Observations on Johannesburg

Now that I am a bit more awake, I want to give you an update on the trip thus far.

Gauteng (the state that Johannesburg) is in is only two time zones east of London. So getting used to the time is no big deal! But the city is worlds away.

Actually, it reminds me a lot of Southern California. The landscape is a rolling, hilly one. The buildings are all of the new, low-slung variety that are so common to strip malls and office parks so common in West Hollywood. Also like that area of the world, practically everything is gated. Unlike Hollywood every gate or wall here is topped with spikes, barbed wire, concertina wire, electric fences or a combination thereof.

I asked if the crime in the area was really that bad, and was told that was the reason they had the fences was so that it didn't get that bad. That's twisted logic, if you ask me, but hey! What're ya gonna do?

I've been warned not to venture out of the hotel compound too far at night, so basically, I've been to the mall across the parking lot and the restaurants therein bit nothing further. I have a colleague coming over from the states today so there will be two of us here to work with the client station. Perhaps this weekend we'll find some time to explore!

I hope that wherever you are today, you're having a safe day!

Don Bergquist - 28 February 2007 - Randberg, South Africa

Happy Birthday to my aunt, Judy

Surprise!

Greetings from South Africa! Good god am I knackered!

I have never been one who sleeps well on planes. This plane ride was no exception.

Yes, Saga was right! I had a very busy day yesterday. Sunday evening I got a call from the states. My boss wanted to know if I could get to South Africa that day. The answer was, of course no… but I could try my best to be there on Monday.

I said that I had arrangements to make to assure Saga was cared for but that once that was done, I could fly out on Monday and arrive on Tuesday morning. So Monday morning I made travel arrangements, did the training I needed and got myself packed. At sunset last night I was sitting in a Virgin Atlantic flight bound for Johannesburg.

This morning, after an interminably long flight, I looked out the window to see the sun rise over Africa. The flight was soon to be over. We landed at the airport and I cleared customs soon enough.

Landing at the airport at rush hour was a bad idea… I wonder whose it was! It took well over an hour to get to the hotel in Randberg. I had a long day with the client and then came home and had dinner at an ethnic African restaurant.

It has been a long day and at the time of this writing, I have been up for over 36 hours. It is time to sleep.

I hope that wherever you are today, you've done something surprising!

Don Bergquist - 27 February 2007 - Randberg, South Africa

Out Of The Office...

Greetings all!

Sorry to say that I have been called out of the country on business. The hotel I am staying in has spotty Internet access at best. I am writing and taking pictures and will return to London on the 10th to upload the tales and pictures from my trip to South Africa.

Please be patient and check back after the tenth!

I hope that wherever you are, you're having a great day!

Don Bergquist - 07 March 2007 - Randberg, Gauteng, South Africa

What's Up?

I know something is up! Daddy got up early this morning, opened the back door for me and gave me a quick pet and then ran to glowing box on his desk in the lounge! What's up with that? It obviously has nothing to do with feeding me! Why is Daddy working at 05:00? Could this have something to do with that phone call he got last night?

He must be busy today! He ran out of the house this morning after only telling me I was a good girl a few times. He gave me a big handful of my favorite frozen vegetables on my kibble and then headed off somewhere on his bicycle.

I saw him from the window I was sitting at upstairs go by twice in a car. (He never takes me anywhere and he gets to go riding in cars! Hmm!) He never rides by the house in cars. Not at the middle of the day!

He then came running in and threw a bunch of stuff in a suitcase and went away in another car. I wonder what is happening!

I hope that wherever you are today, you have something to feed me. Daddy never feeds me anything!

Saga Bergquist - 26 February 2007 - Thames Ditton, Surrey, UK

Birthday Party Weekend!

I have a number of friends here in town who all celebrate birthdays in late February/early March. Angie, the social director of our group, decided that we should all celebrate en masse with dinner at le Petit Nantaise, a wonderful little bistro on The Bridge road in East Molesey just near the palace.

