So on Sunday night I go to bed late, like have been every other night for the last month, the only difference would be that at 6.45 on Monday morning I would be rudely awoken from my deep slumber, by the riiiinnnngggg, of my cellphone. It was at this time I realised the honeymoon was over and back to routine I go. Even though it was a month, it felt far too short, but good whilst it lasted. I cant tell you it was just what the doctor ordered. A whole month, almost away from all the ‘ills’ and ‘wells’ in your life, on a different continent. Other than the exchange rate that’s breaking the bank account, not a worry in the world. Time, pah!!! What was that. Never wore a watch once. Good thing/bad about that is you have time…time to sit, time to step back, time to think about the days, months, years gone by, time to think about the days, months, years to come, time to take stock, time to just chill and be nje (just).

So guess what I did, other than missioning? Yip did a lot of thinking about where my life is at and where its going and what this life is all about. And no I am not sad and morbid, au contraire mona - mi I am pretty chuffed, a bit of direction in most facets of my life, something that has been lacking for a while. But in saying that I thought and am still thinking about what this life is all about? A series of tests? But for what? But anyway enough of that. Whilst away away I read what I found to be quite an amazing book…yes you read right, I read….Its actually the third or so book I have read by this author, Paulo Coelho. The book’s name was Veronika decides to die. Its an easy yet interesting read. It’s a story about a young girl, who seems to have everything going for her, but she decides to end her life, after all what is its purpose. She doesn’t succeed and she ends up in a mental institution where she is told her life on this earth is but a few days long. The story is written about how this young lady touches the lives of many of the ‘insane inmates’ as well as how she finds new meaning to her own life. There were many more messages in there, but if you like that kind of Alchemist type of book this book is fantastic. Not only did I read that one I started reading Dan Brown’s Angels and Demons, also a fantastic read thus far. But not as easy as the other, damnit its about 3 times the size!!

On the 4th of July 2006, on board Emirates I go, 8 hrs later, we arrive in Dubai, shopping mecca…mmm not! I thought things would be swimming around for free, not quite, stayed there for a few hrs caught Italy beating Germany, then off to London I go, get to Gatwick, London on wednesday morning, its no joke, overcast, hot and sticky, what had the plane diverted to Durban? I’m clueless, no idea how to mission from Gatwick to where my mate stayed in Chelsea, so asked the train guys, guy told me buy a day pass for off peak I tune schweet. I buy it, but when is off peak? So I ask, the guy tells me 9, so I chill till about 9.20 to be on the safe side. Hook up the first train I see heading to Victoria station, it’s the Gatwick express, so I say this not so bad. About 15 min into the trip, this lovely lass steps to me and asks ticket please. Now me, I’m chiffed cos I’m on holiday, got my off peak day pass, so I pull it out, lass looks at me and says sorry mate (imagine the accent) you need to get another ticket yeah, eish mara why? She says the ticket is for normal trains, and what kind of train is this I ask? And she says its for off peak and I say but I was told off peak was after 9, she says no boss after 9.30. So how much will it be, she says 14 pounds, I say Eita! And so it started. Missioned all the way to Nana’s place, what a pleasure aircon! Place to rest! Thanks for hosting me bro really much appreciated. Didn’t rest for long, after all I had a day pass so make the best of it, took a shower. Roamed the streets. Caught up with Lebo and went gallivanting.

So we start hashing out our plans to head to Berlin on Friday for the handover ceremony, a long shot, yes, but a framework to work off. Friday comes Friday goes, London is actually a ripper, just hanging out, chilling. Enter Sunday about 5 or so pm, we decide ok cool lets go to Berlin. Armed with our suitcases and visas boasting our Schengens we headed to Heathrow. We get there and the only flight we could get that was somewhat reasonable, but even that was ludicrous, was the last BA flight, we got on by the skin of our teeth, cos we dilly dallied before leaving for the airport. Anyway we made it on the flight. Guess what, the flight is delayed for like an hour. So its not just in Jozi flights get delayed, so we cant get off the plane, game is on, sorry for us. Anyway we finally take off, just as we take off we are landing again…in Berlin, the beauty of living in Europe. We are in Berlin, now what, so we have mates who were already there so we drop them a line and they tell us where to make our way to, we do just that. We meet them, at about 11pm or midnite, who knew, I wasn’t wearing a watch, didn’t wear a watch once whilst I was gone.

