In Denial (Or More Accurately, On De Nile)

I realised after my last post that I hadn't blogged about my trip to egypt yet.

I went in April, trying to get the good weather but miss the worst of
the heat - which didn't actually work. Cairo was fairly hot, but
Luxor and Aswan were incredibly hot! It was close to unbearable, and
i'm only glad that I didn't go in June or July.

I went with a company called Egypt Today, who specialise in trips to
Egypt. They were really good, very well organised, and they look
after you every step of the way - you're never left wondering what
you're supposed to do or how to get to where you're going.

The local guides do try to sell you extra tours, but then that's
egypt. Everyone tries to sell you something, and as it says in the
guidebooks, you have to tip for everything. And unfortunately they're
used to rich american tourists who throw dollars around, so they're
often not happy being tipped in egyptian pounds.

It's an amazing country, though. I flew to cairo, saw the pyramds and
the egyptian museum, then caught the luxury sleeper train down to
aswan. Then I joined a cruise boat to cruise back up to aswan. Both
the train and boat were a great way to see some of the countryside.

All the temples do get a bit much - there are so many, and in the heat
they all start blurring together in your mind. But they really are
all amazing, and they're in amazing condition considering how old they
are! It's all really impressive and awe inspiring.

Here are a couple of photos from the trip. The Temple of Philae:


And Pyramids, Desert, Camels, and me:

Cape Town vs London

It's taken a while, but as promised, here are the photos to show why I prefer working in Cape Town to working in London :-) These were all taken from around my office in London:




And Cape Town:





I'm not going to get into the relative advantages and merits of each place - I'd have a list that goes on forever! I do miss London now that I'm in Cape Town; but I missed Cape Town when I was in London. The difference is that I miss London less from Cape Town than I missed Cape Town from London, if you know what I mean. What it comes down to is that Cape Town is home, and while London is great, it's not home for me. Although there are two things I particularly miss at the moment - central heating, and Green & Black's Hot Chocolate! If it didn't come in a great big heavy glass bottle, I'd consider requesting some via post for my birthday next month ;)

And while I'm posting photos, here are some totally gratuitous photos of my car (a Kia Picanto, which I'm very happy with):

Sightseeing

So I finished work on Monday; it was kinda sad to leave. The first job I had fell apart so quickly that I was just stunned; the second, it kinda fell apart and I resigned, but I really hated leaving. The next one, well, I was really glad to get out of there. This one I didn't hate, and I didn't love; I wouldn't have left, except that I wanted to go home. So I kinda had mixed feelings about leaving (for someone who doesn't like change, and who gets really attached to things and people and places, I really make life difficult for myself!).

I go home next month, and then the whole thing starts again - finding a flat, finding a job (and going through interviews again, aargh!). I want to get a car, and at least I'll have a bike again, yay! Hopefully I'll find a job I like, and make friends, and maybe, hopefully, even meet a guy ;) In the meantime, though, I'm catching up on some sightseeing; yesterday, I went off to Oxford and the Cotwolds.

I went on the London Walks trip, which is reasonable value. We went from Paddington to Oxford station, where there was a bus to take us to the Cotwolds. First stop was Minster Lovell, where we wandered around and saw the ruins of Minster Lovell Hall. Very pretty place, and it was cool to stand in a real ruined building - you see it on TV, but it's different being there in person. And to see the foundations of the outbuildings - it was a bit of a Time Team flashback :-)

At the village church there was a scene that I just had to take a photo of; file it in the dictionary as a definition for 'irony' (hmm, maybe I should have cropped and zoomed a bit; if you can't read it, the sign says 'Welcome'):

And this picture is exactly what I always imagined when I heard the word 'cottage':

We then went off to Burford, for lunch, and then on to Oxford. We did quite an interesting walking tour of Oxford, and even got to go inside New College, and saw the dining room (again, just like I always imagined!) and the chapel. All very cool, and I was really chuffed to be able to buy a real Oxford sweatshirt, from a real Oxford college store :-) I got to see the Ashmolean Museum, although unfortunately there wasn't time to go inside; same with the History of Science Museum, which sounded really cool.

I also particularly liked the gargoyles at New College:

Tomorrow I'm off to Bath; this time, I managed to get really cheap train tickets, so I'm going on my own rather than on a guided tour. I'll do a City Sightseeing bus tour round the city, and go to the Roman Baths and the Pump Room; hopefully it'll be interesting! Monday I'm off to Edinburgh for the day; I know it's insane going all that way for one day, but... well... for some reason I decided to do it, and it's too late to change my mind now :-) I'm really excited about that one; again, it's a bus tour round the city, and entrance into the castle. Woot!

Snow!

Wow! It's snowing!

