Cooked dinner … and it was edible.

Made a smoothie … again edible. Winning.

Started swimming.

Carried on swimming.

Ordered a milkshake in a bar.

Helped start Plugin.

Had a lot of meetings.

Almost wandered into the male prayer room at the Hilton.

Had a facial.

Didn’t buy flowers. Failing.

Got soppy because my bro is going to his first Valentines dance.

Was then horrified at realisation that my bro is almost 13.

Ate a 5 day old cupcake (read cement).

Got even more hopelessly hooked on taking photos.

Took my “Lewis” and Louboutins on a date.

Renamed Mum “Lacoste.”

Started and finished 2 books. Started a 3rd.

Didn’t get sunburnt.

Heard my thesis was published.

Finished Downton Abbey.

Realised how much I had missed this guy.

Embraced my shameless addiction to Keeping up with the Kardashians.

Found out I could sweat behind my ears.

Wore more dresses.

Was more assertive, but still shy.

Continued to cut coffee.

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Everyone is getting their knickers in a twist over the new DA Youth posters for their 2012 student campaign.  As per usual, you can see the race cards flying with gay abandon and the ensuing post-apartheid, flame-war that we’re all so used to by now (guys, get some new material) erupting over here.

It’s clear that if the DA Youth’s aim was to get people talking, they’ve definitely succeeded.

The posters are the real, sanctioned, signed off and DASO-approved deal.They’re both dragging up issues that aren’t issues anymore (80′s revival anyone), but other than that I don’t really have a problem with either of them

EXCEPT

Why did no one tell me that Patrick Dempsey was in town AND what exactly is he doing sleeping with a girl young enough to be his daughter?

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Be who you are and say what you feel, because those who mind don't matter, and those who matter don't mind. ~ Dr Seuss

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Oh woe is us, for our dear Ryan is in Thailand.
And as I type this, I am in fact standing amidst the ashes of local hearts that have been broken, crushed, shattered and baked ( a bit like a pancake) on Cape Town’s pavements.
Now I’m not obsessed enough to run off and start the local branch of the Ryan Gosling Appreciation Club (although if someone did, I probably would join and you know, become the VP or something), but I truly did feel the sting.

Now to help YOU cope with the horridious disappointment and resulting unimaginable grief, that possibly the hottest man alive ( even straight guys will agree) is not on our doorsteps, I’ve put together this post.

Reasons 

He can drive. And he looks like a driver that concentrates. He looks like he will never lose the parking ticket, always open your door and be comfortable enough in his sexuality to stop and ask for directions. (It’s honestly amazing what insight you can gain from a picture.)

He’s made mistakes.

Because he’s human, just like the rest of us.

He can play the piano. And if the gods were feeling pretty benevolent, (which I’m pretty sure they were, because look at the rest of him) he can probably sing as well.

Oh well, will you look at that.

He can play the guitar.

He’s the only male in the world to make Hipster look hot, attractive and commercially viable at the same time.

He’s a dog person.

(Sorry crazy cat ladies, but I’m going to kill that dream dead. We all know compatibility and eternal happiness depends on the Dog/Cat preference.)

And lastly.

He looks like he’s a really great listener.

*All the Great Goz was sourced here 

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Here’s a few snapshots from my first week. I’ve had a refresher course in German, I’ve seen tons of dogs kitted out in little Santa costumes, I’ve bought gloves so my fingers can stop falling off, I’ve eaten enough Lindt to turn into one of those gold bears AND I’ve taken 50 million pictures.

I really wish you were all here… unless you’re a serial killer. Then you can stay at home and knit.

It looks cold… because it is cold.

Please note that the Snow I ordered has not arrived.

Possibly the most fancy-pants macaroon shop in existence.

Yes those are macaroon trees and yes it is dedicated solely to macaroons.

The photo I was NOT allowed to take inside aforementioned fancy-pants shop.

Played the “Je suis anglais” card and took it anyway.

Apparently macaroon spies are a real threat.

There’s a Christmas market in the square.

This stand full of old-school, hand-made, wooden decorations and nutcrackers was my favourite.

I really love the buildings. I could walk around for years just taking picture of the cornices. I know. You just have no idea how I sat and stared at the buildings when I was in Paris. I must have looked like a complete fruit-loop.

