Monday, September 19, 2011

yoh!

My grandmother has the most impressive memory EVER! She has spent the last two days telling stories non-stop. I have custody of my dad's video camera in the back seat and occasionally I record some but mostly I just listen.It's kinda scary just how little I actually knew of my own family history!

Anyway, today we hung out in Windhoek, visited my granny's primary school (for the record, I loved it and if I ever have kids they're getting shipped straight over the border to a place that has hiking on the curriculum), did some museum-ing and found soup for lunch between going to see my great-grandmother's grave (she died very suddenly in 1945) and then settling down for tea and cake at a castle.

Things I have learned:

  • Well an entire family history in great detail. I knew vague details but coming back here has kicked my grandmother into memory lane and she hasn't even begin to run out of steam. For an 88-year-old she remembers details, names, stories, relationships between random people, the colours of the flowers on the mantelpiece.... EVERYTHING. 
  • That my grandmother who has always been incredibly neat and tidy and gentle and conservative etc etc can giggle like a little kid when telling stories of childhood mischief. 
  • There was childhood mischief. Who knew/
  • Windhoek is really pretty. There are flowers everywhere, it is clean and well maintained, the people have AWESOME accents and call everything 'beautiful'
  • There is free wifi all over the place. 
  • It is really expensive, I think the big European tourist industry has pushed the pricing up. For a simple pub-style meal (something that would be R40-R50 in Joburg) you can expect to pay at least N$70-80
  • Namibian currency is... well to be honest I don't have any. 1R=1N$ and they accept south african money. Just make sure you get change in your own currency or you'll be stuck with something you can't spend.
  • The girls wear the most awesome skirts. I want one. Everything is light and airy because it's so flippin' hot. 
  • they have WEIRD shops
  • pretending you can speak German to get into the Lutheran gingerbread church because you think its pretty might just lead to you being stuck in the back row during a history-of-namibia lesson. which would be cool if you actually spoke German.
  • There are German tourists everywhere. You can also eat German food everywhere
  • The lizards are totally adorable!


Anyway off to the dunes tomorrow! i can't wait to see real real REAL desert! Namib here we come!

ever think...?

So I'm in namibia and I can't sleep and I have been working really
hard and am tired so I don't know why lately I'm not sleeping. Except
my mother and her vuvuzela practice during naptime but that is another
story.

I decided today that I might have a sudden-onset-flying-phobia.

Something about the noise of being right by an engine which didn't
sound 'normal' - not to mention the logical 'I'm in several hundred
tons of metal and the cars are TOO big, why are we so close to the
groud, we should be climbing, why aren't we climbing I'M GOING TO
DIE!!!!'

And the airport is outside the town so I was convinced we were going
to land on a farm.

It is strange, I always loved flying (I used to ask for turbulence as
a kid), but I think I've dealt with death too much over the last year
and I think I lost my immortality. It just sucks that there's a good
job as a trainee pilot going and I thinlk I might not be suitable
anymore...