ARRRR for a return

written monday - 7.22am:

sunday:

breakfast - a big, jewish breakfast. locks and bagels, something called a frittata, and from arbitrary chatter to israeli politics because that's just what happens with these people whether you talk for five minutes or two hours. it was fun, but about halfway through i started getting butterflies in my stomache.

i was going away again.

the last goodbyes and the last phone calls were quick and awkward; we were packed and out of there fifteen minutes than i'd said we should be but fifteen minutes before my mother had suggested, so we were all good. mango groove accompanied us to the airport. protoplasm met up with us there, and after a quick check-in we went downstairs for decent vida e cafe and a lot of talking. we sat there longer than it felt.

the walk through security and passport control was smooth, ignoring the officer's explaining the cartoon representation of human trafficking because it wasn't actually particularly clear. we didn't buy anything during the five minutes that we had before the call for "all outstanding passengers" - assuming that this was an indication of our being late, we hurried to the gate only to be amongst the first through.

the first hop was smooth and comfortable, the baby sitting two rows ahead of us was quiet and i read the whole way. sitting for an hour in johannesburg would have been a bitch, only we passed the time with a couple of games of pirate fluxx and it's almost as fun two-player :)

the long hop wasn't so cool - i'm pretty much done with the fifth harry potter book, but the reason i read so much in one go was that i couldn't sleep. i'm amused, though - my legs are so stiff and tender from the hike up table mountain that they didn't really cause me any grief throughout the flight! i was a bit dehydrated, though.

not including the short bursts of aforementioned baby's screams and not a few failed attempts to catch some shut-eye, it wasn't too bad a flight. arrival wasn't fantastic, though; our legs made us squeal down the steps from the plane, the hotel's too expensive and we just don't dig this airport.

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written now:

monday:

not counting about an hour and a half / two hours of blissful sleep that i stole on istanbul airport's "meh" chairs while pg watched over the bags, we were awake and waiting for the ten hours we were there. in that time i finished, finally, the fifth book in the harry potter series, we played hours of pirate fluxx (what a great purchase!) and ate dodgy asian and drank boring beer (efes).

the flight back wasn't too good, primarily because i was seated next to an arab who's behaviour indicated more than just that it was his first time flying; he behaved like an ars on a bus, exhibiting aggressive behaviour, being a phonic thug and even taking calls during take-off.

he made us a bit uncomfortable.

the biometric passport card is a pleasure. we breezed through passport control, only to have to wait for ages for the luggage to hit the carousel.

we were on time for the train, which is a terrible thing to "just miss" when on one's way to or from the airport. speaking of time: on august the 16th my watch stopped working. i assumed that it was the battery. the temperature in cape town was fairly similar during our time there, and both cities are at sea level... anyway, halfway home i discovered that my watch had resumed working. frikkin' weird.

so we got back home, and *click* everything's back to normal.

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tuesday:

after unpacking and showering, i slept the sleep of the dead. mmf woke me up with a phone call, and i caught up on comics all the way to work.

the workday was fairly uninteresting - all i really have to do is re-install ubuntu. unfortunately, something's very wrong with my laptop so that's taking a lot more effort than my boss' optimistic "it'll take a half an hour" :P

i scrambled home to go train, which, with my pained steps and exhaustion didn't seem like too good an idea until i got there, caffeined up, ready for a good session of stretching and technique.

on the way back home i spotted a thrown out wooden board from a construction site, so i dragged pg there with me to assist in measuring and carrying back to our roof. it fits snugly, so we now have a table for when we entertain :D

the broken elevator let up with some coercion, so that wasn't too rough.

i went shopping, quite bravely considering i only partially understood the list. i don't do relative sizes, and i eventually gave up on the red wine because the supermarket has a terrific selection that confuses me. the broken elevator forced me to carry the overweight bag all the way up the stairs.

pg didn't have the energy to go rollerblading, but i did. the route was brilliant (albeit really tough) and i took the opportunity to chat with pg's mum as well as a few others who're close enough to know we'd gone.

by the end of the route my legs were buggered, and the broken elevator forced me to clamber up on my blades. buggrit!

after i'd showered, i pulled out a slab of biltong and sat watching friends with pg and sorted out some of the photos from the trip. by 3am it was time to crash. i got up early to post this, and now it's time to get this day started.

it's weird being in summer again, but it's so nice to be in summer and to not be stressed by office hours!