A lot has happened over the last few weeks; as i'm sure you can gather from the tardiness in my writing; and for this I must apologise. Since real work has ended there seems to have been a hundred and one things to achieve that take an inordinate amount of time and I find myself looking at the clock at 10pm and wondering where exactly the day has disappeared to. Whilst I will not bore you with the inevitable doctors appointments are cheerful staff at both home affairs and the traffic department (please note the vast amount of sarcasm linked with that sentence), I do want to tell you about the wonderful "lasts" I have had over the past few weeks.
Firstly, (and I have managed to maintain this for a consecutive 3 days) I have officially had my last hangover on South African soil (and at this rate the planet's!). After the wonderfully special shindig the parents threw over the course of the weekend, Prince Charming and I found ourselves amongst a group of fantastic friends and a very good party ahead of us indeed. Roll around Sunday and the inevitable hangover in the post (express delivery I believe), we managed to equalize the evening of dancing with a day firmly ensconced on the couch. SA Hangover - done!
We got our final cultural fix too when we spent our final day on the actual soil of SA basking in the wonderful beauty and sunlight that is Kirstenbosch botanical gardens. Friends and family were there to bid us farewell in true picnic style with champagne, cheese and biscuits and fond stories of the past few years we had together. Jokes and smiles abounded as we try desperately to avoid the inevitable tears that came with sundown and goodbyes. As we left the wonderful mountain and friends behind us, Prince Charming and I couldn't help but smile with excitement at what lay ahead of us in the next 24 hours.... If we had known what was actually coming we may have been crying too :)
Cue (hopefully our last) 27 hours of travelling, an exorbitant fee for over weight luggage (yours truly of course) and some very grumpy plane passengers to begin our life changing trip to New York. First port of call, Johannesburg - The City of Gold. Or in our case the city we had to sit in, on a crowded plane, for 2 hours while waiting for some... more passengers, more cheerful staff, Elvis... I still can't tell you which but I can report unfortunately no Elvis sighting! Needless to say, we finally left Egoli rammed to the rafters with passengers on the long and arduous trip to Abu Dhabi. A brief 2 hour stop in Abu Dhabi where I can report that city to be full of lights and that's it! We landed at some ungodly hour of the morning where usually we would be awake dancing, however alas we were awake grumpy. Thankfully that stop over wne twithout a hitch and we got back onto the plne for our last and final haul in Dublin. And what a flight... half the plane was empty so the inevtable 6 hour long movie marathon was discarded in favour of a 6 hour long nap across the plane seats, whoohooo!
Finally we set foot on Irish soil, collected our bags (of which there were numerous) and filled our over full tummies with some real Irish Breakfast. For all of those who know, or don't know, what is included in an Irish breakfast, forgive me for a minute. Black Pudding, really??? Ugh. Prince Charming was rather amused with my facial expressions when said breakfast piece arrived and proceeded to tell me it tastes exactly like boerewors. Well, if that's the case, yum. NOT! It tastes nothing like boerewors and never will. And when you find out what's it's made of, it makes hagas taste like chocolate cake!
A quick shower and the decision to sleep was quickly overruled in favour of a lovely amble around the beautiful sea side town of Howth. Now for any of you who have never been to Howth (of which I assume is numerous) the town looks a lot like Hout Bay minus the bergies and scary fishmen. What is does have is a beautiful harbour and pier, noisy seagulls and a lovely air of community. Some fresh air and Prince Charming and I were ready for a celebratory class of champers. Or 20! Yip, what Howth also has is a wonderful community of people who all know each other and were ready to celebrate with the newly married couple! 7 bottles of the delicious Italian Prosecco, and few pints at the local Pub and a delicious home cooked meal, we saw our first day in Ireland in true Irish Style!
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