both her and her husband are state doctors, meaning their salaries are pitiful compared to private doctors. the state doctors recently went on strike last week (its over now) to start negotiations w/ the government about salary...dr. zeier has been working for 17 years in the same hospital and only gets 1% increase in salary each year. that's fucking ridiculous. that would be a crime in the states.
anyway, i didn't think they would be living the high life...but their home was really nice. wooden floors covered w/ expensive middle eastern carpets. appparently, her husband is an avid collector of anything and everything, so there were all these rugs everywhere. he also collected aged whiskies, which im sure is a constant temptation to drink...and he also collected license plates from around the world. he had all 50 US ones haha and was working on canada's.
anyway, we picked up her youngest daughter, beatrice, who's 12 going on 13. we drove to the main campus of the university of stellenbosch to pick up the other daughter, caroline, who is 17.
caroline wants to be a violinist...so as we were sitting at a bistro in the middle of quaint little college-town stellenbosch, i started reminiscing about my childhood and those 14 years of violin i did.
hearing her talk about orchestra [PSG and bob and all the amazing ppl i met through that], the 8-hour long festival rehearsals [hello all-state], the chamber music ensembles [alright i have to drop mr. haggard's name and high school here] and my private teacher dr. skoldberg all came to mind. and although those were some of the most miserable times of my life [0 hour orchestra w/ mr. haggard ugh], in retrospect, i was good at it and sorta miss it.
caroline turned out to be studying lalo's symphonie espagnole, which i played my sophomore year of high school. ah the memories. the opening 4 A's in ascending octaves? yea. sweet. we bonded over our love for the tchaikovsky and sibelius violin concertos (which are still some of my favorites). saint-saens, dvorak and scherezade by someone i forget all came into discussion. turns out they're a very musical family--caroline plays violin, beatrice plays cello and dr. zeier played piano and classical guitar.
anyway, after lunch, caroline had to go back to her chamber music summer camp thing so the rest of us went to a cheetah reserve, where i got to pet one!! it was absolutely incredible. they're beautiful animals and so so soft. there's only about 7500 left in the world though...sadness.
after the cheetahs, we visited an eagle sanctuary where they had all these species of eagles being rehabilitated from injury. i saw peregrine falcons, which are the fastest diving birds in the world (100+mph!), vultures, owls and HUUUUUUGE eagles. im talking like wingspans taller than me. i got to hold this eagle named wally though, who weighed about 1.5kg, which doesn't seem like all that much. but when he's on your arm for about 5 minutes, it starts to get heavy haha. it was a strange experience--i felt like i was bonding with this bird staring into its eyes and i couldnt help noticing how sharp its beaks and claws were...if it wanted to, it could blind me or probably even kill me. but it was so good-natured; it let me stroke it everywhere and when i put my hand in front of it, it even pruned my hand for me :]
the trainer told me to feel its leg muscles, which were strong enough to crush a rabbit's skull upon impact. eagles can spot prey at 2-3km, which is equivalent to us reading a newspaper at 300m. wow.
anyway, that was it for the day. i think i may steal back my violin from my brother and see if i can't bring some of my old skills back. after all, without it, i wouldn't be anywhere near as good as i am at the guitar yea? ;)
this weekend, we're planning on going abseiling, cliff jumping and kloofing. SWEET
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tonight, for dinner, we went to mama africa [which i went to on my very first night here and had ostrich]. well this time, i increased my repertoire...
i ordered a big dish that had kudu, ostrich, crocodile and springbok on it. as i said before, ostrich tastes exactly like a very lean steak...and so do kudu and springbok to be honest. although springbok had a slightly different taste, but it was very subtle. i rather liked it.
the CROCODILE however was like woa. i had heard it tasted like catfish so i was really reluctant to try it cuz i hate seafood...but upon eating it, its consistency and taste were both akin to chicken, which makes sense...since alligator is supposed to be exactly like chicken. although, the texture was slightly more 'gummmy' if that makes sense...
the african band playing did renditions of "my heart will go on" and "somewhere over the rainbow" lol. celine dion african style.....woooo
wow. what a day :]
oh and if you dont know what a kudu or springbok is...here you go. if you dont know what an ostrich or crocodile is, then you're just retarded.
springbok.
kudu.
ostriches are really dangerous animals apparently...well there you go :]
where did your boss go to med school? American or outside the US?
ReplyDeleteI'm randomly thinking that I want to be a doctor again....