Friends Will Be Friends

Phillygirl sent me a fantastic think piece today that I feel is definitely worth sharing. It's about crime in SA, and a different way of looking at it. Written with tongue firmly in cheek yet at the same quite seriously pushing you to consider the benefits of the crime in our country, it's amusing and eye-opening. Give it a read if you have 5 minutes.

http://www.thoughtleader.co.za/burningpaper/2007/08/30/is-it-possible-that-crime-is-good/

I phoned my family for the first time in a while last night. I don't usually phone them - I e-mail a few times a week and they all read my blog, so I know they're always aware of what I'm getting up to, and they e-mail me their news so I'm in the loop as well. This works best for me, really. Every now and then I like to phone and hear their voices, but for the most part I am quite content with my pen (ok, my keyboard) functioning as my mouthpiece. This is mostly because it's easier to organise my thoughts into something coherent when I write, as opposed to the endless, news item-hopping ramblings I find myself spouting when conversing with them. That's not to say they don't enjoy them - I am sure they never tire of hearing me talk... God knows I never tire of talking! But it certainly makes more sense and is more cohesive, not to mention descriptive, when it's written down. One other thing that is greatly lacking in conversation is irony. Of course, irony happens whether you speak or write about it, but writing captures irony in a truly satisfying way that the spoken word cannot. Irony is a form of god - it is to writers what Father Christmas is to children.

Mini-me and G are moving into their flat this weekend. After months of shacking up with the folks while they wait for their tennant's lease to expire, they are about to experience the freedom of moving out for the first time. They did live by themselves during their UK stint, but it was a live-in pub job, even though they had their own little flat, so it doesn't really count - no rent to pay, no grocery shopping as all food was stolen from the kitchen.... This will mark the first time they're living alone with all their expenses. Makes me nostalgic for the days when Shoes and I had our own haven of space and peace. Don't get me wrong, we've adjusted perfectly well to living with housemates, but nothing beats the feeling of having a place to call you own, rather than jointly your own. It's been bliss this week without Eyes and Scarves, in a way that it can only be when you've lived with people for so long you've forgotten what it's like to potter into the kitchen butt naked in the morning to make your coffee. I can shower with the door open so the steam doesn't build up (the fan is broken); watch whatever the hell I feel like on TV; speak when I want to and embrace complete silence when I don't. We've had silly, couple-type conversations that you just can't have in front of actual people for fear of encouraging a deep seated loathing; we've eaten, slept and lolled around in the lounge (aka bedroom, dining room and computer room this week) and we went a whole day without getting up or showering just because we could. My housemates' return will be tinged with a bit of regret for me; at the same time as it will be exciting because it's like moving in all over again - at least for the first day. Thereafter we'll ignore each other as usual when we need our me time.

It's interesting how friendship changes when you move in with someone, not through conscious effort but rather through an instinctive realisation that if you don't alter things, you'll end up hating each other. Scarf often used to say to me in the beginning that she missed our closeness - the almost telepathic bond we had where we were on the same page at the same time every moment we were together. Over the course of the last year and a half, that telepathic bond has given way to often concentrated tolerance and patience. Yes, hanging out together no longer holds the excitement and deep sense of comradeship that it once did... we used to look forward to seeing each other, now we look forward to each other's absence. But our friendship has deepened on another level which takes the place of the giddiness we used to inspire in each other. I know her inside out now, and vice versa... her flaws, her good points, the things that drive me mental and the things about her that I would never change. I like to think that deeper knowledge and subsequent acceptance of someone in all aspects is far more indicative of real friendship than just having a great time. As much as I mourn the loss of my personal space, I know when we eventually leave London for our own houses in Cape Town, I will truly miss living with Eyes and Scarves.... it will take a while to adjust to them not being there for the mundane, the celebratory occasions and our spontaneous weekend parties. See, now I am looking forward to their return on Sunday, and a night spent swapping stories, photos and future plans.

Time After Time

After the insanity that was last weekend in Portugal, the plan for this Bank holiday weekend was to chill, chill and chill some more. But the best plans, as we know by now, are only good for breaking, just like rules - what would life be without a little veering off course?