I can't believe it - I woke up ths morning, looked out the window and everything was covered in snow. It looks so pretty, covering the trees and roofs and cars! It really looks like someone sieved icing sugar all over everything. And it's so funny to see cars driving down the road covered in snow, with just the windows clear :)

It almost makes up for it being so cold the past few days. I thought it was a bit warmer today, but maybe I just didn't notice, being too amazed at the snow - after standing at the station waiting 20 minutes for a train, i'm pretty damn cold. Not as cold as in Lapland, but still cold.

And this is proper snow - 1 or 2 centimetres deep, and soft and fluffy. This is the stuff you can make snowballs out of, not like the icy stuff in Lapland.

And now that I've reported in, i'm going to sit back and watch the snowy landscape out the train window until I get to work :)

Update: finally got around to putting up a couple of pictures:

Ban Reclining Seats, Please!

I've mostly recovered from the tonsillitis and subsequent cold, although I'm still a bit sniffly. And I know that I promised a post on my Lapland Christmas when I got better, and it is still coming! But the other day I read a thread on banning reclining seats on planes, and then today I read this blog post which mentions the same thing. Now this is something I feel really strongly about - I hate it when the person in front of me reclines their seat. So this is the comment I posted on the blog:

the Knee Defender -- a mischievous little gadget that allows you to be a tad more comfortable at the expense of making your fellow traveler a tad less comfortable

Nope, that's the other way round: reclining makes you a tad more comfortable at the expense of your fellow traveller's much greater discomfort.

Try spending a 12 hour flight with your knees jammed up against the back of the seat in front of you, with no room to stretch or move your legs even just a tiny big.

Try reading anything larger than a small paperback - there just isn't room between my body and the seatback to hold it at a reasonable angle!

Try viewing the seatback LCD screen, with the seatback reclined - the viewing angle means that half the screen isn't visible.

Try eating your meal with your elbows bent out to the sides because your traytable is right up close - except that you have someone sitting on at least one side, so you have to try to eat one-handed.

Try getting in and out of your seat when the seat in front of you is reclined - you have to climb over the armrest to do it.

I don't mind as much if the person's actually trying to sleep, but on most of the flights I've been on lately they're just watching the movie or chatting to the person next to them, while I'm getting more and more cramped and frustrated and claustrophobic.

I really wish they would ban reclining seats!

On Holiday!

So tomorrow I'm off to SA for a two-week holiday :-) I'm not sure which I'm looking forward to more... going home for a few weeks, or just being off work!

What I'm not looking forward to is the flying... don't get me wrong, I love flying (not so much the flying as the take-offs and landings), but the new security restrictions are driving me insane. Sure, they've been relaxed slightly, but it still makes life difficult. Particularly if you wear contact lenses - the maximum size container you're allowed to take on board is 100ml, but the minimum size bottle of contact lens solution is 120ml! And considering that I'm going to be flying or in airports for about 15 hours (I'm flying via Frankfurt), I really will need to take my contacts out a couple of times. But I'm not going to get started - the whole thing's ridiculous, and I just get so annoyed that I'm trying to avoid thinking about it at all.

I'm also not looking forward to flying with Lufthansa - I've never flown with them before, but I've already decided that I won't be flying with them again. They just don't reply to queries; they don't have individual entertainment sets; you can't book your seat online or via the travel agent (you can request an aisle or window seat, but it's just a request - most other airlines let you pick your actual seat!); and you can't use web checkin if you booked via a travel agent.

The best airline I've flown with is KLM - not only do they have individual entertainment units (games, tv, movies, everything), it's all totally on demand, so you can really watch whatever you feel like, whenever you feel like it. And they're constantly handing out food, chocolates, chips, icecream.... yummy :-) (Actually, the best airline I've flown with is American Airlines - but that was First Class, so it's not really fair to compare them :D)

Anyway, it's great to have some time off work (I've been working for 7 months solid, I deserve a break!) and nice to be seeing my family again - and it'll be amazing to be in a country where it doesn't get dark at 4 in the afternoon!

Cadbury World

I went out to Cadbury World today, and it was both more and less than I was expecting. Some free chocolate, a very brief view of the packing plant, and a bit of the history of chocolate. I got the impression that they've tried really hard, but couldn't think of much to do - so you get a fake Amazon jungle, and a ride with singing chocolate creatures, and some other stuff that's a bit more relevant, like Cadbury's adverts trhough the years, and the story of how Cadbury's started, and how chocolate is processed. They've certainly put a lot of effort into their presentations - they use a lot of back-projection mixed with real props to produce great 3D effects, so it's worth a trip just from the tech point of view. But somehow it alls feels a bit disconnected, like they were reaching for ideas, and got some good ones, but couldn't tie them together to form a coherent presentation. The layout is pretty good though - there's a one-way
flow throughout, so not only can you not get lost, you can be sure you won't miss anything either.

Needless to say, I came away with lots of chocolate and Cadbury's merchandise - after all, the aim of the place is really just to get you to buy chocolate, not really to teach you about chocolate!

