Breakfast Blog

Sunday Morning--Jo-burg

So it's 8ish am here. It gets super "Oh my god it must be noon and I've overslept and maybe I'll never get my luggage" bright at about 5am, and since there is no clock in our room, we had to turn on our cellphones and drunkenly do the math to figure out what time it actually was. When we asked the bellhop (who was not a giraffe) last night if there was a clock in our room, he looked at us like we were nuts. Touche, bellhop.

A few notes. One of the most important things to do in a new country is watch tv. This is double true on a new continet. There's mostly American tv down here, but their "sports" channel is hilarious. Cricket? Cycling? DARTS? I'll give you cricket and cycling as legit sports, but we all know darts is total bs. Also, they had an informercial for this magic stuff that got rid of scars and liver spots which was made from SNAIL GOO. GROSS. They kept talking about snail goo like it wasn't disgusting, and on the infomercial, happy housewives were letting these huge-ass anthropomorphized snails crawl over their hands which were then all slimy with snail snot. HOW IS THIS A GOOD SELL? In any case, we showered and brushed our teeth, which was totally awesome. As most of you know how vain I (Shannon) am, you can only imagine how difficult it is that I have no product in my hair, and have been wearing the same pair of pants since Friday. I'm sure everyone would love to see a picture, but I'm the camera woman, so screw that. In any case, I am hoping to get downstairs and take a picture of our breakfast entertainment, which consisted of the African weaver birds outside the restaurant window.

So we had the continental breakfast, and there was fruit and granola. Aw hell yeah. Delicious, life giving granola. Oh, and water! It is so arid here, and if it weren't for the potential of traveler's diarrhea (yay) we would be mainlining from the tap. Anyhow, we looked out the window, and since Shannon's Mom used to make her watch Nature shows, er, that is, since Shanon got to enjoy nature shows with her Mom, she knew that the yellow birds with the creepy red eyes weaving nests (okay, so that was a give away too) with long strands of grass were, well, weaver birds. It was pretty awesome to watch them work, and their deftness with just their beak put our manual dexterity skills to shame, as cereal to spoon to mouth was presenting problems so early in the morning.

After we leave here, we go to the airport and (hopefully) retrieve our luggage, and then it's off to Pilanesburg to see some Hippos. Let's see who gets eaten first! (Hint: It will be Shannon)