Our Adventurous U2 concert!

To give you a bit of background, G and myself are quite particular and organised we always double check things and try do as much preparation for things so that they can run smoothly, etc.

So, keeping that in mind...

As you know Friday night was the U2 concert night, G's sister picks us up at 17h30 to drop us off at the station so that we could catch the train to Cape Town.

We arrive at the station with lot's of time to spare but unfortunately so had about 1000 other people, so the train arrived and everyone starts pushing and shoving, we eventually get to the doors of the train and THEY CLOSE!! The train was so full that everyone looked like sardines standing in a can!

We now have to wait another 30 minutes for the next train!  Thankfully we were being well looked after because we got on the next train with ease and we had room to breath, which was great!

We arrive at Cape Town station and start walking to the gates to get out but before we can leave the station they are asking to look at our tickets (the train ride was free for all ticket holders) I take the envelope with our tickets in, out of the bag and open it and.....

IT'S EMPTY!!!!

Okay, so now let me take you back about 3 day's!  When we bought the tickets we bought 5, 2 for us, 2 for G's brother and GF and one for a friend.  I needed to give the 3 tickets to G's sister to hand over to the other parties.  So, I take the envelope and take our tickets out give them to G and ask him to put them into his drawer for safe keeping!  I then put the 3 tickets in a normal envelope and pass them on, that evening I give the 'ticket envelope' back to G and tell him to put our tickets in them BUT it was quite late when I gave it to him so he was tired and not really thinking about what I was saying!

Okay back to the actual day, while I am at work I send G a message saying that he must put the tickets in the bag so that we don't forget them, G then takes the envelope and put's it in the bag, thinking that the tickets are in the envelope (which is so strange because usually he would check!)

Back to the present moment...

We are standing on the station needing to show the woman our tickets so that we can get through the gate and out of the station and we don't have them, so I show her the ticket envelope which say's computicket and she asks how many tickets, thankfully I had left the slip in the envelope so G say's to her 5 tickets but my brother has all of them showing her the slip for the amount of tickets that we bought, once again God had His hand over us because it worked!

We get through and start thinking how we are going to get our tickets!  G had parked our car at the Waterfront that morning so we considered driving home and picking them up but we would have had a parking problem on our hands when we got back because we wouldn't have found one!

We phoned G's sister and asked if she would be able to pick the tickets up and drop them off with us at the Waterfront!  Once again God was watching over us because when G's sister picked us up we gave her a spare set of our house key's just in case our bag got stolen! So she was able to get in the house, pick up the tickets and drop them off with us!

We now had to walk from Cape Town station to the waterfront, then back to the stadium. (A total of approx 6.2 km's!)

At the end of the day we made it with lot's of time to spare before U2 came on but we were tired and both of our feet were sore until U2 came on then all was forgotten and 2 and half hours flew by like 5 minutes!

U2 was BRILLIANT!  It was a wonderful experience and I must say that the organisers at the stadium did a fantastic job!  We didn't have to wait to get into the stadium considering there were 72000 people at the concert I think that's an achievement on it's own!

The bathrooms at the stadium were well planned and clean. I didn't have to wait even a second to go to the bathroom there were loads of loo's and they had separate entrances to go in and to leave so no congestion at the doors either.  So after our adventerous start it turned out to be a lovely evening.

When the concert finished we waited at the Waterfront for about 20 minutes, got in our car and drove home with no traffic conjested.  We were so thankful that we left our car there, it only took us 30 minutes to get home, it took some people 2 hours!

Needless to say we got home at 01h20, showered, went to lie on the bed before making some coffee and the next thing we knew it was 10h00 and my alarm was going off!

Till next time!
L

U2 tonight, YIPPEE!

As I’m sure you know U2 is busy doing a world tour and are in South Africa at the moment.
They did their first concert in Johannesburg on Sunday, which apparently was awesome!

When the tickets sales opened G and myself said that we would go if we could find tickets that were not too expensive, that morning we went online to buy the tickets at Computicket and the website had crashed due to overload!

Later that day we went to one of our local malls and I remembered that they had a computicket there that not many people know about, so we popped in went straight to the counter and bought 5x R161 tickets!
(Keep in mind that some people waited for up to 5 hours in a queue to buy their tickets)
So as far as I’m concerned it was meant to be! 

So now, the day has come and I am super excited for the concert tonight!

Not only to I get to watch U2 tonight BUT there is a South African band called springbok nude girls that is also going to be playing, they were my favorite band when I was a teenage and unfortunately they broke up a while back so I get to see them perform too – whoop whoop!

Now I just need to get through the day so that I can and try my best to stay focused on the work that I need to get done today!

The concert is going to be in the new stadium that was built for the soccer world cup, there are going to be about 72 000 people there tonight which is 8080 more people than we had at the semi-final world cup game.

I have never been in such a big crowd before so this should be interesting! 

I have made sure that the rest of the weekend is going to be relaxing!  I have going for a hour and half’s worth of manicure tomorrow ~ all in preparation for the big three zero that is coming up next week.

What are your plans for the weekend?

Till next time!
L

Traffic problems!

I grew up in a town called Fish Hoek in Cape Town it is a relatively small town, our version of traffic is to have 5 cars backed up at a red robot.