The downside is the time it takes to get there. I'm still on the way home - it's the London General excursion bus trip, and it took about 4 hours to get there (and presumably the same back). I had no idea it was so far, although I guess that if I'd looked at a map first I night
have had some idea :) Not too many kids on the trip, surprisingly, but plenty of irritating people who don't seem to realise that you need to have some consideration for the other people on the bus - sitting with your little group spread out along the length of the bus is fine, but not if you all want to have a conversation together. And playing I Spy with your kids might keep them occupied, but isn't necessarily something the entire bus wants to hear.

But it was a fun trip, although it sucks to have to go to work tomorrow after getting back late tonight - which is why I prefer to go out saturdays, rather than sundays. The trip home in the dark is kinda nice, although boring; it's amazing how in the dark, roads in all countries look the same. The streetlights are the same, the roadmarkings are the same, the road signs are the same, the overpasses are the same. I could be back in SA :)

Lots of fireworks to look at too - although last night was the best, I could see different fireworks shows depending which window I looked out of, and they were all amazing (and incredibly loud!).

Hmmm, really don't feel like getting up for work in the morning :( I'm amazed at how cold it is already, although it's been very clear lately so I guess that contributes to the low temperature. I suspect winter's only just barely started, though, and I just hope it doesn't get too much colder! I'll have to get a scarf and gloves, but it's difficult to bundle up too much, since not only do you end up feeling like the michelin man, you have to unbundle for the bus/train/tube/office or overheat - and carry all your bundling around with you, and not lose any of it. I wonder how everyone else handles it... I'll have to learn all the London winter tricks :)

This Is Cinerama... or not.

Yesterday I went out to Bradford to watch This Is Cinerama as described in Bill Bryson's 'Notes From a Small Island'. I didn't really realise how far away it is from London until after I'd booked my train tickets, but I thought it would be a fun trip anyway. Which it was, but... I'm really going through a bad luck phase. I couldn't believe it, but after watching the first half of This Is Cinerama, one of the projectors broke down! I mean, I know it's an old film and old equipment, but one of the women who works with it said she's been there for 6 months and they've never had a problem. The day I spend 3 hours on a train to get there to watch this one movie, the equipment breaks down. Unbelievable!

The first half was pretty good, though - the rollercoaster in the beginning was absolutely awesome, and I'd really recommend that anyone in the area goes to watch it. But I have to agree with Bill Bryson about Bradford - it's incredibly confusing and easy to get lost. The roads themselves are bad enough, and the map from the NMPFT website isn't very useful. And the signs to the museum point to... I don't know, but not the way you need to go to get to the museum! And then of course you have the pedestrian subways - you really feel isolated down there, and of course you have no way to get your bearings and figure out where you're trying to go! I got there fairly easily, but got a bit coming lost since I came out of a different door that I went in.

The museum itself is small but really cool - they have the original sets from The Wrong Trousers (Wallace & Gromit), and the 1997 version of the Wombles, and, best of all, the original set from Morph! I remember watching that when I was a kid, and it was so cool to see the actual set. I was amazed by how small it is. They have a bunch of other stuff at the museum, and it's well worth going to see (it's even free to get in).

So after wandering around the museum for a while, I went to the Pictureville Cinema for This Is Cinerama, and enjoyed the little bit that we actually went to see. The curved screen is really effective, and it's a very nice theatre. There were only about 10 people there, and when the projector broke and they offered to show The Queen instead, everyone but me and one other person left! I only stayed because otherwise I'd have had to wander around for the three hours before my train, and I couldn't face that. It was okay, although not really my type of movie, and nowhere as good as the rest of This Is Cinerama would have been :-(

Stonehenge!

Finally got connected via dial-up... here's the promised Stonehenge post.

It was really nice having the day off today - pity I have to go back to work tomorrow, though.

Since it was a 3 day weekend, I went off to Stonehenge yesterday (a 2 day weekend is really too short - Saturday you're too tired from working all week to do much, and then Sunday you don't want to do too much and tire yourself out for the coming week).

It was quite a cool trip, although Stonehenge itself was somewhat... unimpressive. I think it gets so built up in the media that you end up expecting something more than it actually is. The stones are big, but not all that big... but big enough when you consider where they came from and how they were dragged into position and all that, and considering the tools they had to work with. But the whole thing is just on a much smaller scale than I would have thought - the circles of stones are much closer together than I thought they would be, as well.