This place is home to some of the nicest sushi in the world. So nice, that I even disregard Hobbles general rule on fish.

Hobble rule #145:  Only eat fish in a restaurant, if you can see and/ or are less than 20km’s from the ocean.

Tried on some of the dream shoes. They didn’t have my size. Little bit distressed. I was also wearing horridiously bright socks. Also realised I may be a closet Kardashian groupie.

This is probably a very sure sign that I shouldn’t reproduce.

More beautiful, life-sized doll houses.

I took tons of these. My phone is an architects dream at the moment.

The skirt that I took the mickey out of. Left the shop, then decided I loved it. Went back to get said skirt; skirt had been sold.

I’d forgotten that if you blink in ZARA, you’ll miss everything.

Hobble Rule #102: Do not hesitate in ZARA. Just buy it.

A little town. A little Christmas cheer.

Secretly kept waiting for one of those giant balls to unhook and cause general chaos.

It never happened.

These lived up to the hype.

As desserts go, they were pretty incredible.

If you make it into a Laduree go for the Lemon and the Pistachio.

They’ll rock your socks.

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I had a stop-over in Dubai and behaved as any true, content generator would and took 5 zillion pictures. Because you know, the Internet doesn’t have enough clutter. I think some people were pretty PO’ed with this girl who kept stopping in the middle of masses of moving passengers to take pictures.

Terminal 3 never sleeps. It’s a twilight zone that’s always busy and filled with people bedecked in odd fashion, comfy tracksuits and overflowing carry-on bags. It’s a temporary home to people from everywhere: Nigeria, Philippines, China, Scotland, South Africa, United States, Ukraine and even good old Liverpool; it’s like the UN on acid.

Except with less politics and more duty-free shopping.

Let’s pick up some Armani slippers for our next flight, shall we?

The Coffee Gods

Seeking some inner peace? They’ve got you covered.

Where sunglasses are born.

Standard, cliche airport shot.

Eccentric perfume bottles. I love them.

Swarovski: Getting it right.

Recession? What recession?

Always good to see a fellow Saffer.

Hallo Charlize!

Absolument Fabuleux

I really want to meet the person that can get one of these into an overhead bin.

They will be some sort of God in my eyes.

Grab a MAC makeover while you wait.

No. You really can.

Macaroons. Obviously.

Because macaroons just scream you’re in the Arab Emirates.

More Sunnies. Transit Terminals are very bright places.

In hindsight, I probably could’ve worn fancier socks.

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So 28 hours later (or what felt like half of my life) I made it overseas. As usual I flew with Emirates. I’ve never ever minded the Dubai transit because Emirates rocks for me. They have amazing service, their tickets are exceptionally affordable, their Business Class lounge is epic and Terminal 3 pays homage to Starbucks. And even though I’ve only ever been able to peer through the frosted glass doors of the Mecca that is the First Class lounge… the word on the street, is that it’s pretty mind-blowing.

Unfortunately this time I was in economy. Sitting in front of quite possibly the largest man alive. So large, that I couldn’t recline my seat… because his knees kept getting in the way. And in the battle of economy class seat vs largest knees alive, the seat came off second best. I was also opposite the bathroom… at the back of the plane (which on Emirates doubles as the kitchen). It was my own fault, I didn’t check-in online, ahead of my flight.

In case you’re confused, this was not my seat. By the way, what kind of a sick joke do the airlines play when they make economy passengers navigate through Business Class [duvets, champagne, leg room], in order to get to their seats? Just rub salt in the wound why don’t you.

Oh and someone had also stolen my overhead storage space, [people who do this, should be shot.repeatedly.] so this meant that I had to go off and steal someone else’s. Unfortunately I picked and nicked the storage space of an irritated German man, who proceeded to have an explosive conniption about his baggage space rights. I’m glad they didn’t win the war.

So in the worst seat on the plane, made considerably worse by Big-Knees McGee, the flight then experienced turbulence to end all turbulence. The skies over Africa were clearly ticked off I was leaving and they weren’t being remotely polite about it. This all added up to no sleep on the first leg of the journey.