We did actually spend most of the weekend chilling though - so much so that we did not get out of bed at all Monday, but that was after we broke our agreement to have a quiet one and went to Paul van Dyk and Astrix on Saturday night. Shoes and I have the house to ourselves for the week, while Eyes and Scarves while away their time with Scarf's family in Germany and Switzerland. Her Daddy is rich (and her Mommy's good loooooookin') and often takes the whole fam away for an all expenses paid holiday somewhere across the pond. Two years ago it was Disneyland, this year and last year were reprised trips to the lands of cheese and sauerkraut, with a short stop in the land of baguettes and frog legs this year for good measure. Eyes, being the only perma-partner among the three siblings, is lucky enough to get a free ride. No, I'm not jealous... ok, not VERY jealous... alright fine, so who wouldn't want to have rich relatives of any sort to spirit you away on a scot-free holiday - and after you've just come back from holiday as well? We all would. Yes, that's right, you too, it's not just me wishing my dad was a millionaire (Dad, it's ok that you're not - I love you anyway... just maybe not as much as I would if you were buying me cars and paying for my future house!). Of course, anytime they're away is a little treat for Shoes and I anyway, so even though we're not galavanting around Europe, we are playing house very cosily and relishing the chance to live as a couple, rather than one half of the Awesome Foursome.

After the shenanigans on Saturday night - we got home at 6am and stayed up another hour, enjoying being noisy, irresponsible and wasted - we proceeded to give new meaning to the word lazy, as we dragged our bed into the lounge and did not move from it for most of the rest of the weekend. It's great. It's like camping, but with hot showers and food at your easy disposal. It means you can just fall alseep while watching movies (well, those of us who don't wear contact lenses can, so that would just be Shoes then) and wake up with the kettle practically within arm's reach. Good times.

It was a very relaxing weekend all in all. We did some other things, like shop on ebay, eat (alot) and shop some more, in actual stores this time. Retail therapy and comfort food - two of the greatest things about being a human being.

Tonight we're off to see Atonement, the new Keira Knightley movie, and speaking of that, I have to run as I'm to make a stop at Subway for nosh on the way. Leaving work early after a day of doing a lot of nothing... all this relaxing is making me crave another holiday. :-)

Portugal: Day 4

Sunday

Sunday dawned balmy and gorgeous, but the beauty of the day was tinged with regret that this was our last day at the party. Not even a full day at that, as we had to leave by 12:30pm to have enough time for the drive back to Porto. Not only did we have but a few hours left of sunshine, we were also missing all the big name acts that we'd come to see. Eskimo, Ticon, Sub 6 - all the DJs that drew us to the festival in the first place were all playing Sunday afternoon through to evening. We knew the party was a 5 dayer, but we're used to trance parties in Cape Town finishing on Sundays, with Saturday night being the big night. Here, Saturday was just the warm up to the real deal on Sunday, and we were really bummed to have to leave just as it was reaching its peak. We couldn't even drown our sorrows as all the ice had melted and we had no cold booze (no ice was sold at the party - we had to make daily 20 minute trips to the nearest town to buy).

The plan was to get up, get dressed and washed, have breakfast and come back to pack up camp before we hit the dancefloor for our final hours. However, we didn't take OJ's natural inability to hurry up into account. As usual, the rest of us were up and ready to go to the food stalls while OJ was still disentangling himself from his sleeping bag. After much nagging and hustling, we finally set off for breakfast, OJ hopping along while trying to put on his shoes on the way. We love him, but his lagging behind and indecisiveness drove us dilly sometimes! Shoes and I split off from the group to find some sort of breakfast that included toast (we were delighted to discover toasted ham and cheese) and the others went to the crepe stall. While they ordered, OJ stood around wondering what to eat. As the others got their food, he decided to get some juice. But of course, he couldn't decide which type. Finally, he got his juice while everyone else was eating their breakfast, and then wondered off to find something to eat. Shoes and I met up with the rest of the group; by now we'd basically all finished eating, and OJ was off at another stall waiting in line to order. Blaaaaaahhhh! We'd told him we wanted to spend as much time on the dancefloor as possible, so we left him waiting for food while we went back to camp to pack up. 20 minutes later, after Shoes and I already had our tent down and folded up, OJ appears with his falafel and says he was kept waiting for 15 minutes for his food. By the time he'd finished eating, we all had our stuff packed and were headed to the car to drop it off. We seriously thought we'd see him at the dancefloor for 5 minutes just before we left, but somewhere down the line he must have realised we were serious about not waiting, and by the time we got back from the car he had everything packed in his bag and ready to go! We could hardly believe our eyes. :-)