I have been here for dinner a few times in the time I have spent here and I highly recommend it! It is a fabulous place. The atmosphere is comfortable; the staff attentive to your needs; the food is exquisite! I have never been disappointed here.

We met-up yesterday at The Albion, one of the local pubs on the bridge road. We were supposed to meet at seven, but due to some kind of a sporting thing, rugby, football (soccer) or something like that was on the tele so some of the celebrants were a bit late showing up. It was okay, they had told me that they may be late. I knew the would when I came into the pub.

None among the throngs of people screaming at the televisions in the pub were my friends. So I took a beer and a position at a table in the walk out in front of the pub. It was fun watching East Molesey (and the obvious tourists) go walking through the village as the evening stretched.

There was one little girl who wanted nothing to do with the noise and palaver inside the pub. She wanted to run around and play outside. Her mom kept coming out and calling to her "Lola, come back here! Quit Running Around!" Lola finally found a friend of her mom's who would play with her and wore her out by having her run up the street and then back to him. On arrival, he'd pick her up and toss her above his head; catching her and setting her down again gentle as you please. I'm not sure who was most tired when that was done.

There was one family of tourists who kept walking by the pub as I sat there. I knew they were tourists by the book they kept referencing as they walked along. It was printed in some foreign language; Russian, I thin - the letters looked Cyrillic. I have, really, no reason to believe they were lost. The book may have been a guide to the architecturally interesting highlights of East Molesey; for all I know they may have been discussing the downspouts.

My friends showed-up around seven thirty and then we had a beer before heading over to the restaurant. Where once again, we had a sparkling conversation, and a wonderful meal! The wine flowed; the owner and chef JP came over to chat with us a couple times and even bought us a round of coffees and aperitifs after we had our desserts. The accordion player came by and played a number of songs that we all sang along with. (Well, almost all of us sang along. Once again, I feel the lack of common background with my friends here in the UK. There were a number of songs that they all knew - old English standards - that I had never even heard of before!)

After dinner, we headed back to The Albion for a night cap and were still there when the second bell rang. It was well after midnight this morning when I returned to the Villa. After a nice lie-in this morning (I stayed abed until nearly eight) I went out for a nice bike ride in-between two rain showers. I took pictures of these daffodils in the margin or a roadway in nearby Kingston-upon-Thames on my way back. I had a leisurely morning, brushed Saga (God! Can she shed or what?) and then got ready to meet-up with my mates back at The Albion for the continuation of our celebrations. I'm off to the pub now. More tomorrow.

I hope that wherever you are today, you have something to celebrate and a wonderful to do so!

Don Bergquist - 25 February 2007 - Thames Ditton, Surrey, UK

Daffodils

The Daffodils are Blooming again! These are in the margin of the road into Kingston-upon-Thames. I saw them as I was on my bike ride today. This is the reason that I almost always have a camera with me!

I wish I could say I always have a camera with me; there are some classic shots I have missed because I had no camera. There was that time that I saw some barristers from the crown court came in (in full regalia... that was the only way I knew they were barristers) to a local fast-food restaurant. I could see the caption: "At the bar?" below a picture of a guy in robes and stupid-looking wig standing at the counter of Subway.

Ah, well! Those are the breaks.

I hope that werever you are today, the day is a lovely one!

Don Bergquist - 24 February 2007 - Long Ditton, Surrey, UK

Travelogue Amsterdam: Part VII - The Journey Home

As it turned out, the night was very young! I had a nice dinner at a Cantonese restaurant in the Red Light District. The owners of the hotel had recommended it to me and when I told the staff that I was staying at that hotel, they got all happy, invited me in and gave me a great table. The service was excellent the food was great. I had a wonderful time chatting with the staff until the restaurant got busy and then finished my dinner watching the world course by down the Warmoesstraat.