But I'll start from the beginning... I did the SouthWest Trains special, which was included the train tickets, and a guided bus tour of Salisbury and Stonehenge. The train trip was nice, I always enjoy travelling by train, and it was great to see lots of greenery and trees (although you don't get much of a view, since they seem to have screened off the railway lines with trees - which must be nice for the people living nearby, but not so exciting for the people on the train).
The bus tour of Salisbury was not so much a tour as having some of the main attractions pointed on the way out of the town to Stonehenge; the commentary was uninspired, especially considering how everyone always makes Stonehenge so mysterious, but I guess I did learn some things I didn't know before... We went past Old Sarum on the way, which was interesting too. We saw Salisbury Plain as well, of course, although it's the hilliest place I've seen in England yet. Oh, and they pointed out the abbey at Avebury where, supposedly, King Arthur exiled Queen Guinevere after finding out about her and Lancelot, which was kinda cool.

On to Stonehenge, then - lots of burial mounds in the area, which were interesting to see. I read a book about them once when I was at school (a very basic book, since it was one of those "for early reader" type books), and they've fascinated me ever since). And for those of you who've read Terry Pratchett's Tiffany Aching books, it was cool to see that this was clearly Chalk country, and I even tried to take a photo of an area where the chalk is exposed, although it didn't come out very well :-) Stonehenge itself is very photogenic - you just can't help taking a photo every couple of steps round the circle, and they all come out really well, which means you end up having (and I'm not exaggerating) 50 photos of the stones. I've put some of the best below - my camera has a really cool "panorama assist" mode, where you take a photo, then it ghosts that on top of the viewfinder for the next photo, so you can get them all lined up nicely; then an app on your PC stitches them up nicely for you into a wide panorama shot.

The best part about Stonehenge was the contrast to London. Just wide open spaces, for as far as you can see... it was windy (haven't felt wind like that since Cape Town!) and the air was fresh. And there were sheep! I realised then that I haven't really seen any animals, barring a dog or two, since I came to London. So I took a bunch of photos of sheep as well :-) Just wandering around the grass in the quiet, peaceful, open air was the best part of the trip.

Then the tour bus went back to Salisbury; I wandered around a bit, saw the house where they filmed Sense & Sensiblity (although you have to pay to go in). I spent about 5 minutes wandering around Salisbury Cathedral; it's very impressive from the outside, but inside it's just kinda overwhelming. There are tons of tombs, which are interesting at first but after you've seen one medieval tomb you've seen them all... the stained glass windows were impressive, but too big to really appreciate (it sounds odd, but I can't describe it better). I had lunch in the refectory, which was really nice, since it opens onto a little garden (with yet more tombstones, of course). Then I wandered off the Salisbury museum, but didn't go in since by that time I was a bit bored of looking at ancient things (there's only so much you can take in in one day). What I found funny was how the Salisbury museum had signs all over the place, quoting Bill Bryson's Notes From a Small Island (which I just read last week) where he says "The Salisbury Museum is outstanding and I urge you to go there at once", but they don't quote any of the bits where he says how the cathedral is the most money-keen of English cathedrals, or wonders how long it will be till you are "whirred through the 'Salisbury Cathedral Experience' complete with animatronic stonemasons and monks like Friar Tuck" ;-) I wandered back through Salisbury to the train station, and it really is a nice place, with a real English village sort of feeling to it. Then I spent 45 minutes at the train station, since trains to Waterloo only run every hour :-(

So even though I was mildly disappointed by Stonehenge and spent a lot of time hanging around train stations (I got to Waterloo an hour early on the way there, too), it was a really great day and I thoroughly enjoyed myself!

I know this has been a really long post already, but just a couple of things:
- tiscali dial-up sucks, and is really unreliable (or maybe it's just me, or maybe they're having a problem this weekend - either way, it sucks and I really hope their broadband is more reliable). It connects, but nothing actually loads... very annoying.
- I went to see The Breakup today, and I really enjoyed it. Sure, it's one of those dumb comedies, but it was good fun
- in the continuing saga of things going wrong, two lightbulbs blew last night and tripped the light circuit, leaving me totally in the dark. I replace the bulbs today, but one of them still doesn't work, which means the light fitting itself has a problem and now I'll have to get of the landlady, and she'll have to send an electrician out, which means I'll have to be here, which means, again, either postponing my weekend plans (if they'll even come out on weekends), or taking time off work. Unless she can be here instead, which I hope, but doubt, she will. And she doesn't have email, which means I have to phone her... and I REALLY hate phoning people :-(

Wimbledon to The City

I know the last few posts have been very self-centric, but then,
that's implied by the blog title anyway. I do plan to do a couple of
techie posts - one on async programming, at least - but that's tricky
to do with a phone keyboard/email combination, so it'll probably have
to wait until I get full internet access again.

So this is going to be another Wimbledon post, although one that might
be useful to other people who need to travel into the city every day
(ok, probably not). It's difficult not to slide into a 'why I hate
the tube' post, but I'll do my best.

