Late but still, here is an update on how the summer vacation ended: with a perfect sunny summer day!
We did spend the afternoon walking along the white beaches around Kühlungsborn (check 'kuehlungsborn, germany' in GoogleMaps), taking home a few deep breaths of that good salty air that you only have at the sea.... ahhhhh.




Finally we enjoyed a fantastic sundown that makes being at the sea so special:


However, the days before have not always been that lucky with the weather but still aimed to take every chance to be at the sea. So even Dima had to get dressed for our adventures :-)

10 days to relax in the garden at home or at the beach with my girls, visit a few good old places and friends that you have not seen for ages - that was roughly the plan for our summer vacation at the Baltic Sea.
The plan was a good one and it looks like we can stick to it! Well, if the weather would be a bit less cloudy and stormy you could actually feel that this actually is high-season for summer holidays. However, I already swam in the sea (chilly 18 degrees) and had some beachvolley-matches with my family, Dima met her cousins and we still have some 5 days ahead of us...

Good start - relaxing in the garden


Dima making new friends...


Anton-girls


"Hey, who are you?"

Finally, on my very last day in South Africa [17-AUG] I had the chance to meet THEM: Wild animals that everyone associates with Africa. Zebras, giraffes, kudus, hippos, impalas, white rhinos, wilderbeasts, an elephant...
And I met them at home, their home, the Pilanesberg National Park. It is a unique game reserve 150 km northwest of Johannesburg, situated in an ancient volcanic crater. http://pilanesberggamereserve.com

At this time of the year (winter) the area was extremely dry. Big parts of the vegetation was burnt down due to heavy forest fires this winter. But watch yourself whom I met:

















After 2 hours driving through the game reserve our car showed some slight signs of dust...


On our way back to Jo'burg we had a quick stop at Sun City, a peculiar place somewhere between dusty lands and rocks. The holiday and casino resort was founded in 1979. Back then gambling was forbidden in entire South Africa, but Sun City was situated in the territory of the former black homeland of Bophuthatswana. Since this was an independent state under the Apartheid regime which (in contrast to the rest of the country) permitted gambling, people from all over South Africa came to the casinos.

No cruising around today, the day was packed with internal meetings. But what can I tell you, tonight I took it to the next level and had a South African wild game plate. It was packed with Astrage, Kudu, Weaghog and .. just see yourself. YUMMY!!!



My favourite was the followed by the Kudu. I still have no clue how these animals look like, need to search them on Wikipedia later!

…was this Sunday in Johannesburg. And I can tell you, I already had some really cold winter days. Back in Finland the ‘top-temperature’ that we had the other winter was minus 31,5 degrees… which is approximately 60 degrees less then this WINTER day in South Africa.



After some sleepless six hours at Dubai airport and some half-sleeping ones on the plane I arrived around 11 am in Jo’burg, one hour late but happy to be finally there. The arranged pick-up worked perfectly and I got safely delivered to the hotel.



And again I did not have to spend a minute to think about having a nap, I was directly invited for a cruise through the countryside to a dam with canyon at a water reservoir in the close mountains.







It actually was a perfect starter to get a first impression of the surroundings of Jo’burg. Basically no visitor is brought the city itself as most of the locals do not go their either – just too dangerous. So the global companies have there offices in development areas around the city and these are consequently also the places where most of the big hotels are.

Back in town – or ‘just outside of the town’ – we had dinner in one of the above described areas called ‘Sandton’. The place was simply called ‘The Butcher’.



And guess what happened to be there on menu nearly exclusively?! Right, meat, meat and more meat. Loads of meet in big chunks the were big enough to be cut in 10 pieces to be served as single portions in an average German gourmet restaurant – but here they are just all right for one hungry African men (or one German visitor!) So I went up the butcher and chose out of a huge selection of different body parts from different animals my personal steak – which ended up to have 384 grams – which made the butcher guessing that I am not hungry, otherwise I would have choosen a bigger one…

THIS was the best steak I ever had in my life!!! That day I stayed with beef, but there are too many other kinds of meat to discover here… lets see what is coming next!

I flew over IRAQ today!!!
Amaizing, I was as close as 11 km to Anmar's country.



It did feel very strange to have all the cruel pictures from the news in mind but actually seeing this county shiny and peaceful in the sundown.



Right now I am at Dubai airport waiting for my connecting flight to Jo'burg. Since a while I try to convince my laptop to log on to the network here - without success. So this update comes right from my mobile!