I had a couple beers and then, having an early flight and needing to catch the 06:00 train to Schiphol, I headed off to bed early. I was dead tired. It had been a big day and the beer was helping. So why is it that I could not sleep a wink yet all night! I was in bed by nine and I think I must have checked the clock every fifteen minutes all night long.

Needless to say, I was able to get up, get dressed and get to the train station well before the time I had to be there for the train. I was therefore able to get the earlier train and was at the airport before I had planned to be.

My flight, more than two hours away was preceded by one about an hour away. I got to the check-in desk and had the choice of three lines. One had only one person in it, another had only a couple in it, the third had a dozen people in line. I stood behind the one guy. In much the same way that the trip had begun with a problem at check-in, it appeared that the trip was going to end the same way.

The guy was arguing about how he had to get onto his flight and how he was supposed to be in Hong Kong at 08:00 tomorrow morning. It turned out that his flight had, in fact left on time an hour ago and that there were no other flight that day that would get him where he wanted to be in time.

Quietly, I sidled over to the line where the couple were standing. Whatever this discussion was about, thankfully, I was spared the details. The entire transaction was being handled in Dutch. It took much longer than I would have expected but since it was all in Dutch, they could have been discussing the weather for all I know. I considered sidling over to the line with the dozen people in it.

The wait was uneventful, I had coffee and a roll and read from my book while waiting for the security checkpoint to open. It did and I got into queue for the security screening. Although I had divested of all metal I knew of, I still set-off the magnetometer. The gentleman who was working security gave me a very thorough frisking. Ah well, welcome to Amsterdam!

The flight home was a nice one, I got on the bus and was back home by noon. I've been working on transcribing these stories for the last three hours now. It is time to upload them and go get Saga from the pub.

I hope that wherever you are this evening, you have wonderful things ahead of you!

Don Bergquist - 18 February 2007 - Thames Ditton, Surrey, UK

Travelogue Amsterdam: Part VI - Sunday Evening

With my time dwindling, I have very few things left on my list that I wanted to do while here. The floating flower market was not something I had time to do. Nor was getting out to the country and looking for windmills. I guess that is something that will need to wait until another time, another visit.

I saw and did almost all the things I wanted to. I've had two full days and one full night. Tonight I am going to have Chinese and sit and watch people as they walk through the Red Light District. People have are so interesting to watch!

At least I was able to have a nice leisurely, if somewhat late, lunch this afternoon. It was fun. It was in a small café here in the Red Light District and as I lingered over my beer once my sandwich was gone, I watched the people go by. (I absolutely love watching people. Especially if they do not know that you are watching them!)

You can tell the puritanical American without too much trouble here in the Red Light District. They are the ones shooting the distasteful glances at the gay couples as they pass, the ones who snicker and point at some of the more graphic signs, and the ones that make lame attempts at humor as they pass the gay bars: "Hey, Bob, You wanna go in there for a beer?"

As the people in my adopted (albeit temporary) home would, no doubt observe at this point: What Wankers!

I did have a wonderfully unexpected thing happen to me this evening. I was standing on a bridge over a canal trying to get a self portrait for my blog entries. While I was there, a couple of cute little oriental girls walked by talking in something that I assume was Chinese. (At the risk of sounding racist, I'd have guessed Japanese but for the complete absence of cameras.)

I had just taken the picture to the right (the one I am happiest with) when one of the little girls (she could not have been more than a teen) ran back and in broken English asked "You want me make uh, picture for you?"

Now, I am one of those people who is always offering to do this for couples single people, families, whatever when I see them together especially in a vacation spot. Just today I had taken pictures for a couple guys on the main avenue (each taking turns snapping shots of each other with the same camera in front of signs, views, etc.), there was the couple last night, I took a picture of them as we left the restaurant. Then there was that family of Spanish tourists on the canal bus and the group of couples (three couples from Montana) over in the square this afternoon. But in all this time, nobody that I can remember has ever offered unilaterally to take my picture for me. I was touched.

