This week started good enough.
Talked myself out of a trip to Sudan, always a good thing. The dollars would have helped a lot though. I’ve been itching to buy a new camera and the extra money would have gone a long way. Although I love my Canon 10d very much it’s just not cutting it anymore. The combo of that camera with a flash from the late 70’s yielded nice results, taught me a lot about camera set ups instead of just shooting everything on auto, but still limits me a lot.
Went to Ramfest 2011 over the weekend. Alkaline Trio was pretty cool, I could never have imagined six years back that I would have seen them live in South Africa. I have to admit that they weren’t as good performance wise compared to Van Coke Cartel (not really a fan, but I got to hand it to them for their live performances, they really bring it). Still, its Alkaline Trio, and it was pretty awesome to experience them live. Another cool band we happened to see was The Shadowclub, always cool to discover a awesome band that you never knew about right in your back yard.
Tried taking a few pics but the sun was just too hot and organizing a press pass on the day of the festival was a big mission. But I managed one or two average pics.
A good few years ago a Epitaph band de Heideroosjes toured here, the show was in front of the Pretoria arts museum and support bands included ATFN, the Rudimentals, Fuzigish(when they still had keyboards ect), Leek and the bouncing uptones, Vendetta Cartel, Hog Hoggidy Hog and Humphrey the teacup(they weren’t scheduled to play but filled in when the guys from Vendetta cartel were delayed due to car trouble), for those who don’t know, it didn’t get any better than that, plus it was a free show…. That was probably the best show I ever experienced in SA. I’ll stop now before I get too nostalgic.
Talked myself out of a trip to Sudan, always a good thing. The dollars would have helped a lot though. I’ve been itching to buy a new camera and the extra money would have gone a long way. Although I love my Canon 10d very much it’s just not cutting it anymore. The combo of that camera with a flash from the late 70’s yielded nice results, taught me a lot about camera set ups instead of just shooting everything on auto, but still limits me a lot.
Went to Ramfest 2011 over the weekend. Alkaline Trio was pretty cool, I could never have imagined six years back that I would have seen them live in South Africa. I have to admit that they weren’t as good performance wise compared to Van Coke Cartel (not really a fan, but I got to hand it to them for their live performances, they really bring it). Still, its Alkaline Trio, and it was pretty awesome to experience them live. Another cool band we happened to see was The Shadowclub, always cool to discover a awesome band that you never knew about right in your back yard.
Tried taking a few pics but the sun was just too hot and organizing a press pass on the day of the festival was a big mission. But I managed one or two average pics.
A good few years ago a Epitaph band de Heideroosjes toured here, the show was in front of the Pretoria arts museum and support bands included ATFN, the Rudimentals, Fuzigish(when they still had keyboards ect), Leek and the bouncing uptones, Vendetta Cartel, Hog Hoggidy Hog and Humphrey the teacup(they weren’t scheduled to play but filled in when the guys from Vendetta cartel were delayed due to car trouble), for those who don’t know, it didn’t get any better than that, plus it was a free show…. That was probably the best show I ever experienced in SA. I’ll stop now before I get too nostalgic.
Recently went on a business trip to Mozambique, the cool thing about my job is I get to visit places where I would not consider wasting my own money to travel to. Maputo is pretty much a shit hole, yet still very intriguing, with lots of old buildings from when Mozambique was still a Portuguese colony, after Mozambique gained independence (in the 70’s I think), it went down the same road as most African countries, most buildings are falling apart and corruption is rife. I think its pretty sad seeing most of the old buildings wasting away. Yet it looks pretty cool, if that makes any sense.
A few weeks before we went there were riots in Maputo so their currency was almost worthless, that was pretty cool since for only a few dollars you could live a life of luxury. We stayed in a old little hotel with one of the best restaurants in Maputo, (screw Holiday Inn, who needs to pay $130 when you can get all the basics for less than $25 a night? ), Mozambique is known for it’s fresh seafood and prawns, neither holds any appeal to me, I enjoyed the rum and local beer though, maybe at times a little too much, hehe. Just shitty when you work on a roof in the hot sun after a night of over indulging.
Another thing about Moz is that you can get away with pretty much anything if you play the bribe game, everywhere there are cops in little pick up trucks who pull you over and then try to find anything wrong just so they can make e few dollars in bribes(some of it is so ridiculous that you cant help smiling yet feeling super frustrated). Pretty intimidating when some guy with a AK-47 tells you that having one drink is illegal but “we can make it ok if we negotiate something, I am your friend sir”. This from the same guy that tells you for a measly $30 you can empty a clip from his machine gun into the sea, WTF!!! I find it very intriguing that for a country on the brink of anarchy they have so many “laws”. Parasites I tell you.
Overall it was a interesting experience, and a extreme change of scenery is always welcome to break the mundane cycle of getting up, going to a office, spending the day in front of a computer, going home and starting the cycle again.
A few weeks before we went there were riots in Maputo so their currency was almost worthless, that was pretty cool since for only a few dollars you could live a life of luxury. We stayed in a old little hotel with one of the best restaurants in Maputo, (screw Holiday Inn, who needs to pay $130 when you can get all the basics for less than $25 a night? ), Mozambique is known for it’s fresh seafood and prawns, neither holds any appeal to me, I enjoyed the rum and local beer though, maybe at times a little too much, hehe. Just shitty when you work on a roof in the hot sun after a night of over indulging.
Another thing about Moz is that you can get away with pretty much anything if you play the bribe game, everywhere there are cops in little pick up trucks who pull you over and then try to find anything wrong just so they can make e few dollars in bribes(some of it is so ridiculous that you cant help smiling yet feeling super frustrated). Pretty intimidating when some guy with a AK-47 tells you that having one drink is illegal but “we can make it ok if we negotiate something, I am your friend sir”. This from the same guy that tells you for a measly $30 you can empty a clip from his machine gun into the sea, WTF!!! I find it very intriguing that for a country on the brink of anarchy they have so many “laws”. Parasites I tell you.
Overall it was a interesting experience, and a extreme change of scenery is always welcome to break the mundane cycle of getting up, going to a office, spending the day in front of a computer, going home and starting the cycle again.
Never really done a blog before, so bear with me…
It’s Tuesday almost middle of the week or “klein saterdag” (that’s roughly translated to little saturday), and I don’t know how I’m gonna make this week, work is really killing me, only one more short year and I’m outa here, hopefully I wont find myself in Nigeria or some other backwater Africa country……
It’s Tuesday almost middle of the week or “klein saterdag” (that’s roughly translated to little saturday), and I don’t know how I’m gonna make this week, work is really killing me, only one more short year and I’m outa here, hopefully I wont find myself in Nigeria or some other backwater Africa country……
