Happy Birthday to me!

Yesterday it was my Birthday and also the second Anniversary of my blog... YEAH to both!!

We had a wild and crazy party on Saturday going on till Sunday morning around 3 am. Wow, what a crazy bunch was here, we danced on tables, drank so many shots and shooters that most of us 15 party animals had to recoup all Sunday before feeling human again ;-)

I don't think we ever went through so much alcohol on 1 night as Saturday, my friends can drink!! The only thing is when you reach a certain age, the drinking is not the problem, it is the feeling you have the next day that is so much worse than when you were 10 years younger!! Luckily I felt OK, a bit of a headache and tired the next day, but that was it... some of my friends felt worse though and were really sick.... that's what you get when you mix so much drinks and party too wild for your body's sake...

Here some pictures of those crazy but FUN friends who were at the party!

Dirk, the bartender giving Marta a drink.



Gustavo & Luciano.



Lane, Nadeem & Dele.



Maryam, Candice, Marta, Tehmina, Stella, Dunke, Hyun, Felicity and me.
The new Legal Aliens :-)



Toasting on my Bday.



Dancing and posing.



Dunke and me. That's how it all started with the 2 of us and a bus ride to Sophia Town...



Nadeem and the girls.



Dirk and the girls.



He likes it there!



This was all still before 12 o'clock... so not my Bday yet. Now it is getting wilder, need to wait for more pictures from my friends cameras, since I don't have much on my camera after this point.... to be continued!

It was such a grand party, we found a really great group of people to hang out with, and I know for sure there will be many more parties and get togethers with this crazy bunch out of all the corners of the world!! Thanks guys, for the fun party!! I hope you didn't feel too bad the next day... ;-)

Then another topic, my 2 year Anniversary of Funky Doodle Donkey!
Wow, I can't believe this is already going on for 2 years! I love to be part of the blogging world, meeting so many nice and interesting people this way and want to go on for many more years. I am thinking of changing the blog lay-out a bit this year, and taking the blogging to a new level... how I don't know yet, but I need to change a bit I feel...

THANK YOU ALL FOR BEING MY FRIEND OR FOLLOWER!!
I really appreciate your friendship and interest in my blog, my life, my ramblings....

Life is Good!
Mireille

13th Anniversary!

Yesterday we celebrated our 13th Anniversary! We had a great weekend celebrating it. The girls had a slumber birthday party on Saturday, so the evening before we had the kingdom to ourselves! First we went out to eat and then to the movies. Not the greatest choice we made on that one! We went to District 9, which was filmed in Joburg, so we thought a good movie to see, but jeezz.. what a horrible movie I thought it was! Blood and insides splattering around, black vomit and fluids coming out noses, weird creatures.... everybody is raving about this movie, but it made me grinch the whole time! Especially not a good choice for an anniversary... a romantic comedy would have been better!!



On Sunday, our day, we had a romantic breakfast Dirk prepared for us complete with 13 Red Roses!... the girls were still at our friends home and after we picked them up we went to Melville. That is a great artsy area in one of the neighborhoods of Joburg. Very cute! There is a designer lifestyle center called Bamboo which has an art gallery, some cute artsy shops and boutiques, a glass blowing place, where you can follow classes. A lovely book shop and a delish deli kind of place to eat with the most fresh food around. So we spent the afternoon there, buying some books and hand made jewelry. Having a light lunch since we made reservations for a 6-course dinner later in the evening.

Khetho our housekeeper did the babysitting part for the evening and we went out later for our dinner. Roots is one of the better restaurants and 5-star boutique hotel in the Cradle of Humankind, one of the most famous heritage sites. While we were driving up there we were welcomed by some wild Kudu's and Springboks who just wander around in this private game reserve. On a Sunday night not many people go out for dinner anymore, so it was already quite when we arrived. But they told us that 6 other people booked for tonight, so we wouldn't be the only ones.... Well, it turned out that we WERE the only ones. So this 6-course dinner with wine pairing was totally made for us alone. They opened 6 bottles of wine, each course had a different one... The crew of staff was at least 6-9 people, working just for us... what an experience for our Anniversary!