Finally, we all went down to the dancefloor for Skazi's set at 9:30am. Except that Skazi hadn't started by 9:30... or 10:30... or 11 o'clock. They were running really late, and he finally came on at 11:30am - and he wasn't that great either! We'd been hoping to catch the beginning of Eskimo's set at 11:30, but with the delays we only had about half an hour left to dance, and no chance of seeing him. Skazi came out with his guitar and rocked out, but the music had a blandness to it which was disappointing. We were hoping for one more caner of a stomp before hometime, and we didn't really get it. Just before 12, we went down to the river for one last swim, and then settled into the van for our long drive back to Porto.

The drive took was a lot shorter than on our way there, which is always the case, and we made good time. Mostly we just dozed or read books - the energy expended over the previous 72 hours combined with the heat had made way for mass lethargy. After dropping off the van, we went for drinks and snacks at Porto Airport - not nearly as horrific as Windhoek's excuse for an airport, for those of you who have been, but quite small and quiet. There was a great souvenir shop though, and Shoes and I bought a mini bottle of the finest Port in a painted wooden box - it looks like pirate's treasure.

Of course, no conclusion to any trip we take would be complete without the pre-requisite drama. It started when our flight was delayed by half an hour. Half an hour was actually about 45 minutes, and by the time we boarded everyone was stressing about getting back to London before the last train and tubes. Eyes was the only one who had to work on Monday, and Scarf had to go to college, while the rest of us had wisely taken the day off for recovery purposes. Even so, we'd been travelling for 10 and a half hours by the time we got back to London, and irritation had set in. When we finally got our baggage at Gatwick, we went to check the train times only to find there were no trains to London Bridge! The station had been closed for some emergency, leaving us with no choice but to go a very round about route through Clapham Junction. We considered a cab, but they're really expensive for such a distance, and we were really broke after the weekend, so we opted for the train. At Clapham, we said goodbye to OJ and the rest of us ended up having to catch night buses home as we'd missed the last train. It couldn't have been a worse end to the weekend - standing in the pouring rain, soaked through and freezing, waiting for a bus that never seemed to come, and when it finally did, took absolute ages to reach home. Welcome back to bloody London!!!!! We walked through our front door 14 hours after we'd left the party - exhausted, dirty, cold and barely speaking to each other. And that was the end of our party in Portugal.

* I'm happy to say that we are now all on speaking terms again, a good night's sleep having restored our good spirits, and the photographs are now reminders of how fantastic the trip was, rather than how terrible we felt the night we got home!

Portugal: Days 2 & 3

Friday & Saturday

We woke up at 7am after a surprisingly good dos. You don't realise when you travel long distances how much it takes out of your body, especially as you often don't feel tired. Of course, the copious amounts of alcohol we'd consumed the night before might have had something to do with it, but luckily there were no hangovers to be seen. We were pretty fresh and more than ready for a day of chaos.

The sun rises at about 6am, so by the time we got up it was already fairly warm. Breakfast consisted of a tough omelette sandwiched between paper thin (and cardboard tasting) bread, and very very very shit coffee - I can't stress enough how bad the coffee is in this country. Trance party food is never gourmet, but Portugal had some new lows on that front. Then our day began.....

Basically it went like this: drink at campsite, wander down to dancefloor for a stomp, stroll off to stalls for ice-cream / fresh fruit salad and yoghurt (the best discovery of the party), ooze along to river for a swim.... repeat x 10, in random order. It was baking hot - around 30 degrees everyday, and we absolutely revelled in it.

