An Evening of Acrobatics

Saturday we took a break from our busy week and headed down to Marymoor park to see the latest Cirque du Soleil show - Kooza. Cirque comes to Redmond and holds shows under their big top tent every other year and we try to go each time their here.

The show tells the story of The Innocent, a melancholy loaner in search of his place in the world through acrobatics and the art of clowning. Like almost any Cirque show this one as well was filled with plenty of acrobatics that made you sit on the edge of your seat and wonder how they do it.

Summer?

After 256 days without it being over 75 degrees and grey skies on the first official day of summer it looks like summer may have actually arrived here in Seattle as yesterday and today has had sun. Here's hoping to many more days of sunshine and blooming flowers!

Highlights of Working in the City

While I may not love the 30- 60 minute commute each way to work, I do love working in the city and being in the middle of all the action. Some of my favorite reasons for enjoying working in Seattle are:

1. I work 3 blocks from the Pike's Place Market- great lunch options and things are always going on

2. Great Happy Hour places. Pink Door, Palace Kitchen, Dalia Lounge, Lola, just to name a few :)

3. Out to Lunch concerts.

Home Sweet Home

Our bags are unpacked and all of the souvenirs and Christmas presents have been put into piles to be distributed or put away. As you can guess we just returned from 16 days in South Africa. We headed down to So. Africa for the 2010 World Cup (soccer tournament for those that do not follow soccer) and to see the county.

Our trip took us to Johannesburg or Jo'burg as it is called by the locals where we headed to see the Soweto township, Nelson Mandela's house and a few other sites. We also attended the Netherlands vs. Denmark soccer match at the newly renovated Soccer City stadium which holds 85,000 people. We proudly wore our USA and Sounders jersey's to the game and were surprised by how many people from the Seattle area we ran into.

Next we headed out on a 4 day safari to Kruger National Park where we camped and took two all day game drives in search of the animals. We were fortunate enough to see all of the big 5 in one day. The Big 5 are the Lion, Leopard, Rhino, Elephant and Cape Buffalo and are classified as the "Big 5" because of their potential to be the most dangerous animals you'll encounter. Along with the Big 5 we saw lots of other animals including Baboons, Monkeys, Impala's Zebras, Giraffe's and many more.

Our next stop was a quick 2 hour plane flight to Zambia, Africa where we headed to see one of the 7 wonders of the world- Victoria Falls. The falls are called Mosi-oa-Tunya (the Smoke that Thunders) by the locals. While in Zambia we also had the chance to take an Elephant Safari where you got to ride an elephant through the bush.

From there is was onto Durban for 2 days to see the city and to attend the Spain vs. Switzerland match. Durban is right on the coast and has miles of beaches that are warm enough for swimming. We got a chance to check out the sites, go to the casino, though we didn't try our luck and walk in the warm sand.

Initially our trip was supposed to take us back to Jo'Burg for the last day before heading home but we decided that the plans should be changed and booked a last minute hostel and flight to Cape Town. We have never stated in a hostel before so our expectations were rather low and surprisingly the hostel we found, House on the Hill was quite nice and located only a couple of blocks from the stadium and about a 10 minute walk from the waterfront.

While in Cape Town we decided to take a hop-on/hop-off city bus tour so we could see the sights and different areas of the city and it was fortunate for us that one of stops was Table Mountain- a flat top mountain that overlooks the city of Cape Town. Since it was already mid afternoon by the time we got there we decided to take the cable car to the top. The cable car ride turns a 2-3 hour hike to the top into a 4 minute Aeriel ride. The neatest part of the ride is that the floor rotates so the view changes all the way up and down.

Our last trek was down the Cape Peninsula since we wanted to see the Penguins and the Cape of Good Hope. We headed down to Hout Bay for our first stop and got the opportunity to take a 45 minute boat ride out to Seal Island to see all of the seals, a there were a lot of them. Next we headed to Camps Bay where we got to see Hout Bay from the other side of the bay and almost got blown away by the strong winds. After wards we made our way to Boulders Beach, home of the African Penguin's. We got to see dozens of them walking around the beach. While they may be cute they do bite. Lastly we got to the Cape of Good Hope which is the Southern most point of Africa. There we we got to do some bike riding along the coast and hiking.

Here are a few pics from our trip and the rest can be enjoyed on our flickr site.

South Africa Trip Summary:

*74 hours of travel on 10 different flights

*6 different accommodations including our very first hostel

* Tickets to 2 World Cup matches

*Countless other matches watched on TVs in pubs

*Too many vuvuzela's to count

*1 elephant ride

*and much more

And Were Off

After months of planning and getting lucky in the World Cup ticket lottery tomorrow we leave for 16 days in South Africa. We've got another packed itinerary which includes a Safari, trip to Victoria Falls, an elephant ride and of course soccer and lots of it. We'll post pics when we get back.