A few South Africa Pictures

South Africa #1

So as you can see I basically abandonned the blog for most of this year. I realize I should have taken it down, but I kept it up just for this reason! I finally have something exciting to blog about. I'm in South Africa!

I've been here for 4 days and so far the trip has been great. I met Kath in Capetown and did some touring around there for a few days. Yesterday we climbed Table Mountain and felt very fit. (Our driver Simon said it would take us 2 hours and it only took us an hour and fifteen minutes.)

Today we left Capetown and drove ourselves to Stellenbosch which is in wine country. It is a super cute little town and we are staying at a lovely guesthouse right between downtown and one of the main wineries called The Lanzerac (sp?) where Kath is attending a conference. We are planning to hike or ride some bikes or potentially some horses around the wineries tomorrow and then we have a night of wine tasting after that!

Sorry there aren't any pictures...I haven't actually remembered to take any yet. But don't worry, I promise to start taking some pictures tomorrow!

Skiing

Well, it's that time of year again. Ski season! I didn't get much skiing in last year because I was still a student and $80 for one day of fun is a bit hard to take when you have no income. I'm hoping to get out a bit more this year. So far I've only been out once, but I just bought new skis and boots so now I'm very excited go try them. The cabin is out of commission due to renovations which puts a bit of a damper on my regular ski plans but hopefully I'll find some other fun ski possibilities.

In addition to downhill I've also been trying out skate skiing. I'm really not fit enough for it, but I've been having a lot of fun anyways. I'm hoping if I keep skate skiing it will make me a bit fitter and I won't get cut from my frisbee team in the summer!

Birthday!

Yesterday was my birthday. I'm now 26. I feel sort of old. My big gift this year was a guitar from my parents. I'm pretty excited about learning how to play. I've decided that I will sign up for a few lessons to get me started and then I'll see if I can learn on my own after that. So far I can play e,f,and g on the first string. That's it.

* UPDATE *
I can now play Ode to Joy poorly. Really need to take some lessons in January!

My new bike!

I got a new mountain bike today!!! I decided to branch out a bit from road cycling and give this whole mountain biking thing a go. I'm basically terrified of most of the more technical stuff but I'm excited to learn and hopefully I'll gain some confidence as I get better.

Accountability

So far today my "contributing to the world" score is hovering only slightly above zero. Other than paying the guys at the bike shop for fixing my bike I have done little to make the world a better place. This isn't because I couldn't think of anything to do, in fact I have oodles of school preparation to take care of as well as household chores that I keep promising to do and don't. Unfortunately that debilitating beast known as procrastination has reared its ugly head yet again and forced me to sit around reading stupid things on the internet and hoping someone will update their blog. (Update: Thanks to Jenn for updating her blog!). As part of this procrastination I decided to take a look back at my own blog to see how stupid it all seems a few years later. So far I have discovered the following things:
1. My brain is going to mush and I am becoming less interesting over time.
2. I really haven't kept up with the initial intentions of my blog. Especially the part about rating other people's blogs.
3. People are losing interest (I realize this assumes there was a measurable level of interest to begin with). Comments are down considerably from 2006.

In the name of accountability I have decided that if I am going to continue to have this blog I need to address the above issues. Here is my 3 point plan:
1. Say "yes" to more stuff. I think that saying "yes" more often will make my life more exciting and result in more interesting blog entries.
2. Reference other blogs more often in my posts.
3. Make new friends. Perhaps blogs are really only interesting for the first year. New friends might still think the blog is a novel idea and I could have a solid year of interest before they realize that they have better things to do with their time.

Vancouver

I spent the long weekend in Vancouver with Kris and Ath. It was super fun even though they had just moved into their new apartment and we had to unpack a lot of boxes. The trip met all the requirements of a good trip to Vancouver: Sushi at Toshi's, ferryboat rides, fish tacos, sea wall walks, waffles, mountain adventures, and lots and lots of yummy coffees.
Highlights of the trip this time:
1. Hiking "The Grind": We felt pretty fit considering it is sort of a fit people thing to do. Gimpy (my ankle) did well on the hike too...I was pretty happy about that.
2. Going for trendy dinner: We had to walk down a sketchy alley to get into the restaurant and we saw two people smoking crack AND a rat. I'd never really seen a rat before. (The dinner was also very delicious)
3. Meeting baby Nikko (My cousin's baby): Nikko is certifiably cute and not at all breakable...my kind of baby.

I will post pictures as soon as my sister sends them to me.