We'd all brought chairs along with us on the trip; the four housemates had little fold up fishing stools and Neutrino and OJ bought these low plastic chairs with bendy backrests so you could lean. Of course, jealousy was rampant once the four of us realised how cool their chairs were, as we had to sit up straight the whole time while they could lounge around. It was therefore a source of great satisfaction to us when Neutrino, who was thoroughly enjoying our envy, attempted to show us just how far back his backrest could go - and snapped it in half, ending up sprawled in a heap on the ground. For the rest of the party, he alternated between squatting like a pauper and sitting tough in the dust.

One of the main attractions of the weekend was the contingent of Portuguese hippies, making up more than half of the attendees at the party. At trance parties in Cape Town, you do get a lot of hippies, but nothing like this. These hippies were a) dirtier (this could have been the dark skin / dark hair combo, but most of them looked as if they'd never seen a bath or hairbrush in their lives), b) skinnier - Cape Town hippies look normal, many of these ones were emaciated, and c) so, so, SO much crazier!!!! We were nearly crying with laughter at some of their antics. Our personal favourite was Naked Guy. Naked Guy was obviously tripping out on something serious, and he'd managed to lose his clothes in the river. He was doing the funky chicken on the banks of the river with just a little sling bag to cover his modesty, except that the bag was bouncing up and down as he did, so not really covering much at all. All the while, he was jabbering away to himself, and frequently bursting into manic laughter as he tapped his heels. We were absolutely broken. Eventually, security came to take him away as they figured he might be a danger to himself. He was having none of it though - this skinny little man trying to escape from two huge beefy bouncers... it was quite a sight to see. And he wasn't the only one. At one stage it was almost as if we were in a theatre, and various acts were coming out on stage to perform for us. You can't make this shit happen - you can only be so incredibly grateful you were there when it did. We christened the river the Put It Away Pool, because nearly everyone who came down there to swim should really have just put it away! Europeans are far more relaxed about nudity than South Africans, and it's therefore no biggie to waltz down to the water, strip off for a swim and then lie down with your package out to bask in the sun. But for us, conservative as we are about baring all in public, it was alternately funny and then rather gross as these, ahem, less than attractive people just keep whipping it out in front of our disintegrating retinas.

Friday also saw the arrival of our token friend, Max. We were sitting around camp, rather inebriated and cackling at everything, when we hear this South African accent going "Hey, are you guys from South Africa?" and out from behind a bush pops a lone ranger in a funky headband. So of course, we told him we were, and we established that we all come from Cape Town and that he went to Westerford High. Our buddy Old Cranky Man teaches at Westerford, and once Max told us that he knew him, he was welcomed into the group with open arms. We made him pitch his tent in our lager - something that had us in hysterics because it was a fold out tent that popped up like one of those car sunshields - and gave him a beer to settle him in. After that, Max was like our pet dog. Everyone morning we'd wake up and look for him, and when we found him we'd check how he was and what he'd been up to. We exposed him to our special brand of humour and he was cool with it, so we figured he could stay.

The music was really good, and we had some caner stomps on the dancefloor. We didn't go down there too much in the middle of the day as it was so hot, but we did the sunset and sunrise sessions, and occasionally a mini stomp in the blazing sun. They had good shade up and plenty of sprinklers, so it was bearable for a while. Friday night was our longest stomping session. We spent most of the night on the floor, and when it started getting a little chilly around 4am, Shoes and I came up with the great idea to go and fetch everyone coffee. What we didn't take into account though, was that the nearest coffee stall was a good 10 minutes away. This, plus the fact that the (very shit) coffee was served luke-warm in the first place, meant that our trip resulted in us bringing back four cups of cold coffee which were only filled halfway due to spillage - the ground was that uneven. Bad idea then.

We stayed up pretty late on Friday night, and then woke up early on Saturday, so most of the first half of Saturday was spent in a bit of a haze. The wind also picked up in the morning, and where we'd just been hot and sticky before, we were now hot, sticky and permanently covered in a layer of dust. Although we did swim and Shoes and I showered in the ice cold showers, there was nothing we could do to get away from it. We were lying in it, eating it and drinking it with our vodka. It became our friend after a while though; you really have no choice but to embrace it, otherwise you spend your whole party being annoyed. We could at this stage no longer look down on the hippies for their dirtiness, though.

