You know you're famous when...

You make it into the pages of the regional Western Cape newspaper, Die Burger! (Thanks for sending the clipping, Susan!)
A calendar FusionDesign entered into the Stuttgart International Calendar Competion won a silver! Wait, wait, I have a speech prepared. It's here somewhere...
Each of the designers carved four HUGE wooden blocks and these designs were used to create the final 16-month calendar which was silk-screened onto printer's make-ready sheets aka waste sheets.
Which brings us back to the missing A1+ size piece of distraction-luggage. Yup, it was one of the calendars I lugged all the way to the desert. It did eventually make it to my door, a week later.

Would an aubergine by any other name taste the same?

So, for the time being, until we get paid, Johan and I are trying to lie low and save money. Take groceries for instance, you can buy 15 Iranian eggplants for 6 DHS. But if you buy the ones that are imported from Holland, it's 20 DHS a kilo. So I figure, there's a bigger chance that the ones from Europe are genetically modified than the ones coming from Iran. Besides, they've got, er, other eggplant to fry at the moment. The only thing is that we're running out of ideas on how to prepare aubergines. Recipes anyone?

Is that snow?!?

I met up with an old friend from Saudi Arabia today. Abe and I haven't seen each other since a teary departure
from Disney World in January 2001. So quite fitting to meet up in a mall, called IBN Battuta, which is laid out as six
different countries, and kind of made me think back to Millennium Village at Epcot Centre in Florida.
From there we moved on to the Mall of the Emirates. Which is huge. And has a ski slope. With snow. Real snow, people.
I will have to send pictures. Because who's gonna believe there's snow in the desert when it's like 50 degrees Celcius outside?

Days of the week

So I figured, things are a bit different here. Take for instance the days of the week.
Thursday is Friday
Sunday is Monday
Friday is Sunday (religion-wise)
Tuesday is Wednesday
And Saturday is Saturday, except that you might get the Sunday blues,
because remember, Sunday is Monday!

The Towers...

I had my first day at the office with an orange wall today. Work being at a company called electric-orange which is situated on the 22nd floor of the Emirates Towers. It's in the taller of the two buildings. Pretty impressive architecture, hey? The view from up here is amazing. And yes, I am working as a graphic designer. Have to put the old education to some good use :)

A mythical city rising from the desert

It seemed like we had been transported to another planet. One that was being built all at the same time, with the deadline for construction to be finished within 25 days. After all, it was close to 2 am on Tuesday morning & there were people working on about 40, 40-storey buildings around our new apartment. This early in the morning it looked spectacular. Lights twinkling, with even the cranes sitting atop the buildings being lit up.

At this time we were so hyper, (the HUGE A1+ size piece of luggage got left behind in JHB, and would be delivered the following day) that we only got to bed at about 3 am.

Wow, a brand-new country. Which at this moment looks like a giant construction site.

Off to the desert...finally

Tips on being overweight at the airport.

No diet needed actually. Just charm, and a HUGE A1+ size piece of luggage, that needs FRAGILE stickers and also to be booked onto the flight separately. This is called distraction, and in Cape Town still seems to work better than bribery. I had approximately 50 kilo's of luggage on my own. I was allowed 20. ( Just to put you in the picture.)

Yes, so after having a few nervous breakdowns in the days preceding the flight, we finally made it to the airport and were off to the desert. I was a bit stressed (ok, really stressed for those who saw me the day before I left) since I knew that my luggage would be WAY overweight. And it dawned on me just then, that I was actually LEAVING the country!

We had to run through Jo'burg airport with a 20 minute window between flights. At last we could sit back and relax on the Emirates Airlines flight. Which was wonderful, by the way, The in-flight entertainment was fantastic, and the 7 hour flight seemed too short to fit everything in!