Most Awesomely Happy!?

Is it even possible to make that statement? Perhaps not... but I feel pretty damn good this evening in any case! That's reason enough to blog isn't it?... I know I haven't in a while. I think it's just been a long time since i've had a really random weekend... or at least one that didn't end up in Tiger (or the Claremont surrounds).

Last night (Friday), we cheered our action cricket team with Heini's in hand as they annihilated their opponants. Even "Boom Boom" (usually a supporter) played... and showed great dedication as he landed face down after diving for a catch, showing the regulars that he has the stuff of legends. After that? Just a movie from the couch... Enemy at the Gates. That movie has just made it into my top 10 movies (did someone say sniper rifle?).

If you are ever in Cape Town, Planet Bar at the Mount Nelson is definately worth a visit if you're with a few friends and want to enjoy a good cocktail or three. The atmosphere is calm, sophisticated and chilled and it served the perfect place to have our warm up drinks for the this evenings contribution to the Cape Town Comedy Festival, cinema style. We watched a series of short films at the Labia in Town. Whilst some of the clips were rather "out there" for lack of a better phrase... they were mostly really funny. Hey... all I can say is... where else can you buy your Heini's at the cinema shop... and take them into the show with you!? It was definately something else:P

Boom Boom, Whiskey, and Heini in the cinema!!!

I saw this driving around...

And had to laugh... take a look at the sign next to the towbar:P

--Vodka

Maclear's Beacon... exposed!

I finally have time to catch up on my blogging (with the cricket in the background... man we need help today - Australia require 18 runs off 21.4 overs - 0.8 runs per over).

I thought it would be fitting that I post on the most awesome weekend that I've had in a long time:P After a really good Thursday evening at toiger toiger (spent it in good company:P), I was definitely not in the mood for a large Friday. Come early Friday evening, Whiskey and Soda were determined to change that! With the threat of Green Fairy looming, I decided that it was best to stick to the proven medicine for a long night... need I even mention it's name... vodka! Of course this was all happening at a local watering hole known for making people oblivious to their surroundings (and yes, there is a dance pole... for drunkards who feel the need for public display). Anyway, we ended up at toiger later, which has been a common theme for me over the last few weeks, even tho all I wanted was my bed. I did gather a new respect for a friend who proved his metal as part of "The A List" by inventing new drinks. If u've heard of a suitcase (one shot jack, chased by one shot passion fruit), then try replacing the jack with jegar and the passion with tequila! Needless to say the evening turned out ok, as it usually does, and I fell into bed at around 2:30am.

Saturday was all about the mountain! I was up at 5am. Now it was very tempting to skip the mountain and just sleep (Thought it would be crazy to climb Table Mountain with a huge night and only 2 hrs sleep under my belt), but instead filled my camel back with ice and water, grabbed a sandwich, apples and a choc at a local service station and ended up at the parking lot below Platteklip Gorge at around 8:45am. By just after 9am we were heading up. Now usually climbing up Platteklip is just plain grueling because it's just straight up for an hour and a half, but we decided to have a little more fun this trip. On the way up, we ducked up some rock faces and across to some steep ledges (photos at the end:P). I couldn't believe how easy it is to slide off the edge of a cliff. The steep slopes are covered in sand that you just can't rely on for grip. I think the big fire last year has something to do with it and the vegetation probably hasn't got a proper footing yet.

The view up the mountain from the parking lot

It really surprised me that hardly any South Africans climb up the mountain. Almost everyone we met was a foreigner. Anyway, we eventually made it to the top and had lunch. Now I titled this "Maclear's Beacon... exposed!" because we were prepared for another 200m - 300m climb from there, and were rather disappointed when we found out that Platteklip sits at 1010m above sea level and Maclear's Beacon is only at 1087m, and like 3km away. This means that it was a rather flat walk from there. The view was amazing though! Legend has it that if ur climbing the mountain to Maclear you should take a rock with you to place at the beacon. I didn't know this till on top of the mountain, but I think I'll bear this in mind for next time. At Maclear's, we met Monica, a German girl who was in South Africa alone so she joined us on the trip down the mountain, and ended up going out with the others later that evening. The way up had been cloudy, which was great because it wasn't that hot, but the sun was out when we went down which meant I could finally get a bit of a tan:D Anyway, reaching the car at 2pm, I realised we had been on the mountain for 5 hrs... man that was fun.

