The Mamas and Papas sang ‘If you’re going to Saaaaan Fraaaaancisco, wear some floooooowers in your haaaaaaair’, so we did, and we did! My first venture over the the West Side was fabulous – even if a bit cold. (Not the California weather you’d expect after watching serious amounts of Baywatch and Beverly Hills 90210).

We arrived in San Francisco after a 6-hour flight, with a three-hour time zone difference, and booked into our hotel on Friday night. Then we decided to go find some food in the central city area. Enter strip club upon strip club, jazz bars, ice cream parlours, late-night restaurants and more homeless people on the streets than I’ve ever seen in any other major city. We didn’t wait long to order an all-in-one sandwich; steak, coleslaw and fries nestled amongst two thick slices of soft, thick white bread. We finally got back to the hotel at around 1.30am local time – 4.30am in New York!

On Saturday we did all things touristy – walked down to the Waterfront, ate the most expensive strawberries ever, giggled at the noisy, stinky seals in the waterfront bay (Pier 39), visited Ghirardeli’s Chocolate shop for those free chocolate samples they give out so freely, took the train bus up and down many hills, including one past Lombard street – the curviest road in the world – and ate holiday quantities of fabulous food. On Saturday evening we met up with a friend of John’s from school and had more delicious food and drinks – this time at the oldest restaurant in California.
On Sunday we picked up the rental car, a silver soft-top Mustang. It was freezing, but the top stayed down! I think my toes still feel like braaied sausages from the warmest setting heater blazing down upon them in an effort to counter the effect of the top down on a freezing day. I humoured John though, and allowed my hair to be knotted, my face to break out in cold-related gooseflesh and my eyes to become red and dry from wind erosion…After all, it’s not everyday you get to drive around the West Coast in a topless silver Mustang! We drove over the Golden Gate Bridge, looked out over Alcatraz and then ventured out towards Napa, in the Napa Valley, for some wine tasting at a very imposing wine farm (the name of which I cannot remember, because it was simply too french!)
On Monday John took a day off to sleep in and get some much-needed rest while I went to the Palo Alto office to work from there for the week. Figuring out the trains and traveling to and from work for almost 90minutes a day is a story for another day. Eish!

On Monday night we met up with a friend of mine from ballet days – Helette and I hadn’t seen each other in about 15 years and she and her husband Danie drove up to San Francisco to have dinner with us. It was so weird to find ourselves in this setting after so many years. Made me realize that I’m not a teenager anymore…

One of the highlights of the trip (and there were SO many!) was attending my first baseball game. The San Francisco Giants played another team (sorry…cannot remember who) and it was such an eye opener! Probably the most boring field game I’ve ever attended. Best part of it was the ginormous hotdogs, beers and, ultimately, fries COVERED in garlic! (I know…) We went with three guys from work (all real Americans), and it was great to see the match through a local’s beer goggles.

On Thursday we once again took a six hour flight back to New York and for the first time since arriving here almost 7 months ago, it felt like I was coming home. So now New York is home to me…how did that happen?

This week will be a lean one, trying to get rid of all the excess baggage I’m sure I brought back from San Fran around my middle line. Martin’s visiting this weekend and him and John just went for a run. I pleaded ‘hairstyle cannot be ruined’ as my reason for not joining…Smart thinking, I think.

Just arrived back from a week in San Francisco and will update you all on the happenings there over the weekend. Today’s big, big, big news is that I just received my Work Authorization Card this evening when we took out the mail. Effectively, this means that I am now legal! I can work where I want, earn a salary in US dollars and show these Yanks what I’m made of.

Whoooooooo-hoooooooooo!

It feels like all the filling in of forms, standing in lines to have my fingerprints scanned, my photos taken, answering multiple questions, crying nights away – all that now feels worth it. (I’m not going to moan about how horrible I look in the photo on my card – makes the photo on my Namibian drivers license look good!) I’m just happy to have it.

Yay!

Yesterday I puckered up and went for a root-highlight and cut at a famous hair studio here in Manhattan. The stylists are called artists and I managed to get in with the owner (who continued to compliment Kobus Dippenaar, my SA hair artist, on the great job he did). My sole request for the day? Make me blonde again, please! And trim those blunt edges into a stylable style.

I asked…and they produced! Four hours later, I looked absolutely fabulous. Blonde, styled and utterly coiffed.

I love it. The fact that my hairstyle cost as much as my monthly rent was in South Africa says either:
1) Rent in Cape Town is dirt cheap OR
2) Hairstyling in Manhattan is tres expensive.

You decide.

Probably the best part about living in Manhattan is the fact that there is always something amazing happening – regardless of your social appetite.

Tonight we were lucky enough to attend an interview session with Ishmael Beah, the author of A Long Way Gone – memoirs of a boy soldier. Ishmael is the same age as I am, but got recruited to fight for the army in Sierra Leone at age 13. After being hopped up on drugs, brainwashed by army leaders, traumatized and wielding an AK-47 for three years, he got rehabilitated by UNICEF and ended up addressing the UN at a worldwide children’s convention here in New York. This is his story in a nutshell, but I strongly urge you to get his book – the horrible things he had to endure takes you on a whirlwind ride of harsh cruelty, but also shows that the human spirit is not easily crushed. The way he describes some of the heartbreaking situations he was caught in just broke my heart…And hearing him speak made the fact that these children caught in wars are human. They’re real and most of them are in such pain after losing their families and their right to be innocent.