She snapped the picture, handed back my camera, and asked "It is okay?"

"Yes, fine!" I said. "Thank you! Thank you very much!" I meant it. I was very touched. Satisfied, she ran away, giggling to join her friend and they walked giggling into the train station.

Perhaps I will take a tram ride out to one of the outlying districts after dinner. Who knows! The night is young!

I hope that wherever you are this evening, you have wonderful things ahead of you!

Don Bergquist - 17 February 2007 - Amsterdam, Holland, The Netherlands

Travelogue Amsterdam: Part V - Sunday

"There's a thin line between Saturday Night and Sunday Morning!"
Jimmy Buffet
(From Fruitcakes)

The line was less than five hours wide! I fell into bed last night and was almost immediately asleep. This morning, I was awake around six thirty and, not being able to get back to sleep, I took a shower, got dressed and went for a walk around the city.

I had passed a number of sites that I really wanted to take pictures of on the way home from the club last night. But because I didn't want to carry my camera around with me all day, I had to run back there this morning. There were some interesting statues, monuments and buildings all of which can be seen in the photo album that can be seen at the link above.

There was a wonderful little market place just opening as I was making my way back to there were stalls selling food, clothing, flowers, all the necessities of life spread out for sale along the road. I stopped at one of them and took the pictures of the Margriets (Gerber Daisies) that appears to the right as well as the roses that appear below. There are more pictures from the flower stalls at the link above.

Back at the hotel, I had a cup of coffee with the owner and his partner. We chatted about what I had done the evening before and what my plans for the day were. I thanked them for the advice on the Ann Frank house and asked what they thought of my itinerary for the day. They said that provided I got to the first museum early, it should work out well. So after coffee, I headed straight to the van Gogh Museum.

All day my timing was, as luck would have it, excellent! I arrived at the van Gogh and was fifth in line to get in. The museum was busy but not packed. I spent a few hours working my way through the galleries. Almost every time I was leaving one gallery for the next, a large tour group was entering the gallery behind me. I ate lunch from a cart in the park outside the museum and made my way across to the Rembrandt Museum.

I entered the museum just as a huge group was leaving and heading toward a waiting tour bus. There was a short wait to get in, but during the wait, another large group left, chattering in something that sounded like Spanish, and then boarded another bus.

I spent a couple hours of perusing the galleries. (I have to say at the risk of being branded a philistine, I preferred the van Gogh.) Then, I headed over to take a canal boat tour. It was good to get off my feet! It was bad to be sharing a boat with a family from the States (or perhaps - and I pray I am right here - Canada!) with a small child who…

Well, to my father and anyone who had to put up with me as I was a child, please let me say: If that is how I was, please accept my apologies! This child was the most ill-behaved snot-nose I have ever heard! A short example:
Recorded Announcer: "You are sailing down the Gentleman's Canal. To your right you will see…" (The remainder of the announcement was obscured by the child.)

Unruly Child: "Your in a boat! To your right, you'll see Amsterdam. To the left You'll see Amsterdam! What do you expect to see from a boat in a canal in Amsterdam?"

(At this point the kid started incessantly yakking at his siblings about how clever he was and how dumb it was to have a voice announcing what it was we were seeing.)

RA: "We are now turning into the…"

UC: (Obscuring the rest of the announcement) "We're now in a different canal. It looks like the first but that is because they are all the same. Look to your left and you will see Amsterdam! Look to your right and you will see… guess what… Amsterdam!"

This child was narrating with this inane babble for the next five minutes while all around glared at the kid and his parents. When he did it for about the fifth time, I stood up, turned to the kid's parents and said (Pointing at the kid) "This is why we get a bad reputation as tourists."

The parents shot me acid glares and the kid made a face at me. The next announcement started.

