Down Under

Well, we finally made it to Australia. Our month of travels on the way were incredible and we are now attemping to "settle down" for the next half-year or so. Upon arriving, we spent 2 nights in a hostel in St. Kilda (a suburb of Melbourne) to see what the area was like. After that we called up Karl and Trude, friends of Gramma Johanna. We have since learned that Gramma called them up out of the blue for the first time in 20 years for us!
We were treated so well staying with Karl and Trude, who welcomed us into their home for a whole week. We ate incredible dinners every night, and searched for an appartment in the city by day. They live about an hour outside of Melbourne, so we spent a lot of time at the library finding places on the internet. Our efforts were rewarded as we found a place to stay in St. Kilda. We are living with one other girl named Alyssa now and are hoping for employment!
We'll post some pictures of our appartment soon!

Johannesburg

Our last stop in South Africa was Johannesburg...or as the locals say "Jo-Burg". We were able to meet up with Stephanie Munholland. The three of us were in the same LIT year at Camp Mini-Yo-We and Steph and I became good friends. I hadn't seen her in about 10 year or so, but when she heard we'd be in JoBurg she told us to come visit her!!
For about 5 years she has been living and working in the city at an orphanage called "Door of Hope". Mike and I were able to visit and help out at church one Sunday as a few babies were being dedicated.
We were very blown away by the amount of responsibility Steph has. She's basically in charge of...well, EVERYTHING there. She's the big MAMA! We are thinking of you Steph and all your babies! Keep up the amazing work.
And thanks to Steph's "adopted" parents who welcomed us into their home for the night! It's always nice to have people looking out for you in the "crime capitol of the world"!!

Hluhluwe (Shluh - shloo - we)

No African adventure could be complete without a Safari, so we managed to sneak in one day in a game reserve! We missed out on Elephants, Lions and Giraffes, but we did see a lot of animals!

Durban

We have been spoiled by all the people we have stayed with so far, and Durban was no exception! We were picked up at the airport by Tom and Jess, which is a great feeling for sure. We stayed at their place, which overlooks the ocean, for about 4 days and we spent the rest of the week at Dirk and Chantal's home.

On our first day, Tom took us to a township where he was speaking at a local church. We were introduced as Canadians to a group of volunteers there, so one of the guys said he had a borther in Canada. The classic kind of statement you ignore because there is no chance that you know his brother. Then he explained his brother lives in Coburg, and married a Canadian girl. Well, we have a good friend from South Africa who married a Canadian girl and is now living in Coburg... turns out we just met our friend Dylan's brother Damien. We ended up spending a lot of time with Damien and he even lent us his car for a few days! What are the odds! It was great to get to know Dylan and Rachel's family and friends so much better, and we are definatly intending on a return trip!

South Africa!

We have finally left the North and headed down to where summer is just beginning! We had a rather hectic first week, moving from the west coast to the east coast. We hiked up Lion's Head Mountain in Cape Town before taking an 11 hour bus to Jeffrey's Bay. There we did a little surfing, a little relaxing and a lot of shopping! It's surf clothing factory store central. Even though I get Billabong clothes for free, I still could'nt help paying for more! Boardshorts for $10, come on!

Laka