Proof, we stood on top of Maclear's Beacon!

Saturday night ended up being a huuge night again. We started off with a fantastic birthday dinner were I got to meet a whole bunch of new people, exchange stories about the day's events as well as general chit chat, and experience an ostrich burger with cranberry sauce (pity the ostrich was kinda raw... ugh!). From there we went to... well... i think it was a pub... no a pool bar... no a hole in the wall!?!? Let's just say that we will be "faxing out" of dodgy places from here on out for a reason:P No it wasn't actually that bad, just the bathrooms... and paint job... and people need to be worked on. We had a couple games of pool... of which I was suitably useless. Next was toiger toiger... again, where there was much celebration, good music (well better than the previous night), djinking and a I even won a bet with a barlady:P

Exhausted and suitably sunburnt, Saturday night was loads of fun

Oh great... Australia just won the Cricket... by 7 wickets! Nice one team! So over it. Well it's Ausi and Sri-Lanka in the final now.

Anyway, Sunday was relax time, and apart from some hilarious cat tossing at a friends braai, was very chilled cos I got no sleep whatsoever the previous night!

Here are more mountain pics.

Off the beaten path

Dabbling in rock climbing... really want to get into this proper

A friend sitting on a ledge

It's really amazing at the top of Platteklip

Teamwork

--Vodka

NITROX!!

Ok, I haven't blogged in a while, so I thought i'd better play catch up. The last few weeks have been hectic to say the least. Work Hard Play Hard is my new motto (while i've always had the work hard bit nailed... the play hard bit seems to be coming out a bit more these days:P).

So I ordered the new car on Friday afternoon. I have decided not to go for the Audi A3 2.0T sportback (sob), but rather to satisfy myself with a black Polo GTI (1.8T with sunroof, leather seats, cruise control etc). Now i'm looking forward to driving this little tiger quite a lot cos i'm borrowing an 1100 at the moment and when i drive up a hill I might as well get out and push it.

Well, cars aside, I had another fun weekend (been out 7 nights in 3 weekends:P). A little tiger on thursday evening, followed by a lot of tiger on friday evening meant that on Saturday evening I took a chill pill as I had a dive to look forward to on Sunday.

Sunday's Dive
Well, on sunday, Whiskey and I headed off to Miller's point to dive the Smitswinkel Bay wrecks. Now there are 5 wrecks at this dive spot, all next to each other, scuttled by the navy in the 70's to form a dive site (well i'm sure they were going to scuttle them in any case.. but kind of them to think of us divers). We got all our gear ready and after a briefing waited for the skipper to return from a previous dive at the smitties wrecks. It soon became apparent that diving smitties was going to be out of the question. The skipper (a technical diver himself) informed us that visibility was at about 1 meter, and the surge was incredibly strong. Now just to put this into perspective, the dive boat finds the wrecks using echo location (sonar / depth sounder / what ever you would like to call it) and anchors on the wreck. The divers then descend on the anchor cable down to the wreck. When they got to the wreck, they could not see it just a few meters in front of them! They ended up clipping retractable lines to the anchor chain so they could find their way back!

Checking Whiskey's Gear

Armed with this information, we packed the gear in the cars and headed off to A-Frame with our tails between our legs in search of a more diver friendly environment.