The final was over, Italy were champions, Italy, France…didn’t matter much to me, its just about who is partying the most. So we drop off our bags, a bit oiled from the flight. Systems were fired up. We went looking for the masses and we didn’t have to look far, anyway so we ask this cab driver to take us to a place where it would be rocking, he takes us away from the masses to a club that would ordinarily be rocking, but not that night (being a Sunday and all…duhhh!!), but we decide its all good, there are quite a few people in the streets we will see what we can make of this. Wasn’t too long before we found plenty people. Tell them you are South African and all they can say is 2010 we will be there and then they shove you with loads of booze, tell them u were born in Ghana… make plenty of mates…sports is a beautiful thing. Anyway so at about 3 or so we decide to move on and head to another place on our way we come across this Brazilian marching parade of sorts, whole bunch of people beating, drums and blowing trumpets. They were going the opposite direction, ie heading to where we had come from. They were festive. Oh what the hell, we turned and joined in, it was a ripper. To make matters worse, Lebo got hold of a vu-vu-zela (plastic trumpet used by many South African soccer supporters, it was over. We marched in the streets till the sun was coming up. At this time our mates had left us and I was hitting the wall big time. But Lebo and his vu-vu-zela were in their element. Many an hour passed, I was moeg, had no idea where I was or where we were going to sleep. Anyway I managed to convince Lebo to go. We made it as far as an open park in front of a few offices. Lebo decided to take a seat, followed by a lie down, followed by a little laugh, followed by snoring. Oh well, so I took my fone and my wallet, put it in my one pocket and slept on that side of my body, to give would be burglars a tough time if they wanted to rob me J. I slept hard but not for no longer than an hour. Woke up to a ‘hey man!’ from Lebo, looked around, plenty other people from the marching carnival had sought refuge in the park too, but the worst part was there were plenty people missioning off to work, I felt very arb, ag but I was on leave. Anyway so we made it back to civilisation, sorted out a hotel to stay in for that night and the next.

Had a few experiences in Berlin, first off was we all went to visit my mates family and across the road was a brothel, I had never ventured into one neither had any of my companions, my mates cousin say go take a look. And shocked indeed I was. The décor was dodgy, looked very old and minging, but that wasn’t the shock. We sat there had a drink like you would any other bar, but once again that wasn’t the shock. There were some scantily clad lasses there, nope not the shock. So we are sitting there at the door, to the balcony that is overlooked by many apartments across the road, trying to catch some air cos it was a bit of a warm nite. In the corner of my eye I see this object moving back and forth like, but I cant make it out, at first I think its someone’s arm after a few more glances and the ferocity of the movement growing I realise it’s a woman’s backside moving to and fro, the thought never occurred to me that they were doing the dirty right there, because they have rooms for that. Curiosity got the better of me and I stood up to go take a closer look, and yes they were! I was shocked. It was a ripper!

Germany doesn’t care, every other shop is a sex shop we went past parks where people park off naked it’s a joke. We are sitting at this café looking for a burger some guy offers us coke (cocaine) which he had wrapped neatly in a ball in his mouth. My freakiest experience in my life happened to me in Berlin. So we decide its time to go find our hotel, we catch a bus to the vicinity and drag our suitcases through the streets. Its roughly 3am in the morning. We see this woman walking her dog, at 3am in the damn morning?!! But that’s not the freaky part, uh huh, the whole time we were missioning for our rooms, I felt a very heavy, negative presence all around me, it was freaky, cos I don’t freak out too easily. It was getting a bit much so I stop and ask Lebo, boss is it cos I am tired or do you feel like there is something that’s not right here, he said bra I was going to ask you the same thing. Anyway we decide its best to just find our hotel, we walk a few more metres, stop at the corner of a street just to re-orientate ourselves. Out of nowhere we hear a voice screeching something we couldn’t make out. We looked at each other, grabbed our bags and high tailed out of there. Needless to say that it took no time for us to find our hotel. Stayed there for a couple of days, nice city Berlin is, quite insane that it could be so divided, we went on a open air bus trip, nice to see the city, but hardly caught any of the names of places or significance thereof cos the lass spoke maily German…hmmm