Let me tell you about the food. We started with a Roots lobster bisque. Next a Ceasar salad, followed by a Pan fried Cod with citrus segments, fennel & leek fricassee. Then a trio of beef with butternut puree, chickpea cassoulet and salsa verde. After that the confit Duck with wild mushroom risotto, spring veggies & jus. And last but not least, hazelnut parfait ice-cream, walnut pumpkin seed nougat with almond financier and orange flan sauce. The food and wine pairing was divine!! I can definitely recommend this restaurant to my friends here!!

We had a fun day at our 13Th Anniversary and are looking forward to the next 13... say the least. If we can top our adventurous lifestyle for the next years we will do just fine! We can't top the amount of continents anymore, since we lived already in 4 during the last 13 years, but we can still top the number of countries, so let's see what the future has in mind for us! We are looking forward to that!

Have a Marvellous Monday!
Mireille

Safari in Madikwe ~ part 2

The second day of our safari we started off with tea and rusks (In South Africa, rusk is a traditional biscuit (called beskuit in Afrikaans) that is eaten after having been dipped in coffee or tea, especially rooibos tea. Historically, rusks evolved (along with biltong) during the country's early pioneering days as a way to preserve bread in the dry climate) and then we did the morning drive. Here is the Wilde Beest, strange looking animal, kinda sad. We saw quite a few of them, mostly in groups.
The Rhino was really relaxed and let us come by quite nearby, but then it started spraying his area and was telling us not to come closer. At least that was what Tsolo our ranger was telling us!
Many giraffes we saw, they are so elegant and beautiful, I really like seeing them over and over again!
The Impala's you see the most, so cute and they can jump so far and high, they have to since they are prey to the lions!
And then we saw the elephants, they came close by, there was a mother with her baby, and the mother was really protective, she actually came behind our jeep and was chasing us. Flapping her ears wide open to make herself even bigger. Telling us not to come nearby, because she would destroy that jeep!!



Last but not least the buffalo's, with huge horns, they were in a group as well, but kinda hiding behind the bushes, so only a few we could get a close up and nice shot.

And here a Kudu, with the big cute ears, they make biltong of kudu as well (like jerky).

The phrase Big Five game was coined by big-game hunters and refers to the five most difficult animals in Africa to hunt on foot. The term is still used in most tourist and wildlife guides that discuss African wildlife safaris. The big 5 are the African Elephant, lion, buffalo, rhino and the leopoard. We saw them all but the leopard, so we have to do a few more safari's before we can say that we saw them all! Which suits me fine ;-) Besides these big 5 we saw many more animals and we just loved the trips in the jeep. In total we did 3 drives, the last morning we felt like sleeping in and joining the monkeys on our balcony, naughty little monkeys who dare to come really close!! But we didn't..haha!

Jasmine and Juliet were so scared after our almost tipping over moment they didn't feel like going on a drive with us anymore. So the lodge arranged a kiddy drive with Tsolo our ranger, just with them. And after they did some arts and crafts with some of the staff, they had so much fun. And for us it was a lot more relaxed as well.

After our sunset drive we had dinner at the boma, a boma is an enclosure with firepit. It used to be a livestock enclosure, boma is the equivalent of 'kraal', and the former being used in areas influenced by Swahili and the latter in areas influenced by Afrikaans.
All the people at the Thakadu river lodge had dinner there, so the four of us and our newly made friends and 3 other couples who where on honeymoon sat around the campfire and enjoyed this African dinner. Just beautiful. We all had a reason why we we there, Bdays, honeymoons and we were on our 12th anniversary. Ross and David were celebrating their Bday so the staff came out with 2 cakes and champagne (which their wifes had arranged) and danced and sang for them in a few African languages. This was such an amazing moment, I really loved it!! It was quite magical to be there around the fire, people singing and dancing. We had a such a grand time at Thakadu River Camp!!
African lifestyle is good!!