RA: "We are about to pass through the…"

Tensing (as I am sure much of the rest of the boat was) I waited for the inevitable inane commentary by the kid. I was rewarded with:

UC: "We are about to - Ouch! Hey! Why'd ya do that?"

There were no further interruptions to the commentary. The person sitting across the table from me told me that the father had reached across the table and flicked the kid's ear when he started his last comment. Thus explaining the "Ouch! Hey! Why'd ya do that?" The family left the boat at the next stop to a smattering of applause.

I returned to my hotel briefly to make notes and to rest my feet a while and then went for a walk in the Red Light District one last time before sunset. There is an oddity in it. The Church (to the right) is in the middle of the red light district. As a matter of fact, as I was trying to frame and take this shot, I was having to ignore the pleading requests of the women in the windows behind me to come over and "talk" to them. I find it an interesting juxtaposition that were you to swing the proverbial cat by its tail, you could hit a church and a chippie on the same swing.

I hope that wherever you are today, you are able to see the interesting things in life!

Don Bergquist - 17 February 2007 - Amsterdam, Holland, The Netherlands

Happy Birthday to my pseudo-niece, Charlotte

George Washington's Birthday

Travelogue Amsterdam: Part IV - Saturday Night

When I asked this morning at the front-desk where I could get a good Dutch meal so that I could say that I had eaten Dutch, I was told that there were a couple but that I wouldn't enjoy it. "Dutch food" the desk clerk informed me "is a bit stodgy. It's all mashed potatoes and overcooked vegetables; meat that is overcooked and gluey gravies." As appetizing as that sounded, I decided I would rather give it a miss.

Just as well. I found only two restaurants in my travels yesterday that advertised "Dutch" cooking. One was closed. The other might have well as been; their business was as brisk as the tomb. I decided to strike out and fine something else to sate the hunger that I was developing from having skipped lunch (and, come to think of it, breakfast was just a roll with some Port Salude cheese on the plane over from London! - No wonder I was famished!)

I finally decided on a steak at an Argentinean restaurant not far from the hotel. This had been one of the places they had mentioned to me so, why not? Sitting at table, I was watching the throng go by and enjoying a pretty good steak and had just ordered a second glass of wine when the man at the next table asked me if I was American.

"Yes. I said. I am." I responded, pausing only shortly to consider claiming to be Canadian. Americans are not popular in some parts over here… (With the wanker we have in the White House, you need not wonder why!)

"My wife is American." He responded. "What part of the states are you from?" he asked.

(What wife? He was sitting at table alone.) "I own a place in Denver," I said "but I've been on an extended business trip to London for most of the last year."

"Ah!" He said. We're going there next." He beamed. "We're on our honeymoon!" at this point, the absent wife appeared, kissed her husband and joined him at table. The joint between the tables was so narrow we may as well have been sharing one so we continued our conversation.

We did introductions all around. Ben had been living in San Rafael, California for the past few years and was a professor at Berkley. Amy had completed some graduate work there and worked in San Francisco. We then spent our dinners in pleasant conversation and in poking fun at the people acting obviously "tourist-like" passing the restaurant's window.

I nearly demurred last night when they invited me to join them at a club they were going to with some lame excuse about having an agenda to keep. But they didn't give me the chance. I had told them during introductions that I had come over on a whim to celebrate my birthday and they insisted I not celebrate alone.

The club was… an experience. The music was good; the dance floor was crowded. The crowd was surprisingly well mixed. All ages, all sorts of clothing. It was a truly eclectic crowd. It was not the type of club that you'd likely run across anywhere but Amsterdam. Whereas many dance clubs in the states have cages that people can dance in, very few (none that I know of) have exotic dancers dancing in the cages.

We stayed quite late. Around two this morning, I found my way back to the hotel and headed up to bed. What a night!

I hope that wherever you are today, you've got things to celebrate!

Don Bergquist - 16 February 2007 - Amsterdam, Holland, The Netherlands

Ash Wednesday