So, What is Alyson, wife of Dr. Bennett, doing while Billy Bennett is off sipping tea/coffee and thinking, writing, and teaching all day?

Let's consider my morning today: I woke up around 8 am trying to decide what to do for lunch at 1 pm when Will arrives. This is normal behavior to go home for lunch.  Sounds like a good idea of a life for about three days.  Then I get bored and want to tear my hair out.   This morning alone I swept the floor, made the bed, picked up dishes, cleaned the dishes and the counter, went to the supermarket, dilly-dalled on the internet or lack there of, made crepes, cooked the filling (spinach, mushroom, cheese, garlic, thyme), took a nap (15 minutes maybe more?).  Since my arrival in Grahamstown about 90% have offered their personal referral in maid service but at this point I declined to follow up.  Basically, I have too much time in my day to consider a maid.

Then comes my second job.  I have finally made my acquaintance with Dr. Garth Cambray at the meadery. http://www.iqhilika.co.za/

Garth has been super nice to me and Will.  First we went to his parents' home for a quick visit, the people, food, and atmosphere here in Grahamstown are what make it unforgettable.  Garth's parents have fresh gooseberries and mushroom herb we sampled in the 10 minutes we were there.  Next stop on our visit to Grahamstown was a birthday party for an American guy from Princeton.  That party was totally legit.

Back to the job, I get to go to the meadery on occasion that I am needed to work with Garth and Craig on a project to make an alcoholic beverage.  It is on the out skirts of Grahamstown.  I will post pictures soon.  There are chickens roaming around outside the building. It is an old place with lots of character.  Beyond that, I am able to use my knowledge of Food Science and flavor applications for some really great products.  Its an amazing connection from Sunset Grill in Boston to Grahamstown, South Africa when Will and I first tasted the mead.

Then of course, why stop there.  I have another job besides wife, maid (hehe), and part-time alcohol consultant.  The dream job for my career: technical sales with Evonik in Sub Saharan Africa.  I am officially flying out to Joburg to find out more about this opportunity.

After my adventure to Joburg, Will and I might get a maid.  It is pretty tempting.  Although we have no washer and dryer, we have a laundry service nearby.  By laundry service I mean I drop off dirty laundry and the ladies wash, dry, and fold the laundry on the same day for me to pick up.  Our laundry has never been so nice.

So, while I am here in Grahamstown I get to eat lunch with my husband everyday, cook some amazing food, drink lots of mead, make some friends, further my career, and enjoy life.  Besides the work day ends at 5pm here.  WTF. 

The local flora and fauna (pt 1)

One thing that strikes me about our new place in Grahamstown is how much nicer my commute is than back in NJ.  Part of it is that it's a 10 minute walk instead of 45, granted.  But part of it is just that it seems on the whole nicer.  I submit the following pictures that I took on my way to/from the office as evidence.

First, there is the Drostdy Arch.  It's some sort of historical structure, but it seems to date from well after the time period when arches were necessary in daily life.  It makes for an interesting view out over Grahamstown, though.  Or, it would, if I knew how to frame photographs better, so as not to cut the cathedral's head off.  



Also, on the left, inside the arch building, there are two little shops.  One I haven't been in, but it sells crafty things.  The other is about the size of a jail cell, and is where this dude sells his own custom-roasted coffee. I recommend.


And then, looking up the hill instead of down, there is the clock tower.  It looks almost messianic in this picture, because I am not good at adjusting shots for lighting....yet.

This is it up closer:
 

The flowers are exactly as yellow as they look.  That's not photoshopped.

Even the obnoxious birds are prettier here.  Instead of common blotchy sparrows, we have these lovely red-winged starlings:

 The underside of the wings is red.  You can't really see it except when they're flying.  I tried to get a picture to illustrate, but they were too quick at flying away for me to catch it.

