Posts

Family on Safari - Week two

Image
Monday afternoon, we landed in Hoedspruit and found our driver, while Jae picked up his camera rental for the week. Then we took the world's bumpiest ride to the Thornybush Game Lodge . The place is gorgeous. Wow. Super duper wow. We had lunch in the open-air lodge restaurant area, got checked in, found our cabins, and almost immediately had to be back at the lodge for our first game drive! They served tea and snacks to fortify us (and always had something gluten-free for me) , and then we were off. Our guide team was Sarah and Kenneth (tracker). She drove like a champ ( while she talked to us, and listened to the radio, and paid attention to the animals) . Kenny sat at the front of the jeep on a little platform, looking for animals, footprints, and/or droppings for us to follow. Over the course of the week, he even gave us 'poop' lessons, Hahaha! We found out after we left on Friday that Sarah had been awarded Safari Guide of the Year -- and we were not at all surprised. ...
Post a Comment
Read more

Family on Safari - Week one

Image
We'll start with a fun story: last October (when I happened to be in DC), my mom saw an ad for a 'big cats' show and commented that she'd very much like to go see them in Africa. Dad wasn't interested, but he made a throw-away comment - "I tell you what, if you take her, I'll pay for it." WHAT?! Don't have to ask me twice!  Since my older brother also happened to be there, he got invited too... and I wasn't going to go without John, so there were four of us!   My friend Christy had gone on an African safari a couple of years ago, so the first thing I did was pick her brain. She recommended Go2Africa , a travel company that arranges safaris and trips all over the continent. I gave the specialist our requests and requirements, and she came back with a plan that included about five days in Cape Town and five days in Kruger National Park. But even though we paid the deposit and started planning, it didn't seem real (although buying plane tick...
1 comment
Read more

Food, Wine, and Pride

Image
July was here and then gone in a flash. For our second 4th of July in Barcelona, we were invited to the Democrats Abroad pool party! (Our friends have a great little apartment with their own pool in the back. Amazing! ) I left all of my red-white-and-blue garb in the states, and honestly, I'm not sure how much I'd like to wear it walking around BCN, so I just wore a red t-shirt. I also had to go buy a new swimsuit, and I was amazed to find one in just a few tries at Decathlon.  In the middle of July, we attended the Barcelona Pride parade with our Dems Abroad friends. I wore my "Free Mom Hugs" t-shirt, and gave out a few happy hugs to parade walkers. Instead of walking in the parade, we put up our DA banners and stood on the street waving signs. We all decided that we liked that idea better than walking the whole parade route... we got to see everything! There were 50 flatbed trucks with people dancing and waving and using water-guns on the crowd. So many different gr...
Post a Comment
Read more

June is Bustin' out All Over!

Image
 (With apologies to Rodgers & Hammerstein)  What the heck? It's already summer!   The month of June started off with the Democrats Abroad "Yes. We. Vote" Scavenger Hunt, which I helped organize. We created it as a short (~2km) walk around the oldest part of the city, where the resistance to Franco and the Spanish Civil War was both overt and covert, and very active. We aligned it with resistance to the Orange Menace in the States. The teams looked for banned books at the Anarchist Bookstore; danced the Cotton-Eyed-Joe at Plaza Universitat; redacted a quote from tRump to make it truthful; and looked for Americans on the streets to remind them to register to vote. We all learned a lot about Spanish history, and then we had lunch at the rooftop restaurant at El Corte Ingles.  We were a little worried about the crowds that week, because Pope Leo came to town on June 9-10-11 to  bless the new cross that was placed on top of Sagrada Familia , and comme...
Post a Comment
Read more