Saturday was alot more chilled out than Friday. We went down to the river to watch the sunset and saw to our delight that there were statues in it - except they were moving! More craziness from the locals.... three people covered in what looked like grey plaster of paris were standing motionless knee deep in the water, occasionally moving with robot like slowness to change their positions. Love it.

We went to bed pretty early on Saturday night, in preparation for an early morning on Sunday. We intended to make the most of our last day at the party, but as you will see tomorrow, spanners get thrown in the works pretty easily when you're in a group....

To be continued....

Portugal: Day One

Thursday

We woke up at 2:50am to be at the airport at 4:30am. Our flight left at 6:30am. When we initially booked our tickets, this sounded like a fair option. However, as is so often the case, what seems like a good idea at the time is in many cases just not, and when six people are stumbling around, blinded by the sleep in their eyes and trying to rush through their routines in only 2 bathrooms, it's just plain chaos. We somehow managed to get ready on time, and we were out the door and into the cab with minimal issues, besides OJ "losing" his phone, something which he does with startling regularity, as will become evident. Definition of "losing" - to go into a flat panic when you cannot find a particular item, only to realise 10 seconds to a minute later that said item is in fact safely stowed away where you last put it. Unfortunately, OJ not only "loses" things, he really loses things as well, hence his name OJ, which comes from our constant sighs of 'Oh, J!" as he flaps around searching for yet another misplaced thing.

Our flight was fairly uneventful. We'd had the presence of mind to take our pillows on board with us, and we all caught up on a bit of much needed sleep. By the time we landed in Porto, we were fairly awake and good to go. We collected our car - a 7 seater van with aircon and tough front speakers - and off we went. Eyes took the first driving shift, and the rest of us in the back sat, white knuckled, holding on for dear life as he negotiated a few obstacles such as oncoming cars on the wrong side of the road, while OJ attempted to get the GPS software on his mobile working. It took a while to get over our raging fear that we were going to be hit by oncoming traffic every time we turned a corner, but Eyes did well to keep us all alive.

Our plan was to drive through to the city of Porto, wonder around there for a couple of hours to soak up a bit of Portuguese culture, and grab a bite to eat before heading out on the 420km trip to the party, which was near a little town called Elvas. However, even the best plans go awry, and when you're a group of tourists in a non-English speaking city with very little idea of what you're doing, it's a recipe for a botch. We drove to what we thought was the Museum of Transport and Communication, the place where the tourist info chick at the airport had told us we could park. It probably would have been a good idea to actually check that the building we thought was the museum was in fact the museum, but enthusiasm was high and sensibility was low, and our map-reading was clearly not as good as we thought, so we jumped out the car (after a minor pause as OJ "lost" his spare mobile battery) and started walking in what we thought was the direction of Old Porto, the cultural centre of the city. I should just take a moment here to say that none of us is particularly cultured, but we felt obliged to see a bit more of the country than just an out of the way trance party venue, so we were going to take photos of the cathedrals and pretty buildings in order to not appear complete savages (the pics at the trance party would do that for us anyway). Of course, our lack of caution and below-par map reading skills meant we got TOTALLY lost, and our confusion was only reinforced by the few people we stopped to ask for directions; all of whom failed to mention to us that we were not in fact where we thought we were. After walking for an hour and a half through the parts of Porto that tourists never see, and with good reason, we finally hit a main road and attempted to find a bus station. By this stage we had decided Porto was run-down, dirty, poor and not worth a 5 minute pit stop. After much debating, stopping to ask for directions and general moaning, we came across the main square by accident, and found Tourist Porto - the part we were supposed to see. By that stage however, we'd had enough. We couldn't possibly have grumbled anymore than we were. You could have shown us a stunning panorama worthy of a postcard at that point - we still wouldn't have cared. It was definitely time to leave. We found the bus stop about 45 minutes after we'd first started looking for it, and managed to make our way back to the car without further incident. Conclusion: Porto sucks. The drive through to the party was uneventful. Along the way we discovered that the Portuguese in general do not speak any English (although perhaps this is different in Lisbon) and they have rather bland and tasteless cuisine. They also have no sauce sachets and all their food is very dry.

