Most Amazing

Wowee, I have had a truly awesome weekend. Seriously. Best and busiest one in ages! And Vietnam is about to sneak up on us too! 5 working days & 5 more sleeps till we fly!

So anyway, my 2-girl cousins (almost 17 and 20yrs old) from Cape Town came up to spend the weekend with me in Jozi. All their friends couldn't understand why they'd come and spend a weekend in Joburg. But I think after the weekend we had, they will all be jealous :) It was so much fun! And so busy.

Their flight arrived at Lanseria at 16h30 but I couldn't get there in time (they closed one of the lanes on the M1 North and there was no way I could make it), but luckily The Trucker was nearby and had already offered to collect them for me. So I got thru the awful Friday afternoon traffic and waited at home for a little while for them to arrive. So good to catch up and show off my little house :)

We took them to Cafe Mexicho for dinner on Friday night which was awesome. We ordered different meals so we could all taste them. We really must remember that that works really well, but we don't need a whole meal each - I can never finish mine! So yummy and, of course, so were the frozen margaritas :)

On Saturday morning, The Trucker came to fetch us at 9am and we headed off to my favourite breakfast spot, The Salvation Cafe. Yumyumyum :) We wandered the little shops and then headed to the Market Theatre in Newtown to park our car (although the parking has mostly been closed for a giant hole they are digging in the ground (assume they'll be building something here next ... but I haven't been there in a while so it was a bit of a surprise).

We parked the car and took a wander off past Market Square and then popped in at the Migrant Worker's museum (that's right, I'm all about the balance of fun and learning - haha!) Then we wandered back across Market Square and took them down to the graffiti under the highway. They were absolutely enthralled and took loads of photos! It is not that great there on a Saturday with all the construction vehicles driving thru tho ... I am especially glad we got to see The Spear-styled graffiti :) Very clever!

After that it was back in the car for a little bit of a drive thru town to the Carlton Centre where we took them up to the Top of Africa to show them the 360 views of Jozi. I think they were quite impressed. After that we took them on the double-decker highway and back to Braamfontein to the Neighbourgoods Market, which was crazy-busy as usual.

Luckily we didn't need lunch after our huge breakfast but we wandered and tasted and bought food to make dinner at home later :) Such fun!

We had a relaxed and lazy afternoon at home and then made chorizo pasta for dinner - actually The Trucker did while we three girls sat watching tv cuddled under a blanket together :) Then we all watched Friends With Kids. It was quite a fun movie :) (although pretty predictable, but sometimes you need that!)

The girls & I were up early on Sunday morning (their return flight was moved earlier so we had to cram in as much as possible before heading to the airport again). The Trucker had an early cricket game and then a friend's 30th lunch so he didn't join us ... but thankfully he took my car and let me borrow the pajero :)

We grabbed some Wimpy toasted sarmies for breakfast and headed thru to Maropeng. (Can you believe our guide there's name was actually Maropeng too?! Haha) We whizzed thru there in an hour, but they really liked it.

And then it was off to the Rhino & Lion park to play with the cubs :) OMG The girls absolutely loved it. I think it made their weekend :) After that we took a drive around the rest of the park and had an amazing experience with the lions, especially a big male who walked alongside our car for a good while (when we arrived the 3 male & 3 female lions were all sitting resting but then they got up and started moving thru to where I supposed they must get fed daily, they seemed to know it was coming!) We missed the feeding and did a whirlwind drive thru the wild dog and cheetah enclosures before heading off to look for Rhino. We saw them quite quickly :) There were about 4 adult females with cubs. So awesome to see even if it wasn't nearly as up-close an experience as the lions.

After that we headed to Lanseria, checked them in (love self-service check-ins!) and had some lunch before saying goodbye. It was a whirlwind jam-packed weekend but so so much fun! I had a blast showing Jozi off to them :)

The Trucker came over later and we had a very relaxing afternoon after our busy mornings.