And then, just around the corner past the clock tower, is the linguistics building:

My office is the one on the second floor with the open window.  I love it to pieces.  I'd like to show you some cool picture I took looking out the window, but really all you can see are trees:

This is a thing called a Jacaranda.  They are magenta, almost violently so.  You now know about as much about them as I do. NOPE.  Turns out that's a bougainvillea.  Jacarandas to be seen later.

This is what it looks like when I come home:

Gloating achieved.

And this is the mongolian death worm that lives in our back yard.  That's why I don't have any pictures of the yard...yet.  More to come.

Settling in

Thoughts that occurred to me this morning on my walk to the department (in chronological order):
1) What was that that just dripped on me?
2) Did a squirrel just pee on my head?
3) Seriously?  Did that really just happen?!  Wh--
4) Wait, no, there are no squirrels here.
5) Thank god.  I love this place!

I'm not sure if I should be proud or embarrassed about this line of reasoning, but whatever.

In other news, we have begun the settling in process.  It is going nicely!  It is nice to not have to live out of a suitcase.

I leave you with some haphazardly-arranged pictures of our new place, and it being inhabited by us.  Next time, maybe a tour of the local flora and fauna.

Our bedroom:

Note the awesome saloon doors to the kitchen:

 I am gigantic by 1820s standards.  All the doorways are like this. 


This is our first dinner in the new house!  (Alyson cooked; steak, broccoli, toast, tomatoes.  All scrumptious.)

 

 I'm guessing there obviously used to be a fireplace there.  I miss it.

You can really see where our threshold has been worn away by 200 years of foot traffic:

These are the guys rolling up to deliver our first real furniture (besides the bed):

 This is our extra-secure hot water heater ('geyser') room. 

in which we inch closer to being Mitt Romney

Hello!
I have hijacked Alyson's account to write this post.  (She is busy tending blisters obtained from her new shoes, from walking around all over town.  We've been busy!)
I am writing this post from a four-star guest house, where our biggest problem is that they didn't have the house-made rösti on offer this morning at breakfast (shocking!).  This is what it looks like, to be precise:

(That's our room there, just past the pool, on the right.  Sorry the picture is so small, but it's night time here already.)

New developments:
I now have an off-shore bank account.  We are deeply invested in the future of the maintenance of our fig and apple trees.  We gave away an antique barrel.  I received a paycheck with 5 digits for what seems like remarkably little work.  We are concerned about whether the house servantry have maybe just a little too much access to our domicile. I fear that I am inching closer to one of the worst things I can imagine: becoming Mitt Romney. 

But hey, at least we get to watch the cricket!

In more serious news, things are super jumbled at the moment.  We have (still) found a great place to live, an original 1820s settler cottage, about 6 blocks from campus.  It is adorable, with adorably cutely awkward low ceilings and a huge kitchen.  It was not, however, ready for us to move in on our move-in date on Monday.  And so we put the bed delivery on hold, and moved all our crap from our new landlady's (I think?) house to a new hotel, and are planning to try moving in again on Wednesday.  For reference, "moving in" really means "Carrying our 5 luggages, 2 pillows, and box of dishes 3.5 blocks around the corner and waiting for them to deliver our new mattress."  Should be exciting, but we may lose internet access for a bit while we wait for Telkom to set us up with a new DSL connection connexion.  But once we are no longer living out of suitcases in hotels, things will be better.  And there will be more awesome pictures here.  First up, probably a tour of the new place.  And then braais.  Lots and lots of braaiing.  Should be fun!

We have a house!

Alyson:
Our new home in Grahamstown is on a busy street near the most popular hangout.  You know that I like to hang out at the bar, this should be no surprise to anyone that knows me even the slightest bit.  Anyway, we are renting a place that would seem impossible in NJ, even in other states I bet.   The price is considered high by Grahamstown standards, but coming from NJ it is dirt cheap.   We are living in a historical place on most happening street, near the grocery store and laundromat.  It is very secure (are you listening, mom?), with two bedrooms and a yard.  The yard even has an apple tree like my home in Flanders, except I bet these apples are edible.  [This fact to be confirmed. -Will] We will have to test for apple pie recipes.   Also, there are two fig trees in the yard.  Many culinary opportunities await us. 

