Transitions

A photo from Africa -- I believe it needs a little Photoshopping magic but that will have to wait!

I apologize of the lack of posts recently. I have been rather unrooted lately, and general busy-ness aside, I find it hard to muster any inspired, coherent thoughts.

On the good news side, my job search has come to a conclusion and I was able to snag a fabulous position at a small, private, liberal arts school. My position involves coordinating exchange programs with Japan, so I really could not imagine anything better for me. I start soon and fortunately do not have much free time to become apprehensive about my return to the working world after 1 1/2 years.

As many of you know, the US economy is not in great shape these days and I was concerned about the prospect of job hunting in these conditions. In the end, it will have been exactly two months from my arrival in the US to my start in a new position. I think that is excellent and am quite proud of myself!

I did encounter enormous amounts of competition for all the positions I applied for. In the end, connections (recommendations from people who know the hiring manager) really made a difference for me. I think utilizing good connections is virtually the only way to get a position these days, and even with them, you do not always get the job (this wasn't the first time I had used my connections -- it was just the first successful time).

Well, I cannot possibly explain in words how excited I am to be able to work on Japan-related activities again. It involves a move to a very small town with very limited dining and cultural options, but I think being part of a diverse and vibrant college campus will make all the difference. As I told Sweetie, we must befriend the international students and invite them over for potlucks to keep our tastebuds amused!

Finally - my Africa Trip Log

First of all, huge thanks to everyone who comments on my blog!! Much appreciated!! I do enjoy having this creative outlet, even if I haven't been able to update it as frequently as I would like!

Africa

It has been three months since our return from Africa, and I'm finally sitting down to write up some of our adventures.

The Start

I vaguely recall that we took another one of those extremely early flights (for some unknown reason, there is a huge swath of time during the day in which no flights leave from Tel Aviv, therefore, most flights are at one ungodly hour or another). Sweetie and I ran into an acquaintance at the gate, who was boarding our same flight. Small world. "Friend" was happy to have met us, because we had booked an escort in Johannesburg to get us through immigration and onto our next flight and he tagged along. As we were waiting for our bags, we made some joke about how my bags often go missing and were surprised that my bag was actually spit out on to the conveyor belt. I did a small dance of joy.

The route to the domestic terminal was not entirely straightforward and our escort was able to jump us through all the lines at various junctures. Hooray.

Our flight to Cape Town was over an hour late departing. I had one of those experiences where I fell asleep on the plane, woke up later expecting us to be halfway to our destination, only to look out the window and see that we were still on the *&*$ tarmac!!

I was very happy when we finally arrived in Cape Town, only to pull Sweetie's bag off the belt and then wait and wait and WAIT for mine. I knew the drill from Sicily (didn't get my bag for five days) and raced out to the claim desk like a mad woman, dragging our driver behind me. Once inside the baggage office, Sweetie took over while I had a small breakdown in the corner of the office. It's just that this has happened to me so many times and I was just EXHAUSTED and totally not wanting to deal with a missing bag YET AGAIN on my vacation.

It was all very civilized in the office and no one was panicked about their missing bags. An African woman dragging a kid along actually tapped me to see if I was in line. How refreshing compared to life in Israel!!

Word was that the bags would be delivered by midnight and no one was worried, so I decided to stop having a breakdown. We left with a form in hand.

We arrived at the lovely Villa Belmonte, which I selected using Tripadvisor.com since we arrived one day before our tour group. It was a nice room, but had no view. There were, however, chairs outside with a great, close view of Table Mountain. We had dinner at the Villa with some much-needed wine. The food was decent, though service was slightly spotty and the Kenny G Christmas music was about 8 months early (or 4 months late, take your pick) and a bit odd.

DAY TWO

Word on my bag (via the customer service number) was that it came in on the 10AM flight and we later learned that it really DID come in on the 10AM flight!

Breakfast was fabulous on the terrace -- gorgeous weather, nice tea, great selection and cook-to-order options too.

Streisand show tunes were slightly odd background music (but better than Kenny G Christmas, I suppose...).

Sweetie's South African friends picked us up and took us to Camps Bay for lunch -- gorgeous area on the seaside. We indulged in some lemon merengue pie and Malva pudding for dessert. YUM-MY.

We later transferred to our lodging at the Mt. Nelson hotel. We settled in. I took advantage of one of the spa services, as there is not a single place in Israel that can perform any sort of waxing under even moderately hygienic conditions. Only problem was that there was a screaming child in the waiting area and I actually found myself saying out loud, "OMG - get her out of here." The mother shot me a dirty look, but to be fair to me, it was completely inappropriate for a child to be in there.

We had an amazing dinner at the hotel's restaurant -- the kind of inventive, cutting-edge foods (foams and the like) that I expected but never found in Israel. We had oysters, and then I had a mushroom arrancini -- like a risotto in deep fried balls with foam and a tapenade. For dessert, we had "Green or Red?" -- six apple-inspired desserts, including an apple sorbet with some liquor in it that was absolutely exquisite!

Sunset on the Zambezi