Going from Wimbledon to work, I have 3 options:
- first capital connect train to blackfriars
- district line to blackfriars
- southwest train to waterloo, and a bus the rest of the way

Now it turns out that the best way to get to work is not the best way
to get home from work. Going to work, the blackfriars train is best,
since it's fast, but it only runs every 20 minutes or so. So if I
just miss that one, the district line is my best option. The waterloo
train seems good, and it's fast, but the benefit is lost by having to
wait for ages to get a bus at waterloo. Even the district line isn't
quite as simple as I thought it would be, since there are a couple of
different destinations and either you have to pick the right train or
change later. And since it's the beginning of the line, each train
isn't necessarily leaving right away - they sometimes sit for 10
minutes. At least with the info boards you should be able to tell
which one is leaving first.

Coming home from work is, as I say, a different story. The district
line is fine, although again there are like 3 different destinations,
so you need to pick the right train or change later. The blackfriars
train is tricky - there are a lot of trains leaving from the same
platform, and very few of them go to wimbledon. Those are not very
frequent, and it seems that you need to take the one that goes to
Sutton, and oddly enough not the one that goes to Wimbledon, which
goes the long way round the loop and takes absolute ages to get there.
Since it's easy to catch a bus _to_ waterloo, the waterloo train is
the best option, although while there are a lot of trains to
wimbledon, it's not easy to tell which is leaving soonest, so you
might sit around on the train for 10 minutes or so before leaving (but
the trains do get pretty full, so at least that way it's easy to get a
seat).

So that's my guide to travelling from wimbledon to the city :-) At
least a lot of it's overground, so I can do stuff on the net during
the trip!

A Summer Evening in London

Everyone I know back in South Africa has this picture of London as a grey, dismal place where it rains all the time, and even when it's not raining it's cloudy and miserable.

I knew that wasn't true, but the past couple of days have really proved it. It's been beautiful and sunny, and yesterday at the Bon Jovi concert it was really hot - it was so nice sitting on the grass in the sun with friends :-) And today it's been really hot, really sunny again; too hot, actually, but now it's about 9 in the evening and it's starting to get a bit cooler; the sun's going down, but it's still nice and light and it's just perfect for going a for an evening walk.

I just wish I had someone to walk with, or someone to walk to.

I was standing on the balcony of my flat, looking out over the houses, and it just looked so perfectly London - sometimes I still can't believe that I'm actually here.

Post New York

I've been back from New York for a week now, and still haven't posted any pics. It's been a long week.

It was a great trip - didn't get to do too much during the week, since I was there for work, but the weekend was awesome. I went out to Coney Island, which is somewhere I've read a lot about (okay, read some stories set in) but never thought I'd get to see. Sure, it's past its heyday, and it's all a bit old and faded, but that's the charm of Coney Island. It's just what I pictured (but smaller):




I saw a lot of places in New York, although I didn't go to a lot of places - I did the touristy sightseeing bus tours, so like I saw Central Park, but didn't actually go to Central Park, if that makes sense. But I did go to FAO Schwartz on 5th Avenue, and saw their life size baby elephant plush toy; I went to the huge Toys R Us on Broadway, and saw their giant indoor Ferris Wheel and, even more awesome, their giant animatronic T-Rex (I have a video of it, but I'm not quite sure how to post it here. I'll look into it). I had cheesecake at Junior's, saw the Empire State Building lit up red, white and blue for Fleet Week (and saw the fleet sail in, and the fly-bys!). I saw the Statue of Liberty, Ellis Island, and Governer's Island. I went out to Staten Island on the ferry, and saw South Street Seaport. I took the ferry to and from work (which was across the Hudson in Jersey City). I got caught in a thunderstorm, and bought touristy souveniers (including a NYPD t-shirt, NYPD sweat pants, and even NYPD socks). I tried to take a helicopter trip, but every time I booked it the day turned out too hazy to see anything. Basically I just had an awesome time :-) Oh, except that I didn't get to see Winnie the Pooh :-( I mailed the library to ask if they were open on Memorial Day, and they said they weren't - they neglected to mention that they weren't open the entire Memorial Day weekend. So the wandering around trying to find them was a bit of a waste of time.

Here are a couple of the best photos (I took hundreds, literally, and typically now I don't remember what half of them are of. That's the problem with the sightseeing tours - the guide says "there's the house where .... lives", or "that's where they filmed...."; you take a photo; you look at the photos later, going "why do I have a hundred photos of buildings?").

(I'm using Yahoo! Photos for photo storage, btw - it seemed pretty cool, but I can't figure out how to get a link to just a photo, rather than the album, so I'm still using Flickr for that. If you want to see all my photos, you can view the hi-res or low-res albums.