Once at A-Frame, it became apparent that we were going to have more success. The surge was still strong, and the water was murky, but we didn't care... we aren't your typical bunch of fair weather divers:D So with a EAN32 in our tanks (more oxygen than normal air - woohoo... nitrox!) we headed off to the water. The visibility was not the best I had seen... sitting at around 3 - 5 meters, and the surge was fairly strong. We swam to the cave, which is fun to swim through in surge as you get the whole super tube effect 4 meters under water:D

The Dive Briefing

Whiskey and I took up position behind the group (being master divers, the idea being that we would assist with any problems at the back of the group while the instructor leads). Upon entering the cave, one of the guppies decided to hold back and enjoy the view while the rest of the group headed off. When he realised that he was falling behind, darted off to the group and left whiskey and myself with no chance of finding the group. Not to worry though, even without a compass we navigated flawlessly around the reef, through caves (with one or two spy hops for a location) and gully's until we decided that our air supply (or Nitrox rather) was just enough to get us back without a 400m surface swim.

After a rather interesting swim back through the kelp in the surge (holding the kelp as the surge flows against you... then shooting forward at Mach 1 as it comes from behind!) we beached in style, dropped our gear and sat in the warm sun on the rocks only to watch our guppie surface without air a few hundred meters off shore. It was sweet payback watching the guppie swim hundreds of meters over kelp in cumbersome dive gear back to shore after holding us up in the cave:D

After changing (which is always an interesting experience on the side of the road) we headed off in search of beer at Dixies (a regular after dive watering hole), but alas it was full... so was the southern right. With our luck out here, we met up with some friends at Forries to demolish some beers and an awesome forries burger!

--Vodka

Back in Sunny SA

So after a recent, rather unfortunate and life changing event, Vodka is bouncing back into life in fine style. I'm back in South Africa (sooner than planned), and although the first week back was the toughest week i've had in a while, the weekend managed to put it all in perspective for me.

On friday night, tequila and vodka were the drinks of choice as we began the celebration of some work collegues departing for other opportunities. We began our marathon at Panchos (in obz) where the food was decent, and the Margaritas ice cold. Next was Stones where more good conversation and some pool was in order (don't forget the beers). A few hours later, the evening really kicked into gear when a few brave individuals decided that an excursion to Tiger was required. So with a short trip to Claremont, we were soon at the shooters bar meeting new and interesting people. After vodka and limes, a few jager shots, several suitcases and a couple hotties, we had lost track of time. By 4am, the place was emptying out and we decided to call it for the evening. I still had a full day of test driving ahead as i'm in the market for a new car.

Later on Saturday...
With a bit of a groan, I woke up to an sms from my test drive buddy (who had also been a part of the previous evening's escapades) informing me that we had just missed the 10am appointment to test drive a 2.0 FSI Audi A3. So with some quick thinking and a little initiative, I was at the dealership by 11am. Now respect to Audi for hiring the sales person that they did. They must feel pretty confident about the technical knowledge of their customers as the sales person, although very good looking, did not know a lot about cars. Anyway, after a few minutes of chatting, the sales consultant was set to join us at our next evening at Tiger, and my test drive buddy had arrived. Off we went to put this machine through its paces. The model we drove was the A3 2.0 FSI manual (I don't really care for an automatic).

In a couple of minutes we had found ourselves on a local freeway onramp. 60...120...170...190... man this machine had some spirit. It also had a nice interior. I realised that my co-pilot had his hands gripped on the seats when we finally came to a stop, a few meters behind a row of cars. The car I'd get would definately have to have ESP... Man what a ride. It was my co-pilot's turn. With the acceleration and braking taken care of, steering and handling was next. A quick, rather jerky ride found us back at the dealership with a shaken but smiling sales consultant. After a short talk about details and options, we decided to head off for the next vehicle of choice... the Ford Focus ST.

At a local Ford dealership, it took about 5 seconds to find ourselves in a black 2.5L Ford Focus ST. A turn of the key and an audible growl sent shivers through my spine. Now the car really is an all out beast. The turbo dials centered on the dash, and the seats cupped and firm meant that this machine was not for the refined individual. We headed off to another local freeway, but with all the traffic, could not risk putting this machine through its paces in the way it's really meant to. Never the less, we got her to groan and we soon realised that the cupped seats were there for a reason. My test drive partner was sold on the car, yet I found myself still thinking of the more refined Audi just a few km away.