From there off to Amsterdam, caught a train, took but a few hours and in a new city we were, it was just after 11pm, had nowhere to sleep, once again. Made some mates with some Canadian guys, who told us of this place where they were staying right in the heart of the red light district, I wasn’t too excited about that (tsk tsk) but oh what the hell, so we went with them. [Strolling through the streets we were greeted by the distinct smell of Mary J, ripper, nobody shy about smoking it neither, a different world I tell u]. Guess what? They were full, so the lady at the front was nice enough to phone around for us and she found us another place, they told her 50 euros, per night which was schweet. We get there and the guy tells us 70 Euros, still schweet, but I was bleak cos that’s bad business, cos he thinks we are desperate, but I quite loathe getting f***ed over, so anyway we take a look at the rooms, and they are properly minging! I say to Lebo, boss I am going to mission till I find a place that’s at least half decent, its late, he’s tired, I fully understand he was bleak. He managed to get the rate reduced to 60 euros but I said nooit. We missioned for an hour and a bit but finally my negotiation skills shone through. Someone bit. It was about 1.30 came to this styling looking hotel, young person at the desk I say to him how much for a night, the dude says 120 euros, I say ‘nigga’ please, I tell him I have a place offering me 60 euros, yours is empty and may well stay empty for the night, I think your boss would be happier with 60 euros than naught, cos I am sure out of season you go well below 70 euros, he says 90 I say 70 he says 85 I say 70, eventually I get my 70 plus another 2 for taxes…score. Enter the room, fantastic, clean, aircon, shower, toilet, tv. Oops shower, hmm, shower curtain busted, oh no, call guy in front, guy comes says oh no, we can move you but a mission. I say don’t worry how about you throw in breakfast (see breakfast was excluded cos I took him down to 70 euros) he says schweet I think…score!! It was a beautiful day J. Want to hear a funny story, so on the last day in Amsterdam we decide not to check in because we were going to sort out an early train ride to Paris, as early as 6.30. The hotel was kind enough to let us leave our bags in their storage room so we could roam freely. And freely we roamed, a bit too free because we walked all over Amsterdam. We came across a market, where we lost each other. A good few hours later we met up again and went through the streets. We finally finished our wanderings a little after 3 (I think 3 was our magical no). Now it didn’t make sense to go to the hotel for 3 hours, so what do we do, well we had bus passes that allowed us to hop on and off busses at any time, so how do we kill time, well lets hop onto this bus and see what route it takes. So bus one, didn’t see the route, before I knew it, we were back at the starting point 1 hour less to waste, another bus, different route, through the burbs, even saw the Ajax Amsterdam grounds. Hour later, bus returned to the station, driver screams last stop. One more hour to kill…next bus, round and round we go. Bus returns, just after 6. fetch bags, enter train, find seats all in a days work. Train leave station before you know it…Paris North station

My intention was to make my way down to my friend who lives near Toulouse cos I have already done Paris, but it was Bastille Day, okes were bleak to be working or maybe not liking the fact that I was speaking English to them or they just didn’t like me, cos people weren’t being too helpful. Anyway so I finally get some assistance and the told me it would take about as long if not longer than my trip from Amsterdam. I would have loved to venture into French wine country, but this amazing race sort of missioning was taking its toll, it was hot, I was tired, needed to shower, had hay fever…Paris was sounding a great alternative. Really do love that place though you don’t have to do much but its just such a beautiful place. Anyway didn’t really do much we stayed with Daniel and his girlfriend and really just mellowed out, walked around abit, through the parks etc, only thing I thought was missing was my Thash. I needed to chill a bit so after 2 days I headed back to London caught up with some friends and family I hadn’t seen in years.

Enter Saturday the real reason I went to Europe, my mates Vaughan and Victoria got hitched. Beautiful wedding it was. It was held in a place called Swallowfield near Reading. Another first…I actively participated in my first garter throwing ‘ritual’ only cos my mate was saying that he has been to 10 wedding and caught 9 of them and there was no way he would not get this one. Guess what? Its lacy, its light blue, its mine hee hee hee. From there I took a trip over to Oxford to visit Saul and Mandy, beautiful place that. Oxford or London, give me Oxford any day. Even went to the place they filmed Harry Potter…Christ Church College.

And so it ended and I am tired of writing. Thanks to all whom I saw, and the others another time perhaps. Thanks again to Nana, Daniel and Eddie for hosting us and to Jenn for all the help. Other than that a welcome to my cousin Bo, if you find this email to be clogging your mail box drop me a line, alternatively if u have any comments on how to improve this mail or topics of interest please do drop me a line.

Quote
“Being happy doesn't mean that everything is perfect. It means that you've decided to look beyond the imperfections.”

“Dream as if you'll live forever, live as if you'll die today.”

On that note I end, maximum respect.

Y