Despite a huge sadness, this book made me feel strangely positive about being human and knowing that we still do care about each other. (Does this make sense at all? Of course we’re human, but some days we just tend to forget what a great species we actually are!) I sometimes think about my childhood with some sadness, but after attending this talk I just realized that regardless of what bad things we had to endure, at least we were allowed to be children. We were allowed to go through the motions of being innocent and learning about life in the normal way. Ishmael was forced to kill or be killed. That is a situation that no one should ever have to be forced into – even more so at age 13.

Please read this book. It will change your life. Promise.

On Friday we finalised our December holiday plans and booked the most expensive travel tickets I have ever bought – ahead of the international rush (and further price hikes!) of all in the Northern Hemisphere who will be desperate for some summer by Christmas time… We will be in Stockholm from December 20th and leave for Cape Town on the 30th. We’ll leave the Mother City again on January 11th. There is a whole lot of catching up to do with friends and family and I am so tremendously excited to see my hometown again. Sweden will no doubt be absolutely gorgeous (and freeeeezing), and this will be my first truly white Christmas! Yay – please be sure to include us in sushi/drinks/beach dates. We can’t wait!

It’s been almost two weeks since my last update and so much has happened. I celebrated my six month anniversary in this great city and last night saw the legendary Ben Harper perform live in concert at the Radio City Music Hall. (They do also sell alcohol during the show, hence this entry will be a short one – G&T is not your friend the next day…). The show was fantastic! Ben sounds just as good live as he does on my ipod and John was (again) the perfect concert partner.

I cannot believe that I’ve been away from Cape Town for more than six months already! Wow. Time flies when you’re having fun, I guess…

Today we ventured into Brooklyn for the first time to have brunch with Jani and Marcel. It’s an amazing neighbourhood with cool little shops and restaurants. Really quiet and cool. We have decided that once our lease is up in March 08, we will probably move to another apartment. Dare we venture off the island of Manhattan and live in suburbia? I guess only time will tell…

The Aussies are a notoriously riotous bunch…As a South African, I’m even more aware of this than the Americans could ever be. The ‘down-unders’ suffered another blow on Sunday at the spa. We had to fill in forms that were meant as a briefing sheet for the masseuse – what you may be allergic to, medical history, etc. One of the questions asked about any particular tender areas that the masseuse should be aware of.

Sam made all the eyebrows rise, and set of a never-ending giggling fit in me, when he said – with a dead-pan face and just that little bit too loud – my balls.

We’re just back from a glorious weekend spent upstate in the Catskills where Annie, Sam, John and I spent our first Labor Day long weekend. It started off rocky when the rental company had double-booked our car and I had visions of having to skip out on a spa experience… John zoomed in to the rescue (just like in the movies) and organized (against my expectations on the Saturday morning of the last weekend of the US summer) another one through another rental company. Three hours later than expected, the four of us tackled the highway that headed north out of Manhattan.

We drove two hours to our destinations, Phoenicia in the Catskills – an absolutely beautiful area with tree-covered mountains and vast views. Naturally we encountered the fair amount of ‘locals’ (aka ‘Hillbillies’!). In fact, another species that were everywhere to be seen were the Harley Davidson bikers on their noisy bikes, dressed in their leathers and studs. Our cottage was delightful and we made a huge bonfire on Friday night and had a great barbecue.

Saturday morning after brunch we headed out to the local ski slope for some pre-winter investigation (I feel my first ski-experience coming in the very near future…Eeeeek!) and then out to Mohonk Mountain House – the most gorgeous holiday resort you can imagine. Positioned on the edge of a huge lake and very high up in the mountains, the lodge is remniscent of an old castle and is purely magical in a ‘Dirty Dancing’ holiday kind of way. John had given me a voucher from the Mohonk Spa for our anniversary and had convinced Sam to buy the same for Annie. In our (naturally) unselfish ways, we decided to share the joy and opted for 2 x couples’ massages so the boys could share in the spa-experience. At 2pm we clocked in for our massages, dressed in the spa robes and slippers. After a heavenly massage we lounged in the steam room, sauna, mineral heated pool and on the sun loungers. Very relaxed we eventually made our way back to the local bar for some beer and tacos.
This morning after brunch we packed up and started heading back to NYC, making detours in the small towns and villages along the way – amongst these the town of Woodstock! Incidentally we learnt today that the (in)famous music festival was actually held on a farm about 50miles outside of Woodstock after the town locals decided that they did not want a bunch of pot-smoking hippies invading their town – after all the promotional material had already been printed! We wandered down the main road and ended up, where other than, in a shoe store. Annie commented on the gorgeous kids that were trying on shoes with their mom and they were indeed gorgeous – this blonde angelic brother and sister. Until I spotted their mother…Uma Thurman! In the flesh! Oh my…I was about 1 meter away from my favourite actress – sitting in lotus position on the floor of the shoe shop, hair in a bun, wearing a white tank top and looking absolutely gorgeous. So celeb sighting number two? Tick.