It was after this drive that I realised buying a demo car might not be the best idea. According to the sales consultant, we were timid in the car. Anyway, we moved on and looked at both Opel and BMW, but I had one car on my mind... the 2.0 T FSI which I was already driving in my head.

Saturday evening started off a little slower than Friday, but that was by no means an indication of the evening ahead. We met up at the Tavern and headed off to Durbanville to support a friend of a friend of a friend's band. Now, the area was suitably dodge, but it was here that I tried a new vodka (triple vodka lime). After the first song, which was admittedly good, we decided to find our fortunes at a club in town called Opium. The evening continued on in fine style where jager bombs, and naturally vodka limes were the order of the evening. After a quick trip to the not so awesome VIP lounge we found our place on the dance floor. When we had had enough fun here, we were off to Tiger to try more interesting shooters and meet more interesting people.

Tiger on Saturday was less packed than on Friday, but we soon made up for that. Vodka and limes, shooters, the dance floor and an interesting architect student kept the evening going till well past friday night's record. At just before 4am, we called it for the evening and headed back home. Finally getting to sleep just after 5am meant that Sunday was going to be a slow day.

True to my previous night's expectations, Sunday was all about recovery, purchasing new clothes and having a rested afternoon in a hammock at a friends afternoon braai.

Anyway... enough with the talk... here are the pictures.

Exhibit A (never took photo's at the test drive, so this is from the net)

--Vodka

Whiskey in New York

So I finally have some time to blog about the weekend. Man, what a weekend! I don't think I was in one place long enough to leave a footprint.

Friday:
Whiskey was in town from Boston (doing some work there) and there was much to do as he had not been in New York before. Naturally such engagements require celebratory drinks... so without wasting any time, we headed off to the Rock Center Cafe for drinks and to meet up with some other troublesome straglers. This was when I realised that my well planned evening of pub crawling might run into a few hitches. They were closed for the evening already! Fear not! One of the party (a local with many years proven knowledge of the watering holes) suggested Times Square. We headed off and found ourselves at an upmarket trendy hot spot called the Blue Fin.

Whiskey (left) and Myself (Right) with Times Square in the background

Like the views, the Vodka was good, and I got to expand the list of Vodka's that I have had in New York. After a couple of drinks in some good company, we decided to find another watering hole.
With some recommendation by one of the party members, we headed off to Bleeker Street and found ourselves in a pub where the only things cheaper than the local draught were the girls. After dodging darts to get to the bathroom we headed off in search of another watering hole.

Now a few weeks ago, my father told me that he had been to a very good pub when he was in New York a long time ago. As he was a sailor at the time, I trusted his judgement in all things pub related. It was with this in mind that we headed off to find the Heartland Brewery. A famous institution that apparently serves over 100 types of beer. I say apparently because just like our famous pub in Cape Town (Forries), they close rather early. Alas, we had arrived a few minutes after final round.

Much to my dismay what remained of the party split up and Whiskey and I headed off home to the only pub we knew would be open at that time of the morning. So with some frozen lasagnes and a six pack of Millers we ended the night in style in the flat chatting about all things wise in the world.

When do we stop djinking? .... NEVER!!!

Saturday:
After waking up a little late with a bit of a headache and thirst for orange juice on Saturday, we proceeded with the notion that the weekend was not to be wasted. The weather was fantastic, requiring only a thin jersey. After an oily breakfast at a local diner we caught a train to Battery Park.

Breakfast in the diner

Now we intended on going to the Statue of Liberty, but the lines were waaaaay too long. It appeared that everyone had seen the good weather. With our hopes dampened, but not crushed, we jumped on the Staten Island Ferry, which travels past the Statue in any case. An hour later we had completed the round trip and were back in Manhattan. The rest of the afternoon and evening consisted of good conversation, excellent sushi and an earlyish night (compared to the previous night) with beers and cupcakes.