We arrived at the 2007 Freedom Festival at about 6pm Thursday evening, and we were greeted by a large, very dusty open area with stony ground that was majorly averse to tent pegs. We dived headlong into an intense argument about where to pitch our camp (Shoes and Eyes were on Team Tree - the area under some sad looking trees for shade but miles from the dance floor; Scarf, Neutrino and I were on Team Toilet - the area close to the loos, dance floor and road leading to the food stalls; OJ was on his own team and was miffed that no-one agreed with him). We'd been travelling for 14 and a half hours and everyone was a tad tense. Eventually, Team Toilet won out - Team Tree and OJ gave in most ungracefully - and we started to set up camp. To say it was a good start to the party would be a lie. Even though we cracked open a few vodkas and beers to drink while working, the day had gotten to all of us and setting up was a tangle of guy ropes and tempers. Soon enough though, once we were fully settled, tempers abated and the joy of being at a trance party in another country returned, and we started to get into the spirit of things. The plan: to get well pissed and hit the dancefloor like there was no tomorrow.

The venue could have been better - it was so open and dry that when the wind came up on Sunday the dust storms choked us, and the terrain was tough and unforgiving, but things like that don't matter when you're on the dancefloor stomping it up to some banging tunes. We caned it that night, giving it all we had. We had to - we were in Portugal!!!!!! The beers and vodkas were flowing copiously (we'd stopped on the way to buy all our own booze) and finally, we were getting in the swing of things. No-one remembers too clearly how it went down that night, but we know we drank too much, danced a lot and stumbled to bed with the music still thundering in our ears - Team Tree had a point when they indicated Team Toilet's spot was going to make it tough to dos. We hadn't counted on the toll 14 hours of travelling would take on us though, and we all collapsed into bed at 12am, falling asleep as soon as our heads hit the pillows; dreaming of another day of freedom and mayhem in Portugal.

To be continued tomorrow......

Travelling Band

It's 22:45 and we have to be up in 4 hours and 15 minutes to be at Gatwick by 4:30am. Ok, so the cheap flights seemed like a good idea at the time! We're all packed (took us 3 hours cos we kept taking breaks to wah-hey! around the house) and we're hoping that by some miracle we haven't forgotten anything. Sod's law says of course we have. But as long as we have passports, money and party tickets, everything else can be begged for, bought, borrowed or stolen. It's pissing with rain outside right now; we really couldn't have picked a better night to leave sodding old London behind.

I went for a job interview this morning - my first actual London interview rather than agency meet and greet. It's a role that I initially thought was kind of cool; now I am obssessed with getting it and feel that my life will be over if I don't. Yeah, it's definitely easier not to give a shit. It's for Accounts Assistant at Redwoods Publishing House, working on one of their client magazines. It's the oppotunity of a lifetime - I could have a career in publishing and who knows, maybe one day I'd even get to write a magazine article.

Anyway, I really meant this to be a full post but with all the excitement of the day, I never quite got there. So I think my best option is to get to sleep as soon as humanly possible so this frikkin holiday can finally arrive.

Later, my peeps, I will tell you all. Prepare yourself. ;-)

A Portuguesa!

NEUTRINO FOUND HIS PASSPORT!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! Ok, to be exact, it got handed in to his local police station and when he made his daily call yesterday they told him it was waiting for him to collect. So, WE'RE ALL GOING TO PORTUGAL IN 3 DAYS! Sorry, I'll stop shouting now, but the situation does call for just a bit of enthusiasm. Now I am officially excited. All of us have been a bit down about the whole thing lately, and we were struggling to muster up some measure of eagerness. Now we can think of nothing else! :-)

No really, I can't think of anything else at all, not even anything further to write here. This is partly because we had a fairly tame weekend, and partly because I am imagining basking in the sun beside the river, trance music pumping in the background, vodka cocktail in hand....

Ok, erm, maybe I should stop right here. Instead of daydreaming all over my blog, I will save the post for the real stories, of which there will be many to recount. I'll take you through it, you'll feel like you were there. Something to look forward to. Right, back to those vodka cocktails then.....