Dubai Airport was full of Christmas (more than happy to disown cultural heritage for a quick duty-free sale or two) and bunches of Americans who kept mistaking the arabic lettering for Chinese. Considering the nightmare financial situation it’s in, I noticed there’s quite a lot of building going on around the city. Anyway, I had Louis under one eyeball and Vuitton under the other and I looked like I had been beaten with the tired stick. I was really looking forward to a KO on my next flight.

But the aeroplane gods had other plans for me. They sat me next to a chatterbox, textile manufacturer from Pakistan who felt the need to get to know me. Despite the fact that my headphones were in, my eyes were closed and I was only replying in monosyllabic noises, he pressed on with question, after question, after question. He fell asleep for about 30 minutes (the best 30 minutes of my life), he then woke up and proceeded to profusely apologise for falling asleep and being bad company.

But before we even left, [ in fact we were taxiing to the runway], a passenger decided now would be a fabulous time to have a heart attack. FYI a heart attack is not a quick procedure on a plane. My heart did go out to the passenger and his poor family, but after about 25.5 minutes, I experienced a complete sense of humour failure. Particularly as Babah from Pakistan thought this was a sure sign that we were meant to have a deep, meaningful and enlightening conversation about the textile industry. I wanted to bash Babah from Pakistan with my in-flight mag and then pelt him with plastic cutlery.

I was a very unhappy monkey.

My horridious mood escalated quickly when the afflicted passenger, all 4 members of his family AND their luggage had to be escorted off the plane. This meant they had to dig around in the hold for about 40 minutes while they sifted out their luggage. They then lost members of the family (don’t ask me how, it was not exactly a large plane).  The comedy of errors continued when they couldn’t get the passenger out of the airplane doors, because there was a problem with the in-flight hospital bed. They finally got him and his family safely off the flight. Hooray!  They then had to ID every single piece of hand luggage on the flight. Not Hooray!

While this was going on, I had a 2.35 hour staring competition with a piece of tarmac, punctuated by Babah’s conversational wizardry. Oh the things I can now tell you about the textile industry, I won’t even have to fabricate anything (see what I did there).

I then arrived in Germany. [Looking fabulous like the woman up there. Except not.] And I couldn’t find the baggage carousel. AND I couldn’t remember what the German word for carousel was. This was pretty soul-destroying, because the entire conversation was centered around me finding the whereabouts of this mystical, luggage carousel. A carousel which only  seemed to handle the baggage of characters from the C.S Lewis books. In my quest, I kept trying to communicate in German.. and French kept coming out. So with a Scotsman to my right, a lady from China on my left and a German/French mashup of Hobble communication, we eventually found carousel 12 and I finally found my bags, as well as the delivery entrance to Narnia.

The fun had arrived.

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So I escaped the Cape Town sunshine and general Christmas chaos and headed for Germany to spend Christmas with my Mum and little bro. Germany: Land of the freezing cold and lack of humour. Apologies if any of my readers are German, but let’s be honest, humour isn’t your forte.

Before I left, I was asked to be part of the Marie Claire Naked Issue, but unfortunately it coincided with my travel dates. And truth be told, I’m pretty bleak I couldn’t shoot for them…this wasn’t through lack of trying though. Emirates quoted me a charming 26 grand to change my ticket…apparently I would have to buy the plane in order to do so.

At the end of the day, it came down to a difficult choice (why are they never easy?). It was either a page in Marie Claire with Savage and MCBN, or major QT with my Mum.  I was a bit crushed about the choice, because I would have loved to have shot for the publication. And I wanted to spend Christmas with my Mum and bro. Why was it going to cost me R26 000 to have my cake and eat it dammit?!

Even though I was a bit bleak, I know I made the right choice. As I’ve gotten older and with my Gran’s recent diagnosis, I’ve started to realise that life is far too short, so cherish the time that you have, with the people that you love.

There will always be a next time.

Plus the shopping over here is awesome and let’s face it, a white Christmas is pretty special.

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Do not go where the path may lead, go instead where there is no path and leave a trail. ~ Ralph Waldo Emerson

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I am falling hopelessly in love with this music.

It’s one of the most beautiful things I’ve ever heard; the sound kisses your ears.

It makes me want to go off and paint the world.

And I can’t even paint.

Forget Gaga and dubstep and house and electro; it’s all noise.

This is music.

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