The view of Manhattan from the ferry

Sunday:
Sunday was much like the rest of the weekend... busy.
With a short hop through Central Park we found a place for breakfast near Rock Center and caught a train to Battery Park. Yes, this was to be our second attempt to see the Statue of Liberty in as many days. We had a plan this time though, we went early! After a short (30 min) wait in a queue and an all but strip search later we were on the boat and off to the island.

Proof... I stood in front of the Statue of Liberty. At this moment it snowed very lightly, don't think u'll see it in the picture tho. Man was it freezing here (Glad I remembered a thick jacket:P)

The statue looks quite impressive, but the organisation around getting people on and off the island is a bit of a shambles. When we arrived, we were informed that you needed to buy a seperate ticket 48 hrs before in order to go up the statue! Talk about lack of communication!

Anyway, after the statue we headed back to Manhattan, walked around the shops and headed off home for a beer and to get Whiskey back to the station in time.

This is my new car... I'm just keeping it on the show room floor so it doesn't get dusty.

Needless to say Monday required lots of coffee!!

--Vodka

I weigh 0.206 pounds!

On Halley's Comet that is:P

Last Sunday I went to the American Museum of Natural History. I have wanted to do this since I watched "Night at the Museum" with Ben Stiller. Now it was a little disappointing to see that the there was no T-Rex like in the movie.

I decided to go all out and buy a ticket that covers everything (including an IMAX show on the Mars rovers, a planetarium show called Cosmic Collisions, a trip through the butterfly exhibit and access to the gold exhibit). If you go there, I recommend this as the rest of the museum reminds me of those dusty old 1960's science magazines you found in a bookshelf as a kid... the kind I used to cut pictures out of for school projects before Grolier and Encarta encyclopedias made it onto CD.

After buying my ticket, I had about 5 minutes to make it to the IMAX show... which was quite a good show. I learned things about the rover missions that I had no clue about (stuff that moonflake would laugh at me for not knowing:P), like the fact that they sent two rovers three weeks apart, and that the rovers are still working now!

The Planetarium was the highlight for sure. Not just the show, but the whole room around the sphere. Below the sphere, the room winds down a spiral ramp to some interesting exhibits.

The butterfly exhibit was ok. It was basically a big room with a lot of plants butterflies. They pack the people in like sardines though:/

As for the gold exhibit, I know a few people (girlfriend included) that would go ballistic with that amount of gold around.

Well, without further ado... here are the pics:P

So here's what I weigh:P

This will give you an idea of the size of the planetarium sphere.

This was pretty kewl, realtime earthquake info.

Here's a full size model of the Mars rovers

OMW - I have GOT to get one of these for hte next office casual day!

--Vodka

Addicted to Mocha

Seriously, you should see how big these mocha's can get! If you're ever in New York, find a Starbucks and order a Venti Mocha... man they are god's gift to office workers.

On a side note, New York is getting rather warm... it's 12 celsius (53 F) outside today, and instead of snow we now have wet, sopping rain!

On the bright side a buddy from South Africa is visiting this weekend. I'm going to have to introduce him to alchohol in New York so he can blog about it (if you haven't seen it yet, he's one of the tavern's crew (whiskeywineandsoda.blogspot.com).
Read just a few of their posts, it'll all make perfect sense.

This weekend promises to be an eventful one. There are many plans afoot, including countless beverages (alcoholic in nature of course:P), sushi and yes even the weekly outing to somewhere scenic in New York (which reminds me that I still need to post on the American Natural History Museum).

Depending on the levels of behavior, I might exclude some details of the weekends events. I know whatever happens, Whiskey is likely to mention it:P

--Vodka

A Weekend in New York (Part 2)

I came to a sad realisation today... my tan is gone, and i'm not going to get it back until I go back to South Africa! Now the only way to tell me apart from Americans is my accent and my passport.

As for what i've been doing... well today was a blur. It kinda just happened and i'm not quite sure what I did other than sit in front of the keyboard hacking away at it. Anyway, enough about that. I promised to continue with the weekend I had.

