Happy New Year! we are learning our way around Capetown and finding internet is going better we will try and post photo's later today. We are going to wine country today on the train, the hotel and ayone official advised us not to go on the train but after talking to our guide's son he said we would be fine, it's only a 20 min journey. we just got an email from my sister my brother bill severed some fingers on his left hand and got them reattached,yikes! we've sent an email to Helen to call them. We have settled into our travlin mode and are having a fun time, we have been hanging out at the Victoria & Albert waterfront a lot tried to find the Packers on tv last nite but could'nt find it at the sports bar. gotta go, ellen

well, here we are in the cape town train station, we are going to wine country to pre-game for the rockin new years party. i also think we are going to go to table mountain as well. hermosa was fun but to my dispair, the weather was fairly shitty and no great whites showed up. that was a huge dissapointment, but we are getting a refund, so my mom says that we can use that for another dive in the indian ocean. i would like to say happy new year to everyone now, seeing as how after the concert im going to long street, which is kind of like a hybrid burbon street and state street. i will try to remember to post some pictures as soon as i can. i will also probally just make an album on facebook and post the link because that would be quicker and easier for everyone.

Sat.
Our guide picked us up at the hotel in Capetown and drove us to Hermanus(get out your atlas)
It is a beach town but the surrounding area looks a lot like California around San Francisco. We stopped on the way to see penguins,hundreds of them,some were molting and looked pretty ratty but the others were very sleek. We are staying overnite here and the boys are being picked up at 6:30 to go on the boat and do the shark cage. We are staying at another guest housebut our hosts are wonderful Elsa is getting up in the am to feed the boys breakfast, she insisted, even tho a lite breakfast will be served on the boat. she is very german her house is spotless, everything in the guest area is white, even the flowers. I will have Jim post some photos. more later.

Dec. 27

Ellen

The flight was not too bad. We have not been able to post,sorry the internet is not as readily availible here,much less free. We cannot use jim's laptop.

We stayed at a B&B the first nite near the Joberg airport. Laurent and Catherine were our hosts and none to pleasant about it either. No photos just think skinny, big nose and arrogant. We settled in and walked to a mall about2 km away. They had a skating rink!Pete said no thaks he'd do photos. Laurant gave me about 3 lectures on various subjects,insufferable! We escaped the next morning after he told it was too late to do a city tour,he refused to take us to the train,toooo dangerous down there.He was willing to take us back to the airport. We went back inside and inthe space of about 5 min booked a city tour with exactly what we wanted to see from our new best friend Linda and her Mercedes! She delivered us to the train in time for our 3pm departure

The train has been nonstop fun it will be 24 hours to Capetown. First we had a welcome reception with Champgne,then afternoon tea, then a nap then 2nd seating dinner! Looking out the window we really could be anywhere,Italy,Canada,Mexico. I want to see big animals loping by like a National Geographic special. however, without the great animals we will be seeing later in our trip, the view on the second day of the train was spectacular. we have included one picture below of some vinyards we passed.

here is a list of laurent Misinfromation delivered to us by the frenchman:

1: trains are unsafe, everything is unsafe never leave the saftey of the bread and breakfast (oddly "W" like with scare tactics"

2: there are more animals in south africa. He specifically told us there were only 7 rhinos and 30 lions in tanzania!

3: we can not get a city tour the day of.

4: great white sharks have eyelids. i have seen enough on the discovery chanel to know this is bullshit.

5: he quoted a price for a soweto tour 3x what we paid Linda.

This is a 50 story view of Joberg

PICTURES!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

Well, we made it. Were in africa! today we went ice skating and we will have pictures on the posts as soon as we get internet acess to my laptop. the flight was remarkably easy and we got plenty of rest. tomm. we will start the 27hr train ride to capetown.

you should be expecting more of these photos soon. the blog works on Jim's laptop and as you can see we can upload photos. hard to believe this one is already a year old and was taken in florence

thurs 10:30 p.m.
we have yet to start packing.