But now, I'm off to the Bon Jovi concert (with Nickelback!) at Milton Keynes. Pity it's not at Wembley (apart from the fact that it would be cooler, it would be so much easier to get home from afterwards), but I'm so excited, I'm sure it'll be great fun anyway! :D

Update: The concert was great! Sure, it took longer to get there and back than we actually spent at the concert, but it was awesome. Sitting around in the sun on the grass talking to friends was great; Nickelback were great (they played my 2 favourite songs of theirs, 'Savin' me' and 'How you remind me', and I heard some new great ones too, like 'Far Away'); Bon Jovi was just totally awesome. They played a lot from the new album, which I haven't heard yet, but they alternated one new and one old song, and they played all the classics - Keep the Faith (my new theme song), Living on a Prayer, and others that I can't remember right now but were really good. I'm so tired now, though - it was like a two hour aerobic class, jumping around and clapping and I had a really, really good time :-) If I can get my Vario to connect to my PC, I'll upload the two photos I took.

Thunderstorms in New York

So I've been in New York for the past two weeks, and I just haven't had time to blog - I'll do a summary post once I'm back in London and have caught up on some sleep.

But I had the worst evening tonight, and since everyone I would talk to is asleep (given that there's a 5 to 6 hour time difference), I figured I'd use the blogging-as-catharsis approach and talk about it here.

Being my last full day in New York, I was trying to figure out what to spend the last of my money on and came across the iHome - basically an alarm clock that your iPod plugs into. Very cool, cost almost exactly the amount of money I had left, so I thought I'd get one after work.

Amazingly, I actually managed to find a Radio Shack fairly easily, they had them in stock, and I got one. Walked down the block to catch the bus home... wait .... wait... no bus. Then the thunder starts. And the lightning. And then the rain. Big, heavy, wet drops. So while I'm huddled in the bus shelter trying to keep my new iHome dry, I realise: the US uses 110V, while the UK is 220 to 240V. But hopefully the ac adaptor can handle the full range, like my laptop and mobile and camera ac adaptors can?

So while I'm worrying about this, the thunder is getting louder, the lightning more continuous, the rain harder, and the bus's absence more conspicuous. Can't catch a cab, since they only take cash and I spent the last of my cash on the iHome.

Still no buses.

Decide to walk to the next bus stop, in case the buses are making a detour around this block for some reason. Get totally soaked, but the bus pulls up just as I get there. So now I'm soaked, freezing, trying to keep my iHome dry, and hoping that I haven't just wasted my money on something that won't work in the UK.

Halfway back to the hotel, the bus driver announces that the next stop is the last one. And it's taken us 2 or 3 times as long as normal to get this far, since the traffic's hectic with the rain. So I've already panicked, then been relieved when a bus turned up, and now starting to panic again. Luckily, though, I wasn't the only one going further, so we got off and eventually another bus turned up and took us all the way to my stop. But by now I look like a drowned rat, and feel worse.

Get to my hotel room, open the box - nope, the ac adaptor only takes 120V. And I don't really have time to return it tomorrow, since I'm working in the morning and don't want to chance missing my plane.

Eventually, though, I did some research on the net (which, by the way, costs me 9.95 per 24 hours, even if I only use it for 5 minutes in those 24 hours). And after getting myself a bit confused over what the inputs and outputs were, it looks like I should be able to get a step-down transformer for about £12. So all is not lost, but it hasn't been quite the fun event that it should have been.

But now I have to go pack - it's been fun, but I'm glad to be going back home (although I'm not sure where home is anymore - is it London, or is it South Africa? And since I want to move out of my flat in London asap, is that still home? Aargh, I need to stop moving around and settle down for a bit!).

Winnie The Pooh in New York

Some of you might know that I'm fairly into Winnie the Pooh - I've had my Pooh Quotes and Pooh's Poetry Corner sites up for about, oh, almost 10 years now!, and when I came to London in 2000 I made sure I went out to Pooh Country and played Pooh Sticks on the original bridge. And I'm planning to go back sometime soon, now that I'm actually living here in London.

But first, I'm going to New York next weekend. And something that I knew but had forgotten until I started looking for things to in New York over my one free weekend, is that the original toys are over there in the New York Public Library! So of course now my mission number 1 is to go and visit them and hopefully take some photos. Here's a photo of them from my Pooh Quotes page:
Even though I don't really maintain the sites any more, it'd be really nice to be able to put up my own photos of the toys. In fact, I could probably put up some photos of the Pooh Sticks bridge too, if I went and took some... hmmm :-)

I always thought it was a bit odd that the toys were in New York rather than Britain. Reading a bit on the net, I came up with some interesting things. From the wikipedia page (near the bottom), "Many people in Britain feel strongly that this crucial part of Britain's cultural heritage should be repatriated. There are strong comparisons between the toys and the Elgin Marbles and the matter was raised in Parliament as recently as 1998". I should think so! But the Americans don't seem to think so: "the response from the Big Apple to Mrs Dunwoody's request was: "Get stuffed!""

