KOTZES 2 USA

January 2012

2012-01-28T09:26:00.000-08:00

Saturday January 14 2012
Dave and I are keeping well and are back fully into our gym routine. We are both feeling better for our exercise and we realize that this has to be a permanent part of our life as we progress into this delightful old age!

I worked Wednesday and Thursday this week and then I have had the weekend off. Yesterday we just lazed around the house and relaxed although we did go out at one point to a few furniture shops to look for a desk. The varnish on the big desk in our study started to peel and the shop where we bought it, took it back to repair it, only to damage the leather insert on top and so they are giving us our money back. However, that leaves us with the chore of shopping for a new desk. So far we have not found anything that we like so we keep looking. Then last night we went out to a pub for dinner – just had burgers and a beer and cider and came home again.

Rambo has discovered that beside squirrels, we also have moles in our garden! So a few days ago he spent a very productive hour outside digging a 2 metre long trench, chasing a mole….needless to say he was chocolate brown after that and he had to have a bath. He really is a spunky little boy and keeps us entertained. Every day we take him for a walk around an un-developed housing division just below where we live. In this area we can let him off his lead and he runs crazy exploring and chasing various scents along the way. He certainly is a constant joy in our life and because we talk to him so much, he really understands a lot of what we say to him….he can collect about 3 different toys on our request for example his red toy, his dog or his chicken and he certainly knows who Daddy is and Mommy so I can for instance send him to Dad and he will go and find Dave wherever he is in the house.

This morning we met Kate at 10am to look at another home to buy. I just wish Dave would make a decision on a place, as we need to invest this money that we have here in the States but by the same token, I do not want him to make the wrong decision so I will just have to be patient and wait for him to decide.

Although the skies are blue and the sun shining, outside is too cold to be pleasant and the garden really goes into hibernation in winter with most of the plants dying off. So, there is no gardening to do and I have a lot more free time which I find depressing…. Anyway I have taken the opportunity to do some extra reading and I am enjoying my kindle that the kids gave me for my birthday last year. The other thing that I did this past week, was make contact with Doug Eglington via FaceBook and then we emailed each other a couple of times. I think we will definitely try and visit them at some stage in Canada while we are here in the States.

Saturday Jan 21st 2012

Dave and I have had a lazy week….in my off time we have watched a 7 part mini series called The Winds of War which was all about the second world war and was just my kind of story with a bit of romance and true life drama along with a true historical setting! So I have enjoyed the long saga.
We also did a bit of weeding in the garden – trying to get ahead of the weeds before spring when everything starts growing like crazy again. Dave also trimmed all the bushes and shrubs back with the electric trimmer the one day when I was at work so that was a big chore done.

Rayanne writes her big Board exams on Wednesday and Thursday and then she starts ‘work’ on Friday at UCT – I think she is so sick of swotting at this point in time. The amazing thing is that she receives her first pay cheque on Thursday – the day before she actually reports for work! She is very excited about launching out into the real world!

Last night Dave and I went to a party at a ‘cigar & martini’ Bar thrown by our friends James and Kate – James is our attorney and his wife Kate is our estate agent. It was to officially launch their patented cigar called ‘Southern by the grace of God”. We had a really good time – although it was extremely smokey!!! I even had a puff of a cigar, which was fun, but not to be repeated. We learnt a whole lot about cigars and also met a bunch of new friends so that was great. The dinner was provided and they did a whole pig kind of on the spit but not quite – the roasted pig was brought in and they then chop up the meat ‘southern’ style – rather than carve it. The meat is then served with spicey baked beans – also a typical southern dish. Luckily, I was off this Friday, as I had had to swap Wednesday and Friday with my partner as she had a meeting on Wednesday and I had one on Friday, at our head office for some continuing education program. Otherwise Dave and I would not have been able to make the cigar party. This coming Tuesday night we have a date with one of the couples that we met at the party – Dave and John are going to play racquet ball and his wife, Emily and I are going to do some swimming training in the pool at the gym so that should be good.