I have now moved to a different part of Cape Town and on my first day of work I took the usual route that I would drive to Century City from home thinking it shouldn’t be too bad (it is only a 10 minute drive after all!)
WELL… I got stuck in such bad traffic at a 4 way intersection, the robot that was facing us was only letting one car through then would turn red! I was in a total spin, sms’d my mom and said please pray because being late on my first day of work would make a great first impression!

While sitting in this traffic I noticed that if I had to come from the right of the intersection it would go a lot quicker, there were about 10 to 15 cars going through the robot before it turned red.

The next morning I tried that route and yes we were moving but it was still slow because of all the cars coming into the traffic closer to the front, so yes it was better but not that much if you came from the back of the line!
I noticed that there were cars coming out of this one side road pulling into the traffic closer to the front of the line, so on my way home from work I drove that route.

The next morning I was at that road and taking my ‘shortcut’ it makes it so much easier and I am sure that it cut’s a big chunk of time off my travels in the morning. (even with my short cut it still takes me 30 minutes to do a 10 minutes drive)

I know, I know you are probably thinking the poor people at the back of the line that I am ‘pushing’ in front of – well I have thought of that and if they do not have the foresight to try make their traffic experience easier well then that is there problem!
I am fortunate enough to have the vision and planning to try make things easier for myself and why should I sit for an hour if I only have to sit for half that, right?

Even though some morning I am a different person sitting in traffic (it seems to bring out the worst in people) I still stay polite and I always thank people when they let me in and I always try let people in where I can, to make all of our traffic experiences a happy time!

Unfortunately, not everyone is the same and well I experience rude, impatient and inconsiderate people on a daily basis.
There are people that push in almost causing accidents and then not allowing anyone else in and if someone forces their way in (the same way that they did) then they get angry, there are people that just change lanes with no indicator on like everyone knows that they are going to change lanes now and so they must brake!

Sometimes I wonder what is going through these people’s minds!
My favorite so far happened on Friday, I was trying to pull out of the side road (there is a yellow block which people are not supposed to stop on to let cars get in and out of the side road) I need to cross 2 lanes to get in the traffic so the car in the first lane stops to let me in but the car in the second car starts pulling forward which would have meant that she would have been on the yellow block (which is illegal) and it would also have meant that I would have been in the middle of the road and no one would have been able to move so I pulled in front of her (I didn’t take an unnecessary risk because I love my car so it was still safe), I then lifted my hand to say thank you and she shook her head at me! As if I was in the wrong, can you believe it – I couldn’t! All I could actually do was laugh and when I picture her shaking head in my mind I have a good chuckle to myself.

People in traffic can be very selfish; I am trying not be one of those selfish, inconsiderate drivers.
I am trying to always remember my manners and say thank you even when people are rude or don’t really want me to pull in front of them.

I am not sure if I will ever get used to driving in traffic and I feel very sorry for the many people in South Africa (and I’m sure other places in the world) that sit in hours and hours of traffic every day, I know I wouldn’t be able to do it!

Till next time!
L

21 Years of FREEDOM!

11 February 2011 Nelson Mandela walked out of prison, changing the history of South Africa forever.

Some say for the worst, I think for the best!
Yes, even after 21 years our government does not have it all together - but then who does!
Yes, after 21 years we sadly still suffer with the 'race' issue from both sides but we can hopefully overcome that.

There is always hope and thankfully there is freedom.

Thank you Mandela for fighting for what you believed in and for what is right!

Till next time.
L

I need to toughen up

I’m quite a soft helpful person and when there are things to do I’m always the first one to volunteer which is sometimes to my determent.

My company moved into a new bigger building about a year ago, when we moved in we didn’t have a facilities person to handle all the nitty gritty things so of course, Miss volunteer over here offered to help.
It landed up being a massive job that took up a lot of my day which meant working a lot of overtime because of course my work didn’t go away, finally they found the facilities person and even though most of the responsibilities were taken away somehow I was still sucked in.

At the end of last year they needed someone to organize the year end function and once again Miss volunteer over here decided to help.  There were 3 of us that organized a function for 600 people, all of us doing it over and above our everyday busy jobs, once again it meant lot’s of overtime and also meant that when the function arrived I didn’t really get to enjoy it.

Now that the history part is over with it brings me to today…

We have a new facilities person that has started, he comes to me today and say’s that these guys have arrived to empty our recycling bins and shred the paper would I mind assisting them because he has a very important corporate meeting.

When he asked I was in the middle of a crazy deadline for our finance department sitting in front of my computer trying to get it done and trying to eat my lunch at the same time, but of course Miss I can’t say no over here said okay but not with a good heart!

Anyway, I go with the guys to collect the paper from the bins and then go outside with them to the truck to watch them shred all our documents, while I am outside I see him get into a car and drive off, the penny then drops…  His important corporate meeting was actually going to mosque!

I was so upset, not only was I busy but he was not honest and that doesn’t sit right with me.

I then realized that this was my own fault because I should not have said yes, when I had my own responsibility’s.  I need to start saying no and taking on so much, I know this is not going to be easy because this is not the way that I am but it is something that I definitely need to work on.

As my first step to toughen up a bit I decided to confront him about it, which I did.  He said that he did have a meeting but it was a quick meeting and then he went to mosque, I am not sure whether this is the truth or not but I have decided to give him the benefit of the doubt for now.

Till next time,
L