So that's my first mission in New York (apart from seeing the Statue of Liberty, and all that, but my hotel is right around there so I don't think I'll be able to miss it). My second mission is to somewhere that I barely realised was a real place, never mind in New York: Coney Island! I've read so many fantasy stories set there, that it'll be relally cool to see it in person. I imagine it as a run-down, seedy kind of amusement park, with bendy mirrors and giant clown faces, a big wheel, lots of candy floss and hotdogs, and freaky sideshows. Very much a past it's time, nostalgic for a different era sort of place. Hopefully it's maintained some of that character, and hasn't been remade into a slick disneyfied theme park. But I'm really excited about going. And even it isn't anything like I imagined, I'm way overdue for a rollercoaster ride! I went on a bunch of really cool rides in Florida (actually, Georgia - we went to Wild Adventures, and I went on the Double Shot and almost all the roller coasters, totally amazing myself), but I haven't been on any in the year and a half or so since, and I'm starting to go into withdrawal.

So it should be an awesome trip. I'll try to post some photos when I get back, but it's impossible to post them all, and very difficult to select just a few!

Being ET

Or, How To Phone Home :-)

But first, one of the things I love about living in not-SA: decent TV. Tonight, I could, if I wanted, watch 2 solid hours of Friends. What I'm going to watch is 1 hour of Friends, then House, and then Grey's Anatomy. (Aaargh! For some reason, I can't get 5 o Freeview! That means no House, and no Grey's Anatomy! Hmm, maybe I can switch aerials, or unplug the Freeview box...)

One of the things I hate about living with flatmates: not being able to watch what TV I want because they're watching TV (but luckily tonight they're out, so I can watch what I want).

But, back to the main topic: what's the best way to phone home to SA from the UK? There are a bunch of options, and they can be combined in various ways, so let's just rule out some of the obvious ones first: phoning directly (or calling collect) via a payphone, landline, or cellphone is a bad idea and you shouldn't do it. Actually, I haven't even looked at the costs, but it will be way more expensive than the other options.

There are basically three other options that I know of: calling cards, skype, and telediscount.

Calling Cards
There are a whole range of calling cards; I personally use the Post Office cards (backed by Nomi), which cost 6p per minute to SA, with no other costs. The actual Nomi card is cheaper, and rechargeable online, but you have to register your credit card details with them rather than just entering them each time you want to recharge, something I prefer not to do for security reasons.

Calling cards normally have 2 numbers: a toll-free number, and a chargeable number. The toll-free number sometimes costs more, but not on the Post Office card. On my landline, I can only call toll-free numbers, so that's something to take into consideration. On a mobile, you'll generally pay a surcharge for toll-free numbers, whereas phoning a local UK number comes out of your free minutes (or with Vodafone, is included in Stop the Clock).

Skype and Skype Out
Skype is free, but odds are that if you're phoning someone in SA, they're not going to have broadband and skype won't be so free for them if they're on dial-up... plus, the quality isn't going to be that good. Skype out is pretty cheap (just under 4p per minute, I think) and the quality is pretty good, generally. Of course, this means that you'll have to have broadband, and you'll have to have a skype phone, or a headphone/mike combination.

Telediscount
The final option, that I know about, is telediscount. Basically, they charge about 4p per minute, plus the local call charge, but it all gets billed to your local account - so you can't use it if your landline only allows outgoing calls to toll-free numbers, like mine. You can use it from payphones, although you'll probably pay an extra surcharge. You can use it from your mobile, but it's classed as a non-geographical number, so it will probably not come out of your free minutes/call allowance/off peak rate, so it can work out more expensive than you think.

So those are your options - there may be more, but I think they'll probably fall into one of those categories. If you know of some other, cheaper way, please let me know by leaving a comment :-)

Table Mountain

Yesterday I went to see "A Lot Like Love" ... it was good, and I enjoyed the movie itself (athough the storyline wasn't quite what I was expecting), but what really reminded why I don't go to movies so much is how irritating the people where. A group sitting right behind me were talking loudly throughout the movie, on purpose, and not even about the movie. And they (and others) don't worry about getting calls on their cellphone ... some people at least switched their phones to silent, some didn't; but a lot of people got calls. And they don't even go out of the movie theatre to talk - they just stand in the corner at the back, where you can still hear them. And the sheer number of people who just wander in and out throughout the movie, for who knows what reason ... and then you get the people who don't want to talk on their cellphone, but sit and sms throughout the movie - but cellphone screens are so bright that you can see this little square of light even if you're rows and rows away. So while I'd rather just get the dvd and watch at home, some movies you have to see on the big screen (like War of the Worlds), and some I don't want to wait until they come out on dvd (like A Lot Like Love).

Anyway, on to the point. Last week I went up Table Mountain for my birthday, and it was really nice. I didn't feel like riding up to the lower cable station (heights don't bother me, in general, unless I'm on the bike), so I thought I'd do the whole tourist thing and do the Cape Town Topless Bus Tour, which tours around the Waterfront, Cape Town centre, the cable station, Camp's Bay, and Seapoint.

