World Aids Day

On Monday I was priveledged enough to go on a township tour. We started the day driving through Bo-Kaap, heading to District 6, Langa and then to Khayelitsha. Hearing and seeing the history of our country again, makes one realize how truly blessed and lucky we are. Once again you realize that you cannot take anything for granted and that you have to appreciate every small thing in life. Let's take a stupid example: a bathroom. I saw thousands of houses yesterday without bathrooms. Two families have to share 1 toilet. Not a bathroom, a single toilet.

There are 1.2 million people living in horrible conditions and half of Khayelitsha is unemployed. We have so much to be thankful!

We finished our tour off the Football for Hope centre, also in the township. It's a great establishment started by Fifa during the World Cup. They teach the local kids to play soccer and they teach them about HIV Aids. Each kid gets tested and treated and information about the virus and what to do when you are HIV Positive. So they are learning while they are having fun.

Today is World Aids Day, so appreciate what you have and the fact that you are healthy and happy!

Take every chance to give back to the community and those less fortunate. You have no idea how far a little can go.

To my future husband

FYI

Masiphumelele

Shihaam and I are organising the following get together to support the community. Check it out and become involved! We've also just got the Saasveld Lodge in Kloof Street (Cape Town) involved and they are offering a free weekend at the lodge. Each person that drops a gift/donation under their tree will be entered into the lucky draw.

Season is coming so the time for giving back is here. You don’t need to dig deep in your pockets, you can just raid your fridge and pantry. We don’t want money we want hands on help. Always remember a little for you is a lot for the less fortunate.

We came across a township just outside of Noordhoek that desperately needs our help. Masiphumelele has a cultural centre for the locals to take care of the kids and to educate them. ...This township is also up and coming for international tourists...

We need assistance with the following:

• Gardening
• Tidying up
• Food donations
• Clothing donations
• General games and gifts (Keep in mind Christmas is around the corner)
• Anything else that you don’t need/want anymore

Donation collection will be done on the 11th of December 2010 at our houses from 11am – 2pm. Please confirm if you are interested with a reply to either Antoinette or Shihaam’s inbox. We will then give you addresses and details.

If anyone is keen to join us on the mission to Masiphumelele after the collection please let us know so that we can organize lifts.

Always remember giving is much better than receiving!

Athens - Madrid

Viel, our new taxi driver friend picked us up at 3 am and took us to the airport. We accidently arrived an hour to early for check in time and just cruised around the airport getting our bags wrapped and looking for a Starbucks. The whole holiday we’ve been looking for one and haven’t found one yet ☹

Our flight from Athens to Madrid took 3 hours and as soon as we got to Madrid we boarded the metro and headed towards Serrano square. We caught the city sight seeing hop on – hop off bus and started taking pictures. We did the modern route around the city and stopped for lunch. This was quite an experience as the whole menu was in Spanish and the waiter couldn’t speak English. We ended up having a bacon and ham sandwich with fries for lunch. It wasn’t too bad. After lunch we walked around A LOT and took the bus to the Real Madrid Soccer Stadium. It was quite an experience. We paid for an unguided tour through the stadium and could explore on our own time. We spent quite some time there. We visited their museum, their trophy hall, some boxes, we went onto the field and sat on the bench, we saw the dressing room and even took a photo with Ronaldo. Afterwards we shopped in the shop and went looking for a metro to take us back to the airport. At the airport we started looking for a lounge to book ourselves into and during that mission we finally came across a Starbucks. It was like a little piece of Heaven in the airport. We found the lounge and booked in and showered and relaxed before our 10 hour flight back home.

It was probably one of the most memorable vacations ever and definitely a destination to return to in the future. We had so much fun and the best memories!! x

Athina Round 2

We started the beautiful day in Athens with breakfast in bed and immediately started looking for another hotel to spend the next two nights in. We just found out that the annual Athens Marathon was taking place and that it was a big celebration as it was the 2500'th marathon. Crazy!!!


We found a nice new hotel for the next two days and went to book in immediately. The rest of the day we spent shopping and chilling at cafe's.

Saturday night we were invited by one of Sox's friends, Stelios to his club Villa Mercedes. It was the most insane thing I have ever seen/experienced. It's a massive chic/sexy venue with girls dancing all over the show but in a stylish kind of way. It's not like something back home where you find grabby guys.. anyways it was amazing! Check out the pics




Marathon Day

Athens celebrated their 2500th annual marathon, so you can imagine the city was buzzing. We had breakfast which consisted of greek lamb and greek salad and lots of coke ☺ We walked around the rest of the day, went to the flea market and met a friend of Marnix, Michael. We got back to the hotel early enough to pack and go to bed. (we had to wake up at 2 am the next morning to catch our flight)

Adriano came to visit us at the hotel to say goodbye. We had a great time with him, laughing about silly stuff and looking at photo’s of our holiday. It was so nice of him to come and say goodbye.

We eventually got to bed at about 10 o’ clock, packed and ready to go.

Leaving Paros

The weather on the last day was horrible. We woke up to wind storms and rain and just plain miserable-ness. And it was horribly cold! We had some breakfast at the hotel and got on our 4-wheeler to explore some more. It was way too cold to drive around for long so we stopped at a coffee shop to drink some hot chocolate.


After we returned the 4-wheeler we went back to the hotel to get dressed for the ferry. We had to return the bike at 2:30, had already checked out at 12 and had to wait till 7 to board the ferry. We changed in the hall way where our bags were and finally caught a lift to the port. We anxiously waited in the freezing wind to board the ferry.


The ferry ride to Athens took 4 hours and was a bit bumpy, but luckily we were sleepy and had lots of things to keep us busy with.

We arrived just past 11 in Piraeus, Athens and took the Metro to Syntagma Square. We went to the hostel we stayed the previous time and when we got there they were fully booked. The had two beds left in the basement - which wasn't even a room. When we got down there, there was only 1 bed available and the other 10 beds were taken by creepy guys, so we turned around then and there and went to a hotel.

The hotel was really nice (5 star mind you). We ordered room service and breakfast in bed for the next day.