katiemorse

Rob and I got up early on Tuesday morning and headed for Stellenbosch. After only a few mistaken turns (eep) onto the wrong side of the road, Rob mastered the skill of left-sided driving. Stellenbosch is a beautiful old university town about 45 minutes north of Capetown. The university dates back to the 1600's and it is one of the only schools that still teaches everything in Afrikaans. We wandered around the town for the morning and early afternoon, then headed to wineries in the afternoon. The area around Stellenbosch is speckled with vineyards and is a wine-tasters paradise. Our first stop was at Spier, a very commercialized place. They also have a cheetah sanctuary (though I wasn't very impressed with the way they keep their animals). The wine was ok, but nothing to write ... read more

New word of the day: Eish! From what I understand it is a Zulu word that is simply an expression used to describe just about any emotion - frustration, surprise, sadness, happyness... it is also a substitution for most profanities... We spent the day today touring around Soweto - or 'south western township'. Just as a bit of background information, during the apartheid era, the non-white population was shipped out into these townships that were created in the outskirts of Johannesburg. Soweto is the largest and most famous of these (it is where both Nelson Mandela and Desmond Tutu grew up). The area can be quite dangerous, so we went with a tour guide who picked us up at the house where we are staying. The tour was quite eye-opening as the poverty is astounding. ... read more

This past weekend was my last weekend in Sweden. Linn and I headed up to Uppsala Friday after work. Uppsala is a very unique university town... Having been established in 1477, the student life is steeped in tradition. Each student must be a member of a 'nation'... there is one for each region in Sweden. Most people join the nation of the region they are from but you don't have to. Linn is a member of Stockholm's nation. Every nation has a building and usually a club or pub. Nation members get in free and all others pay a small fee. You must have an Uppsala student card to be able to get in. (You can however buy a week pass provided you can show some other student ID - which is what I did). Friday ... read more

My sojourn on the Mediterranean-like Swedish island of Gotland was phenomenal. This past week was my one week of vacation from work, so I spent 4 days in Gotland and then 3 days out in the archipelago on the boat. I left work early on Friday and took the subway to meet Linn and Sandra at the central station. From there we got on a train (the Pendeltåg) to the ferry landing - about an hour south of Stockholm. The ferry took 3 hours and we arrived a little after 8:00pm. Cia - Linn's roomate in Uppsala - met us when we got off the ferry. We walked to her house from there (about 5 minutes). She lived on the corner overlooking the ocean and two gorgeous old windmills. We immediately got changed and went out ... read more

This past weekend we held a house party to celebrate Linn's birthday. There were 16 people who came for dinner and 7 who stayed overnight. Friday, Linn and I prepared by cleaning, grocery shopping and cooking. She made this fabulous bread... (yes, I am planning to get the recipe). Saturday was again spent preparing... Imagine peeling, cooking, and chopping 5 kg of potatoes?! The guests arrived between 6:00 and 7:00... luckily the rain had stopped and we were able to eat outside. We served potato salad, tossed salad, bread, cheese (Greve... my favourite!!), and a meringue cake for dessert (everyone brought their own meat). It started getting chilly at around 10:00, so we moved inside... and stayed there until 3:00am when the last of us went to bed. All I'm going to say about the evening ... read more