alles is wunderbar and fantastisch (Frankfurt, Germany)

Guten tag almal

Today's news is about Frankfurt, Germany.
The flight was great and the people behaved. Frankfurt was frrreeezing. The hotel was absolutely gorgeous, the room so funky and cute - I felt like jumping on the bed (I didn't)

Sabrine (french girl) and I connected and off we went into the cold to explore Frankfurt. We experienced the Germans there as very unfriendly, impatient and rude people. It freaked me out when even the Japanese girl at the sushi counter blabbered off in German as she got frustrated when I couldn't understand what she was saying. They were all like this. We only found ONE person that made an effort to show us where to buy tickets for the underground and which number to take. The whole city was un-"userfriendly". Everything was in German and we never knew if we were going the right way/direction. We learned that 'ausgang' does not mean toilet (the pictures of a man and woman - as it does when it shows you the toilet, was right above this word and just lead us to a dead-end) but rather meant 'exit' (uitgang). Weizen means wheat (found ONE english speaking person in the whole supermarket - they sent him to me to translate) in my search for wheat-free cereal. Scheize, what a schlep. At least bought good, healthy food in Germany:). And so our German lessons continued. We went to Romer, to the Old Town. Oh, basically Frankfurt was destroyed/demolished in the war and the entire city was rebuilt. Then we took a walk to the river. Instead of hazzling our way back, we shared a cab. It was so awesome to see all the taxis to be Mercedes's. I then remembered that it is made in Germany.

Sabrine is a great gal, so we had a lot of fun. Made fun of the grumpy Germans, and started to moan back at them, haha.

Nein danke, this place is not for me:) Was so excited to see in the tv guide that FRIENDS is on, to find that it is dubbed in German. And so also watching Jennifer Lopez in Maid in Manhattan speak German, I thought it rather a good time to snooze before my flight back.

Saturday early morning I'm leaving on a 9day trip - staying 2 days in Singapore and 4 days in Brisbane. Hope to have lots of news. Am so very excited to have some lekker sunshine on my face. In need of a serious tan:) And next month I am "putting my tootsies on Cape Town soil" (as someone said:-) !!!! Am missing our beautiful mothercity!!! It's all over our magazines at the moment:)

Anyhooo, vielen dank for being in this lifetime with me

Till soon
Auf wiedersehen

Alts

Ps. No Germans were harmed during the making of this documentary, heehee
To my German friends, you are lovely!!!

antique still works (Casablanca, Morocco )

Bonjour/salaam

Just returned from Casablanca, Morocco and ja
mmmm...interesting place. I don't even know what to write today. There is definitely an uniqueness about Morocco. A place where you can speak french, buy buckets full of olives, smoke shisha, dance to Arabian music and drink Moroccan tea (mint). Where new meets old (as in total extremes) because this place is ANCIENT!!! (and had the best hotel I've ever stayed in - pure luxury). The Berbers live there! - Their culture is like 4000 years old. In Morocco they still ride those pedal-motorcycles (what do you call them?). Some of the buildings are REALLY old, the people are hard, yet friendly and approachable. After every sale, my male colleague (luckily he could understand Arabic, although he is from Bangladesh - brought up in Dubai, family lives in New York) shook the hands of every seller (at the markets where you find those Moroccan antiques). And luckily my female colleague (the 3 of us spent the entire day together) could speak French (although she's from Spain). Because it was difficult to find English speaking people there. Thank goodness I didn't travel alone this time:-)

We went to the second largest mosque in the world - Hassan II - and wow, it took my breath away!!
And as evening approached, we wanted to have shisha, tea and dinner (but this combination doesn't exist in Casablanca), so we had dinner first - ended up in a Cafe where the menu was in French only, and I don't think we've ever had better pizza before:), then went to a larny (how funny is that) place where we had shisha and pots of Moroccan tea

Overall it was a pleasant trip. Great shopping. Fabulous weather (about 25 degrees) and it didn't feel crowded. The place is big and spacious. A mixture of what I'm used to in Dubai and in South Africa - Arab world and greenery. The flight there was long, the captain called us to the flight deck to see the Pyramids as we flew over Egypt:-) That was awesome!

Money unit - Moroccan dirhams (equivalent to the Rand basically)
That's about it for now:)

*Salaam
Have a fantastic day
Alta
Au revoir