. Below are some pictures I took along the way.

Oh yeah, I forgot... I like to take close up pictures. Can you tell?

First Day of School

So, Purdue is officially buzzing with undergrads, back on campus for the '08-'09 school year. I forget how busy it gets during this time; summer is so nice and quiet around campus. I think the hallways actually smell different, like a mingling of all the girls' perfumes. Strange.

Ah, well... E left last Wednesday morning for VA. I think I've taken it a lot better than I expected. It's been hard, of course, especially since we would drive to and from work together, eat lunch together sometime (most of the time during the summer), and usually see each other for a few minutes at other point(s) during the day. Then, of course, being home without him is a lot different. I find I have much more time to fill without him around. But, luckily, this new deal of having to cook for myself has helped fill that time. I made chicken salad and hummus over the weekend for lunches this week.

To keep my mind from thinking of E, I made plans with some friends this past weekend. My friend M and I went to dinner on Friday night and played putt-putt, then watched Vantage Point. The movie was pretty good; a little confusing, and I fell asleep at some point during the middle, but I think it would be good to watch again to get all the stories straight.

Then on Saturday, my friend P invited me to her house to play Pinochle. Two of her sisters were visiting, and their (large) family plays the game a lot, so they invited a bunch of people over to learn the game. I had a lot of fun, even though the rules are pretty involved and a little complicated. Their answer for why the rules are so crazy was that they believe the game was invented by a bunch of drunks. I'm starting to believe that's true. . . But, like I said, I did have fun, and would enjoy teaching anyone that wants to learn. Think Euchre and Poker hybrid (kind of).

Sunday, I tried a new church. Evangelical Covenant Church. I was a little wary, because I'm not familiar with the denomination, but figured one Sunday won't convert me. I really liked it. The demographics are a little more diverse than FCC, and I met some girls (ladies?) about my age, as well as others who are older who are all very nice. E and I liked FCC, but after one of the core couples moved (we miss you, K and M!), and a two other core couples are looking for other churches, there weren't any other young people who attend on a regular basis. I decided that I need to be in a church where I can have a peer community as well as elders who can impart wisdom. So, I think I'll go back to ECC next week and see how things go.

School starts today. More on that later.

Days 7 and 8: Wednesday and Thursday

Wednesday the conference organized tours for the attendees, so we were able to spend the day with the guys. There were several to choose from, and I thought we chose the one which visited an ostrich farm and olive oil production facility. I was getting really excited, because I really wanted to ride an ostrich if I could! Instead, we booked ourselves on a drive up the coast to Hermanus, which is home this time of year to the Southern Right Whales that are calving. Whale watching is pretty cool, too, so I wasn't terribly saddened by the mix-up. The drive was beautiful, although I admit that I fell asleep along the way. One one side we had the ocean, and on the other the mountains/hills. We stopped by a botanical garden, which had very interesting native plants. But since it is not quite spring in SA, very few were blooming. We stopped in Hermanus for lunch after looking for the whales. They didn't seem to be coming as close to the shore as they are sometimes reported to do, but S saw one, and E saw a tail, too. I didn't see any.

After lunch, we visited an abalone farm. It was actually pretty interesting. They have a big market for abalone meat in Asia, but it takes 5-7 years for these things to grow large enough to export. They are a type of marine gastropod mollusk (snail), some species of which produce beautiful shells which a mother-of-pearl-type interior.

We left straight from there to Stellenbosch, where all the organized dinners were held. This evening we were taken to a Carnivore Dinner! They had a buffet with all kinds of the different game meat from the region. There was springbok sausage, kudu skewers, dika, ostrich, crocodile, and I'm sure many others. I'll tell you: I ate more red meat these past two weeks than I have eaten all year. And as funny as that sounds, I don't think it's an exaggeration!

On Thursday, we parted ways with the guys again. This time, S and I went on a walking tour of the city. I didn't take my camera with me, so I'll have to wait for S's pictures. the coolest part of this tour was going to Bokaap, formerly known as the Malay district. This is the part of the city that is primarily inhabited by Muslims. It is famous for its brightly colored houses- green, pink, purple, orange, yellow, blue... they were all very bright and very beautiful. After lunch, the group split into those who wanted to continue the walking tour and those who wanted to do some shopping. Since we hadn't had many opportunities to shop, S and I decided to do so. There were only three other people who wanted to shop (a family), and I think the mother wanted a new diamond ring, so our guide pretty much led us around the city as looking for a particular diamond shop. We were a little disappointed, needless to say. Once we got back to our hotel around 3pm, S had to make a phone call, but after that neither of us were tired, so we decided to be brave and walk down to a market (Green Square Market) where a lot of crafts-people have their stands. I found a cool set of bookends for E in the shape of a hippo.

