Michael Jackson, Gardens and Visitors

So many posts in so few days... clearly this is a slow week (Robyn you need to come back!)

We were really lucky to have some visitors this past weekend. 5 visitors: Eddie, Sam, and Stefanie are all MPH students at Brown and Gaargi and Lauren are grad students from Harvard. They are all working up north from Durban in Mtubtuba at the Africa Centre and they made big plans to come to Durban for the weekend. Due to the (massive) stye, I missed hanging out on Friday night. But given the hugeness of my sunglasses, I decided it was much more kosher to attend morning activities. 

So Saturday morning we met our visitors at the Essenwood Market, which is a funky market every Saturday on Essenwood Rd. There is so much delicious food, crafts, clothing, etc there and it's a fun place to roam around on a Saturday morning. 

In case you were wondering, South Africa is mourning the loss of MJ. And apparently MJ mourned lost time in SA. Also if you were wondering, I am personally mourning MJ and had a good three hour session of P.Y.T. on repeat.

We headed to the Botanical Gardens, which I will say was pretty but not that impressive. Due to inappropriate labeling techniques, it was hard to tell where we were and what we were looking at at any given time. But we did see some beautiful flowers, and what girl doesn't love some pretty flowers?

  

We made reservations to eat dinner at a cute little spot called Hemingway's on Davenport Rd (which has become our favorite street to go out on.) Ryan and I hit up a place called Yossi's for some pre-dinner drinks and I had A Pink Belly Dancer (Gin and tonic, mixed with apple sparking water, and strawberry juice. YUM.) We met up with the others at Hemingway's where I finally had my homojito (! Yum!) And then we headed back to Yossi's for some hookah (which South Africans call Hubbly Bubbly) and more drinks.

Sunday we suffered a double loss: Bafana Bafana lost to Spain and US lost to Brazil. Too much soccer disappointment for this girl to handle. But we went to watch the championship game at a bar and it was nice to be in a country that actually appreciates the amazingness of soccer.

dreaming (of 4th of July hotdogs)...

Ivy