Will:
Alyson has tagged me in to finish this post.  We are super excited.  I, in particular, am pretty much over the moon about pretty much everything.  More on that later - the details are flying at me too fast to process right now.  But hey, apparently this is a really small town, so anything I'd say here is bound to come up again umpteen times in the next few months alone.  So, rather than drop all the spoilers now like a just-recently-tripped waitress, I will stretch the more intriguing bits out, like some sort of fisherman-guy analogy.  Or something.

Plan for our first Friday night: TBD, but the locals suggested boiling potatoes.
Plan for Saturday: Buy furniture. 
(...Real furniture, made of wood and glass and metal instead of particle board and whatever "beech effect" is, called things like "chair" and "bookshelf" instead of "Billy" and "Ȩkto̦rp̈".  How exotic!)

P.S. This is the building where my new office is.  It is pretty sweet.  More on that to come.  Stay tuned and stuff.

Getting to Grahamstown

I am not that new to traveling considering my former job had me at Silver status, so going on a 18 hour flight seemed to be no problem at all.   Packing two suitcases with stuff to take me through 3 years the night before you leave, that was a bit of a problem.  However, Will staying up all night made it easier for him to sleep on the plane.   I though was a bit of a wreck stressed about us driving to JFK.  Luckily though dropping off the car and going through security was so much easier than EWR.   We made it to the flight with enough time to buy a muffin and go to the bathroom ( you know 15 min. to spare) despite the traffic on the drive to JFK.
On the flight the usual happened, I saw every corny movie I wouldn't even request on Netflix such as Liberal Arts, Pitch Perfect, and Ruby Sparks.  When we arrived in Joburg, it was great to read emails and grab a cup of coffee.  I ordered a macchito single, non-Starbucks sized, 4 oz. espresso cup.  I received an email from my new boss requesting a trip to India.  I was feeling more relaxed and important at the time.

We arrived with a quick flight from Joburg to PE including a wonderful view of the shoreline at the connection of the Indian ocean to the Cape of Good Hope area.  Our first tasks in Africa was to get a car.  In the pursuit to be African and a proud take charge kind of man Will requested a stick shift.  His anticipation of the event did not seem to have any effect on his nerves and ability to drive the Nissan we got.  After a rocky start of getting out of the airport and through two rotaries (translate NJ: circles) we ended up on the wrong side of the highway with no ability to reverse.  A bunch of street kids and I pushed our vehicle backward enough to realign the car then we ended up on a side street consulting the owner's manual.  Apparently you need to pull up the stick to reverse.  However, my nerves were fried probably more than the car's gears.  Admirably Will declared we needed (I was thinking "desperately") to get a manual, although I think his ego was a bit damaged.  With that change we were off on the road to Grahamstown.  Pass the port city it was rolling hills of ranching farmland.  I think of the California Cheese commercial with the happy cows.  It was like driving out of Mexico City to Toluca.  Yet, as we were in Africa so we saw an ostrich and a zebra farm.  I will keep the wildlife count at two. 

Getting to Grahamstown was easy.  My first meal was meat pie with kudu and raisins.   Our bed and breakfast has a nice setting, so I am happy with our choice.  The summer weather also reminds me of California.   I walked around campus for a bit with the tall stone buildings, bricked walkways, palm trees and flowers in bloom.  Not too bad a first day!

Jet-lagged into oblivion

So we are in South Africa now.  Look, photographic proof:

And this is it, all of our material goods packed into 5 containers. 

It's starting to sink in that this is real.  Very exciting!

We had a bit of a time getting to the airport, and a bit of a time getting from there to Grahamstown (turns out driving stick is not like riding a bike).  Being that it feels like I haven't slept in 2 days, I will say no more, and let my coauthor tell the story (stories?) tomorrow.