It seemed that even though our tours weren't what I expected them to be, they still turned out well, even if we had to make a little fun of our own.

Days 5 and 6: Monday and Tuesday

E's conference started on Sunday night, so from then on, things were fairly busy. S and I were able to go on tours the conference set up for those accompanying, and then in the evenings we mostly had organized dinners, which lasted all evening.

The tours were somewhat dissapointing, as I was hoping that we would be taking a tour of Robben Island, which is where Nelson Mandela was held captive for something like 20 or 30 years. Or, I thought they would take us to botanical gardens, or to the top of Table Mountain. No, but we did get to see a long of interesting things despite that. We took a bus tour of Cape Town, which wasn't incredibly interesting, but it is always nice to have an idea where everything is situated, and learn a little more of the history in addition. That was on Monday. Our tour guide offered to drop anyone off at the base of Table Mountain who wanted ride the cable car up to the top. S and I debated (not with each other) whether or not to go, because we didn't have a lot of time before dinner, and the guys wanted to go up, and would they be dissapointed if we went without them? We decided that we would be willing to go twice, and we would hate to leave without taking the opportunity. I am so glad we did. We had a beautiful view of Cape Town, and the ocean was beautiful also. The weather was perfect, and we were lucky, because there is a fog the locals call the "Table Cloth" that often covers the mountain and makes it impossible to even go to the top.

On Tuesday, they took us to a winery that specializes only in sparkling wines and MMCs, which is their version of Champagne, but of course they can't call it that because they aren't in Champagne, France. The coolest part of that visit was that they asked for volunteers to do the saboge (or sabroge - I can't remember!). Anyway, it's a really cool party trick where one takes a knife or something similar (this day it was a sword) and due to the pressure in the sparkling wine bottle, one can run the sword along the bottle's seam and hit the knob at the edge of the neck. The cork is strong enough to hold the pressure, but the neck is not, so it creates a really fun directional explosion of the wine. Like I said, they asked for volunteers, and no one seemed extremely eager to try it. Well, I was extremely eager to try it, so I raised my hand! They instructed me how to do it, and I tried it once, but the sword was a bit heavy and the bottle was a little wet from the condensation, so I was a bit timid. (I didn't want the bottle to fly out of my hand!) Needless to say, it didn't work the first time. Nor did it work the second time. Just as I was starting to feel inadequate, I tried a third time, putting a little more strength into it and....
The pressure of the wine carries all the broken glass with it, so it's still safe to drink. How fun, eh?!

Also that day, we drove to Signal Hill, where they shoot a canon off every day at noon so the ships can set their times. We drove down to a rocky shore, which had huge boulders that were just asking for me to go rock-hopping on them. Unfortunately, I wore sandals that day. :( But I did do a little climbing on them, as well as observed some natural sponges that had been washed up in the tide along with some kelp or other type of marine vegetation.

I'll add more pictures as we download them, especially of the views of Table Mountain and the ocean.

More pictures of the Safari

Two of the lions. Aren't they elegant?


These are two young elephants. We had so much fun watching them play with each other!


The lone giraffe. They brought her in to see how she will fair in the region. If she does well, they will bring in more to the reserve.


The springbok:


Ostriches (typical,eh?) :


One of the zebras: And one of my favorite pictures!


We had so much fun seeing the animals! I couldn't come to Africa without going on a safari... now if only I can ride an ostrich before I leave?

Day 4: Safari

On Saturday, we left bright and early at 5:30am, loaded up on a cramped van, and rode for 2 hours to Aquila Private Game Reserve. Of course, since we are in the southern hemisphere, it is 'winter' here, but we have been fortunate enough to have good weather. Cool mornings, but the afternoons have been warm. The evenings are cool, too, but pants and a sweater usually suffice. We highly underestimated how cool it would be at the Reserve, though. We arrived at 7:30am and were very cold! I had a sweater, but didn't pack E any jeans or a jacket, so he was obviously much much colder. We gave in and bought a severely overpriced jacket from the gift shop and a sock hat.

They served us a very nice breakfast, and then we loaded into the open-aired safari vehicles for our journey! We were lucky enough to be the only ones in our vehicle, and our guide was really good.


We first stopped by the lake where the hippos typically stay. One was lounging on an island in the middle, but it was a pretty far distance off, and hard to see. They told us that hippos are the most dangerous animal to humans in Africa, because they appear very docile, but are extremely territorial, especially at night, and will basically destroy anything that gets between them and "their water" when they go out to feed at night.

