Concrete jungle where dreams are made...

New York City Baby!!

Our first view of the city in the morning!

Reuben and I had and amazing time in NYC from 28 December 2011 to 1 Jan 2012. It has been a dream of our to go to New York for a long long time and to be able to be there over New Years was extra special. On a side note though, I think that I am about 10 years to old for New Years in NYC and I am not sure that I would even do it over again. Done. Checked off the bucket list!

There is just so much to see and do in New York, you could probably never run out of options. What we decided to do was to purchase a New York Pass for 2 days which gave us free access to 55 attractions (obviously you can't do 55 attractions) but all the sites are soooo pricey in New York, it was so convenient to have paid one price for the NY pass and then just swipe it at the different places. We took so many pics, its going to take me a while to share them all.I plan to do a few posts of highlights that we had in New York!

Lady Liberty!

More to come soon! I promise!


n xoxo

Keep Calm and...

So apparently I am terrible at updating my blog! You would understand if you went through the semester that I just did. Probably my toughest one here at Duke.Now I am in my final semester and in a few short months I will be graduating!

At the moment I am trying to tell myself to:

 

But if you know me well, its more like...

When all I would like to be is:

n xoxo

I survived DC day 1!

I survived day 1 on the metro in DC and made it to work on time. Had to leave my flat at 7:50 to make it to work at 9am. It was an interesting journey, everyone dressed in their suits with their takkies on the metro!

I take the metro from Prince George Plaza to U-street- Cardoza (on the green line) right opposite Ben’s Chilli Bowl and then spotted a Starbucks cause I was in desperate need of coffee! When I came out of the Starbucks, I was stopped by a news reporter asking my opinion about a story of this man who the police pulled out of a wheelchair. This is the link: http://ust.wusa9.com/news/news/wheelchair-takedown-victim-speaks-out/57846 .  I told her I hadn’t seen it and then she showed it to me on youtube on her ipad while this big video camera was in my face! She then asked if I thought it was excessive police force?? I said yes! So when you see that line in blue saying “Witnesses to the takedown all say it was excessive police force”, that was me!!! Haha. Ridiculous.

This is my apartment block.

Its in Hyattsviille but fortunately only 5 stops from where I need to get off and right opposite the metro. The apartments are very nice and fancy, opposite a mall but I found out when I went to the mall that I am living in the hood!! Fortunately I do blend in as long as I don’t open my mouth! The accent gives it away! I’m living with a law student who just graduated and is studying for her bar exam.

At work today, I was sending out letters to speakers for our conference including some famous politicians and celebrities who’s names rhyme with Zarack o’Schwarma, Jono and many more. I’m sitting in an office with 6 more interns and no one speaks to each other. Weird. And they’ve been here for 3 weeks already. Even more weird. Anyway, will see what happens tomorrow! Working hours are from 9am-6pm and today I got home at 7:20. Hopefully the days will get shorter and go faster!

Loved being at home and seeing everyone (blog to come). Sorry to those I didn’t get to see! I picked up 4.5 kilos (10 pounds) at home!! Ridiculous, but totally worth it. 


xoxo

Have a happy week!

 

we all know that life has it challenges

how boring would it be if everything was easy

God wants us to live a life to the extreme

So how about you start living that life today!

xoxo

Road Trip!! Winter day at the beach!

Road Trip!

Coming from a coastal town, you don't realise the value and beauty of living that close to the ocean until you miss it. So, I basically made my friends drive the 5 hour drive to the beach and back one 'sunny' winters day in Feb, just to put my feet in the ice cold water and smell the fresh ocean air and then drive back! But t it was sooo worth it!

yay!! the ocean!

Cold!!

Sophia inspecting that her pedicure is still intact :)

Oliver!

mmm...bloody mary!!

lunch! Tuna something

Agon the Duke model :)

Agon's favourite position - behind the camera

Green tea and fudge time!

Voete!

We went to a small quaint town called, Wilmington, where they film 'One Tree Hill' (did you know that?) but I didn't see Brooke or Haley or Nathan, or any of them even though I was looking out for them! And then we went to the beach near there called Wrightsville beach. It was a great mini road trip, with ice-cream, fudge and lots of sing-along in the car!

xoxo

Most of these pics were taken by Agon Maliqi

Monday oh Monday

Need I say more...