Surprisingly, it was quite fun :-) I took a bunch of photos, of things that I used to see all the time in the city center, but I never really go there these days. And they mentioned things that I used to know, but hadn't really realized; like the fact that the foreshore used to be the sea, and that all that is actually reclaimed land. The waterfront, the international convention center, the Arabella Sheraton, all that is on reclaimed land - and land that was still underwater until something like 1930.

I really recommend the tour to tourists (and locals, if you don't mind spending R90 to see your own city). Like the advertising says, it really is a good way to see the city, and it made me decide that I definitely want to do the London topless bus tour when I get there.

Table Mountain itself was pretty impressive - I haven't been up since I was little kid, and they've made vast improvements since then. The wait for the cable car wasn't too long, although it was off-season - but there were quite a lot of people! You'd think you'd get some peace and quiet on the top of a mountain, but no such luck.

The cable car itself is way better than it used to be - the floor revolves so that you get to see the entire panorama, not just the bit you can see out of the window you happen to be next to. The trip takes about 3 minutes, and while that does make it pretty efficient I kinda think that for R110 they could slow it down a bit and make it more worthwhile ... not that I cared, I went for free on a birthday ticket :-) And speaking of efficiency trade-offs, the car takes 80-odd people, but most of them don't get to stand next to the window (although they can still see out, above and around the other people), which seems rather a pity.

They're not terribly jacked up as a tourist attraction, though; although it wasn't peak season, so I guess that might account for some of it. They have pay-per-view binoculars, but nowhere do they say what they cost or what coins they accept, which is kinda useless (although some of them were broken, so you could use them free). The views are absolutely awesome, and they've done a good job of making little walking trails around the top of the mountain - although they don't correspond to the trails on the little map they give you. I would have done the trip out to McClear's Beacon, the tallest point of the mountain, but it's a 45 minute walk each way and I didn't want to do it by myself.

The low point was the so-called restaurant - I figured they'd be expensive, but thought I'd treat myself to a nice lunch. According to their website, "the self-service restaurant has an extensive hot and cold buffet". Um, no. Extensive isn't quite the right word - there was a choice of chips, burger, cheese burger, hot dog, or chicken & chips. Or a salad. Or some really crummy looking cheese sandwiches. Although, maybe they meant "expensive", instead - a small plate of chips was R18, the sandwiches were R18, and the burgers were R20-odd. Which isn't bad, a Woolworth's sandwich or a Steer's burger would cost you that much, but they look a lot better than these did .... and to drink, they're charging R9 for a tin of Coke, which is still better than the R12 for a little cup of fruit juice (looked about 200ml) or R7 for Coke/Fanta/whatever.

But still, I'd recommend going - just take a picnic lunch with you! The point is to see the mountain and the view, and that is definitely worth it - just take a look at some of these photos I took:

The view of Table Mountain, over the Castle of Good Hope

The view of the Upper Cable Station, from the Lower Cable Station

The view of Camp's Bay, from the top of the mountain

The view from the other side of the mountain, Table Bay.

The view of Lion's Head from above, with Robben Island in the background.

Zanzibar!

I'm thinking of going to Zanzibar on holiday this year. I saw an advert for a package that includes all airfare, return transfers, meals, drinks, snacks and various activities, 6 nights at the Mapenzi Beach Club, and 1 night at the Dhow Palace Hotel in Stonetown. I did some quick searching on the net, and it looks like a really nice place. The Mapenzi Beach Club looks like a great place (I thought it might be a dinky, small East African kind of hotel, but it looks really smart - light and airy, with palm groves and white beaches and air conditioning in each room). And Stonetown looks really interesting - an old, Arabic kind of town, really historic and just plain cool.

The down side is that it's a malaria area, and apparently you shouldn't eat or drink anything that hasn't been boiled or otherwise thoroughly cooked - no salads, no unpeeled fruit, and only drink sealed bottled water (apparently some bottled water is actually just used water bottles refilled with tap water!). And they recommend that you have yellow fever and other vaccinations. so it's a bit scary from a medical point of view :-( Oh, and you need to get a visa.

But overall it does sound really cool and exotic - apparently you fly in to Tanzania, then cross to Zanzibar by boat - hydrofoil, dhow, or catamaran. So I think that on Wednesday I'll go to the travel agent and find out a bit more - the price looked pretty good, especially since meals and things are included, but things like visas and airport taxes aren't, so I'd have to find out how much they are; also, the price quoted is per person sharing, as usual, which really annoys me because it doesn't help much if you're travelling alone! I'm sure that there are a lot of single people who go on holiday by themselves; it's a bit unfair to assume that everyone is travelling with someone else! But anyway ... I'll find out some more about it, and go from there - I might as well go somewhere interesting on holiday; I may even go during my birthday in July as a present to myself :-)