Next we stopped by a pile of dung, and yes, that is our guide holding it in his hands! He told us that it was white rhino dung. They have extremely inefficient metabolisms, which is why their dung is composed mostly of the hay. They also have triangle-shaped territories. We drove on to find the depositors, and saw four adults and the most adorable baby!



We also saw springbok which is a type of antelope that is very common, and commonly eaten here. Among others: a giraffe, buffalo (an extremely dangerous animal), elan (the largest antelope), black and blue gnu, zebras, ostrich (also commonly eaten), a couple young elephants playing, and of course my favorite: the lions. I really want to write about each of the types of animals we saw, but I decided that the post is already long enough, and I would rather show pictures than tell boring nature stuff. (Ok, so it's not boring to me, but...)

Day 3: The Circle of Life

Ok, so just so quell your fears, we both have all our limbs and digits. We actually had a great day, athough it started out early.









The sharks were very active in the morning. We started out boating to Seal Island, which has thousands of seals, and various birds, including some type of penguins. The guides didn't even have to chum for the sharks, as they were being especially predacious this morning. The guides said that the sharks are generally are more active early in the morning than in the afternoon, which we soon realized. For this portion (the active predation), we observed the natural predation of the sharks upon their winter diet, the seals. It was really fascinating, although I have to admit that is wasn't as shocking as the media portrays it. There were several hits on the seals, and we saw two or three complete out of water breaches. Pretty cool!

After they settled down a bit, we sent some vacationers out in the cage. Unfortunately, they were much less active this time of day than earlier. Even trailing a tuna head and a seal-shaped carpet, the sharks were few. S, Dr. G, and E all took a chance in the cage, but I opted out, since it was pretty cold out in False Bay and I felt it wasn't worth being wet and cold if I wasn't going to see a shark up close. E ended up seeing one a bit of a distance off, but it wasn't quite the view he was hoping for. The others didn't really get to see one under the water.


Now, believe me: This was a pretty incredible experience. I've never seen Great Whites up close before, and I think I can speak for E, too. (he's asleep, or I'd ask). We got several great views with them swimming up alongside the boat, and breaching while attacking the carpet "seal", so all in all, we couldn't have experienced it anywhere else. I must admit though, that while I didn't want to be scared senseless, I was a wee bit disapointed that I wasn't scared senseless, you know?

On the trip back to harbor, we had the welcomed pleasure to observe a pod of Common Dolphins. It was so much fun to see them all swimming along with our boat! There were so many, that I couldn't/didn't even count, but they were beautiful, and a great end to a great day.


Tomorrow: SAFARI!

Day 2, SA

Oh goodness! We had such a great day today in Stellenbosch, the local wine region. E found a local who gives personalized tours of the region, so we joined Dr. G and wife, S, and toured 4 wineries then ate lunch and finished off the day with two more wineries.

It was a lot of fun, since we have been to Napa to taste the wines there. We learned a lot from that trip in May and were able to apply that experience here. This region is known for its hybrid grape called Pinotage, developed about 80 years ago. We both enjoyed the Pinotage that we tasted at one of the wineries, but then again, we enjoyed just about all the wines we tried! In particular, I liked the Sauvignon Blancs, but I'm leaning more that way in general. I like the crisp, tart freshness of the drier whites, and one Sauvignon Blanc we tried today had a really refreshing grassiness to it. No joke, we could taste it!

The wine tour was fun, but eventually we had to say goodbye to our guide. We decided to take a recommendation of his for dinner, which none of the local taxi drivers had heard of, and ended taking a 20 minute taxi what should have taken us 5. Ah well. The food there was delicious. We tried several starters in place of full meals. I chose ox tongue with gnocchi (mmm!), and E chose a crayfish dish and a pork trotter dish-- odd, but tasty (pigs' feet).

Well, it was a great day, but tomorrow we must wake up early to see the sharks. (Let's hope we have both hands to type with by the day's end).

We're Here!

We made it. After two very LONG flights (NYC to Senegal (7hrs.) and Senegal to South Africa (8hrs.)), we have checked into our hotel room and are trying to find dinner. Just thought we'd let everyone know we made it and show you the view from our window at the hotel.

-E & K

First Post First Day

Welcome to those who are reading our blog. We begin the blog in ATL on the first day of our trip to SA. Below are a few pictures of our first few stops as we travel forward to Africa. We plan to post daily, but at least every few days based upon internet access at the hotel.

- E & K