Rockefeller Center

Well on Saturday I also went to the Rockefeller Center. Now I didn't go up to Top of the Rock this time, but I went up a few weeks ago (before I bought my camera :/) and the view is insane! I can't compare it with the Empire State yet because I haven't been up.

The Rockefeller center offers so much more though. There's a myriad of shops and restaurants, Radio City Music Hall, NBC Studios and the Museum of Modern Art is nearby too (on 53rd).

Well, my battery is running low and I left my charger at work, so I'm just going to put some links here and the photo's I took:P Perhaps I can elaborate tomorrow some more.

PhotosImage 1: The center was really busy outside on Saturday. This is a pic of one of the ticket booths outside.

Image 2: Here's an AdWalker. This guy sells tickets on a system strapped to his body. Talk about getting creative. Although, I wonder why he's selling tickets right near the ticket booth!?

Image 3: OK, so here's a perfect example of what makes Rockefeller Center, well, Rockefeller Center. Prometheus and the ice rink. This place has always got people looking over it, or skating on it... even in the week. Oh, and I checked all the flags and didn't see South Africa's:/ I'm not sure which countries got there flags up here or why.

Links

Ok, If you're interested in going up to see Top of the Rock, check out www.topoftherocknyc.com
For more information on the Rockefeller Center, here's a decent link http://www.rockefellercenter.com/home.html. There's a web cam there too.

Apart from that, with 8% battery left, I say cheers till my next post. One last word, thanks to the comments on the last post. Keep em coming. Perhaps I will find some decent theme to follow eventually.

--Vodka

A weekend in New York (Part 1)

So I am a South African in New York for the Next two and a half months and won't be blogging about much in South Africa (I don't expect). While I am here though, I think it is only fitting that I blog about what I'm doing so that those back home can get a taste of what's happening 7 hours in the past:P

Now I'm not going to retrace everything that's happened in the last two weeks that I've been here(including the 27 hours of traveling!) because that would take a lot more effort. I suppose I could start with this past weekend, and if I include anything that has happened before, then consider yourself lucky (or unlucky, which ever you prefer).

On Saturday I was free to roam the city (yes I am employed:P) and go see a whole bunch of stuff... so I started with Central Park. Now in the past week New York has finally seen a decent amount of snow. Today was the first day since i've been here that it was above zero (8 degrees celsius:P). Needless to say, Central park was covered in snow / ice. I went relatively early in the morning, and walked through quite a large portion of the park. The snow had hardened to ice and I never even left footprints.

As a Capetonian, I'm used to being spoilt with a 15 min travel in any direction to either climb a mountain, scuba dive, paddle or if I want to spend a little more time in the car then go wine tasting. It is with this in mind that I can see the attraction to Central Park. It is the closest thing to nature that you can get being in this city.

The Park itself is quite kewl, lot's of statues of different things (including one of the characters in Alice in Wonderland.

As for things to do... there were quite a few people ice skating on a frozen lake. There was some good music playing and a lot of people walking around by the afternoon.

As for life in Central Park, I saw a hobo.

Ok, just kidding, there's more than that there. Finches, swans, marsh ducks and a whole host of other birds which I can't identify (because I am too lazy to look them up).

The only thing that that I feel compelled to warn you about are the Central Park Squirrels!
Man these things are trained killers... they don't run away from humans, they run towards them! I am only assuming that they are gunning for food, but you should she the terror on a three year old's face when confronted with a gang of squirrels. I'm sure these guys are in with the mafia.

"Common kid... hand over the cashews, we don't wants no trouble!"

Times Square

Ok, so here's one place where I can't see what all the fuss is about. It's just a street where any monkey with enough cash can stick up an advert and put some lights on it. Granted, it's quite colorful and theres a billboard of Mama Mia that's big enough to be visible from space! Besides that, i'm not sure why it is so packed. It might have something to do with the fact that I went on a Saturday and it was crammed with people like me that were trying to see what the fuss is about.

Anyway, i'm not going to waste any more time on it. Here are the photos:

It was chinese new year on Saturday as well:P

... to be continued

--Vodka