Sundays with Kevin

Here I am again at my favorite table at Chez Marius watching Kevin the Hummingbird feed at my window. Due to the frequency of the visits I am now suspecting that Kevin might in fact be Kevins and even maybe a few Kevinas to boot. Any way Kevin it shall be. Perusing the New York Times I came across The Frugal Traveler blog. As I am planning a bit of a break in November I soon got lost in it and found it very interesting.

With my recent visa experience, it dawned on me that there is still so much I want to see in this great country and that I better get a move on. So I am retracing my steps a bit and plan on revisiting two great cities and explore a new one. So, the plan always has been to experience the Macys Thanksgiving Parade in New York first hand, so I decided to combine it with my love for train travel. The plan is to Amtrak it up to Chicago for a few days, then on to NY and finally explore DC. To boot there is a few new Cirque Du Soleil shows to see, in Chi Town (Vaudeville) and Wintuk in NY. If funding allows it then I would love to see the Radio City Rockettes Christmas Show. So if you are a generous sponsor looking for a way to spoil a hardworking aidworker/missionary, here is your chance! So back to the Frugal Traveler, check out his 'study' on travel websites, it is helping me, so it might help you.

Travel Web Sites: A Click-On Showdown - Frugal Traveler Blog - NYTimes.com
Source: http://frugaltraveler.blogs.nytimes.com/
Last month, I outlined my methods for planning frugal trips, from setting up Google News alerts to reading local novels set in my destination. Many readers wrote in with tips of their own, including Web sites I’d never heard of or had yet to try. So I put them to the test.

Perpetuum Jazzile - Cover Song : Africa

Amazing choir uses hands to create thunderstorm intro to a beautiful classic song!

Perpetuum Jazzile is Slovenia's only jazz choir, conducted Tomaž Kozlevčar who is also its art director. It thrills its audience with a colorful program and extraordinary singing.

Why work in Texas?

If you ever wonder why as a South African I work in Texas for a charity that focusses on Africa, watch this video and see for yourself! We do so much more here at the International Operations Center than meets the eye...

Lazy Sunday...

I have a hummingbird feeder hanging in front of my picture window in my living room and find myself sitting here this morning having breakfast and reading the New York Times.

I have this resident hummingbird that comes to feed regularly and sitting here at my table he is about a meter from me. I shall call him Kevin. You can even hear the buzzing of his wings. AMAZING!

I am listening to the Coffeehouse on XM Radio, a tranquil blend of great acoustic songs and cool vibes! nice, very nice.

One story that I enjoyed reading in the NY Times is about David Rohde, a Times Reporter who has held captive for seven months by the Taliban. He escaped simply by scaling the compound wall and legging it to a nearby Pakistani Frontier Corps base. The amazing part of this was the whole kidnapping ordeal was kept quiet by the media. No money paid, no Taliban prisoners released. Good on them! Hats of to you NY Times for not profiting from his ordeal. David Rohde was part of the NY Times’s reporting team that won a Pulitzer Prize this spring for coverage of Afghanistan and Pakistan last year. He got kidnapped with a local reporter and their driver while researching a book in Afghanistan. The local reporter escaped with him but the driver did not. All the makings for a lazy Sunday! Okay, now to get ready for church!

A burglar!

Oh dear... what an exciting week! I finally got the much needed paperwork on my visa extension and thus I can stay for another two years. God is good to me. This week I have taught myself some new skills, loved doing my job and also have seen a friend grow in her self belief. A quick visit to Dallas dropping friends off at the airport and in all a totally smashing week.

I even found myself accosting a burglar in my own kitchen at 1:45 this morning! Woke up to strange scuffling sounds, saw a flashlight play on my bedroom wall and when I investigated, I found a young man climbing down from my kitchen sink! Most impressively I did not drop an F-bomb in my astonishment but rather a booming 'What the heck'! I did scare the moses out of him though! Turned out to be the male half of the house sitting couple from the main house who locked themselves out on their first night when the door shut behind them when they let the dogs out for a wee poo. He found an unlocked window and thought it part of the main house. To his surprise he found a steaming and indignant white African looming in the doorway (in hindsight, he might not have appreciated the fact that I have lost 24 pounds in the last two months) and it took a few minutes of explanations back and forth for the humor of it all to shine through!

All got sorted a bit later on when we did find an unlocked door into the main house. Needless to say it took hours before I could sleep again. That time was used to barricade the windows for my own peace of (neurotic) mind! :-)

Sunday oh Sunday...

Here I am at work after quickly vacuuming the office building and washing the bathroom floors... Not sure our janitor is doing his job!

Also I know far more about baseball today than I did on friday.

What a weekend.