Happy Week-end for those that have a week-end!

For those that think I am having a fantastic party on week-ends let me just correct that thought for you...

these days week days and week-ends are all the same to me...I have to write papers, do group assignments and study for tests. In fact I am waiting on my group to arrive right now on a Saturday morning as I write this blog. I haven't slept properly (like going to bed at 2-4am) every night for the past couple of weeks and if you see me right now, you would not believe that I actually walk around looking like this. I am in desperate need of a makeover!

Yay for my life! The upside is that there is only 3 more weeks left of this semester. Just taking it one day at a time!

Happy week-end everyone :)


Xoxo

Seasons are beautiful!!

Richmond in the Fall :)

Its funny because I never really paid much attention to the change in seasons (or talked as much about the weather) before I came to the States. I suppose its because the change in seasons are not so extreme in SA as it is in the US. Here people definitely look forward to the Fall (Autumn) cause its so darn hot and humid in the Summer as well as to the Spring cause that means the harsh Winter has passed.

I am definitely more accustomed to a temperate climate without much less extreme temperatures and here in the US Fall and now Spring are definitely my favourites! The colours of the trees here in Autumn are just amazing and I especially love the red trees. And then in Spring, all the Cherry Blossoms come out and everything is pink!

xoxo

March Madness!!

Yes I know I've been a bad blogger! sorry to everyone that has been following my blogs regularly but I am back! So my plan is to start from the most recent and what is happening currently and then work my way backwards ( hopefully not to far back as I know that you dont wanna be reading no old news) a bit and let you in on what has been keeping just so busy exactly!

Ok, so for those that have been keeping up a bit with my facebook statuses, you may have noticed that I might have mentioned the words' Go Duke' more than a few times...well..the truth is that I am completely and totally obsessed with Duke Basketball! The Blue Devils (I know, I would have preferred it not to be 'devils' too but what can I do?), anyway, there are the best team ever! So what's happened is that we have the league team games that they play most of here at school, then we have the ACC tournament which is kinda like a regional tournament and then we have the NCAA which is the National Championship and is referred to as 'March Madness' where basically everybody stops what they're doing and watches college basketball for the month of March. Seriously, the US GDP drops by like 0.5% in March because people are not working. The equivalent of what happened during the 2010 World Cup for us!

So for the home games here at Duke, the tickets are crazy competitive. There are only one of a few ways to get them:

1. You buy season tickets for about $20 000 for the year and you get the privilege of being called an 'Iron Duke' (those are these rich people who live around here and who either went to Duke or their whole family went to Duke or whatever)

2. You participate in what's called 'Campout' where the graduate students from the all the different schools campout in October for a week-end and basically live in either an RV,a U-haul or a tent for a week-end and have to respond to drills during the day and in the middle of the night to check if your whole group is still there.

3. You are a Duke grad student (like me) and you just go to the game one hour before the time, show your Duke card and get into the game for free!

This is my fab five choice!

This is our star...Kyrie Irving!

I'm sure there will be many more Duke Basketball posts to follow!

Durham - The City of Medicine

Hello lovelies,

Not sure if I showed around campus and town yet, if not, then this post is way overdue! Durham is an interesting town (they say city, but this is not a city), lots of intellectual people live here apparently. Here are some random facts about Durham that you might not have known (Americans love to rank everything!) :

# 1 Greatest Basketball town to visit (with Duke being the best in the country)
# 1 Best Place to Retire
#1 in America's Foodiest Town (haha! who rank's the foodiest town!)
# 2 Best Green Cities
# 4 Most Affordable city to live
# 6 in America's smartest cities
# 7 Best place for college students to live

You can click here if you want to read more about Durham's "Accolades".

Here are some of my pics from the first couple of weeks!

At Sarah.P. Duke Gardens - (A 'bit' like Kirstenbosch)

In front of Duke Chapel

Another view of Duke Chapel

Concert in the Tobacco District

One of  2 buildings where I spend most of my time! Rubenstein

The other one - Sanford Building

Linzay in front of the best take out in America!

Rev Dr Rinquest preaching in the Divinity School

Organ inside the Duke Chapel

Linzay & I in front of Duke Chapel

xoxo