Saturday January 28th 2012
This week the girls and I had a happy ‘memory recall’ that brought a chuckle to our day…..it was when CJ got her first pay cheque and we went shopping at Mr Price and my mother took photos of her and all her shopping! Well, Rayanne got her first pay cheque on Thursday and I told her to be sure to go and buy herself something special, and that was when CJ remembered her shopping with her first pay. Rayanne got a lovely sleeper couch so she is very chuffed. All the exciting steps that we take in our journey of life.
We have had a good week – on Tuesday I found a lovely cheval standing full length mirror for my bedroom which I have been looking for for a while so I bought that. Rambo is being kept very busy as he sits for hours in front of it just looking at his friend! Poor boy, occasionally he gets so frustrated with this non responsive friend that we hear him crying – in fact when I was at work all day, Dave shut the bedroom door so that he couldn’t go and see him.
On Friday we signed for another investment house – a very good deal and this one is definitely going through so we are delighted. The house last sold for $242 000 and we got it for $185 000 so that is a very good price. The home has 5 bedrooms plus a study and on the top floor it has a media/play room as it is a triple storey home! It is really a beautiful home and we will probably let it to executives that come from Germany to work at the BMW head quarters here in Greenville as Kate, our estate agent, has contacts to help us with this. Anyway we will see…we should get occupation in about 2 – 3 weeks time. This Wednesday we are having the home inspection where an inspector goes through the home with a fine toothcomb and gives us a 20 plus page report on the house also specifying anything that is wrong.
Yesterday we also bought a new desk for our study. We had one but about 4 months ago we had returned it to the shop as the wood varnish was peeling and they were going to sort it out. Well to cut a long story short we finally got a refund and after a lot of window-shopping we finally bought one yesterday. It was so nice to be able to tidy up and sort out our study once again.
Tonight I am going out with about 7 other ladies on a night out on the town so that should be fun. Dave is going to go to movies with our neighbour, Richard so they can go and see a real ‘boy’ movie!
Daryl has decided on tentative dates for his visit here – 8th till 29th July although he is wanting to stop off in Europe for a week to visit Bradley Adnams. Anyway we will have him for about 2 weeks, which will be very nice. We are planning to visit SA from about Dec 20th till just after New Year.
Rayanne’s exams seem to have gone quite well and she officially started work yesterday with a staff meeting at UCT! Apparently she was the ‘entertainment’ as she was late for the meeting due to oversleeping from having had too good a party on Thursday night! Luckily the lecturers all know her well and so it was all just a big joke- anyway her real work starts now on Monday.

End of 2011 and beginning of a new year

2012-01-10T08:28:00.000-08:00

Sunday December 4, 2011

Our flight back home to the States was long but not too bad as long haul flights go .. Dave managed to pre book us seats right behind first class with an exit in front of us (no seats) and so we had lots of leg room. We landed in Washington at 10.30am and luckily all went smoothly through the customs even though Dave had some vacuum packed biltong! We caught our connecting flight and landed in our home town at 2pm where Malcolm was waiting for us. After we dumped our bags in our entrance hall we literally jumped straight into our car and went off to collect Rambo! He was delighted to see us and rapidly licked up my tears of joy.
Work has not been too bad and most of the customers were really pleased to see me back – it is so much easier now as we feel like we know people and kind of belong here now. I also got a pleasant surprise on my return as I had won $250 in a lucky draw at work on a national level for having done some continuing education on line. Anyway the end result was that I was $250 richer and so I went out and spoilt myself buying a jewelry amoire which is a piece of furniture similar to a chest of drawers but just narrower and used exclusively to store jewelry – I am really thrilled with it and it looks good in our bedroom.
Last Saturday Dave and I did our weekly weigh in only to discover that our holiday had cost Dave 4kgs and me 2kgs!! So, due to our weight gain and our general feeling of aging, what with sore backs etc, we took the plunge and joined a gym up the road from us. The gym is really nice and even has 3 racquet ball courts with quite an active club going so Dave and I are going to try and take up this racquet ball which is fairly similar to squash. The good thing is that the gym provides the racquets and the balls etc so we do not need to buy anything. We have also been to two pilates classes which is similar to yoga and is designed to strengthen your inner core muscles and so help with backache etc. I am so stiff at the moment so it must all be doing some good.
On Friday night our neighbours on the topside invited all the residents of our cul-de-sac for Christmas drinks and snacks. We did have two empty houses in our cul-de-sac but while we were away the one house got sold, so there is just one unoccupied house now. So the 5 couples had a good evening – it was very pleasant. Our road has gone all out with Christmas lights and so Dave and I went on Saturday and bought our tree and have put that up too on our front porch. Dave also took the lights that we had from our first Christmas here and ‘framed’ our tree, so it all looks very festive. On our mantelpiece inside, I have hung up some Christmas ribbon with my Christmas balls with the kid’s names on…. I have to get a ball for Trish and Teagan to make it complete.
The temperatures here are cold now with the minimum about zero and the max between 10 and about 18 degrees. We have central heating but we also have the gas fire place in the lounge. It is like our gas fireplace at Goodwood but the gas is piped to the house and we get a monthly account so no gas bottles are needed. Also the fire works with a thermostat so the fire just automatically turns on when the temperature inside drops. At first it was quite crazy to wake up in the middle of the night and see the light and shadows from the fire burning in the lounge! But it certainly makes the house very cosy.
Last night we took Rambo and went to downtown Greenville for the annual Christmas parade. Town was packed with all the local families out to see the festivities – they have a float parade which includes about 3 different brass bands, drum majorettes, organizations like the SPCA with dogs in tow and of course all the council members including the mayor who drive various vehicles waving and wishing everybody a ‘Merry Christmas’ All very festive and reminds us so of how things used to be at home with the Azalea Festival and Rag floats etc. Rambo loved the whole outing as he is very gregarious and loves people – of course little children just love him and he is very good with them – he never snaps or anything, all he does is turn tail and come back to us if the kids get too boisterous.

Saturday December 10th, 2011

This past week has been my busy week with me working Monday, Tuesday and then again Friday, Saturday and Sunday (tomorrow) so I do not have a lot of news.
On my days off, Wed and Thursday, we went to gym – the one day we played a game of racquet ball and the next day we had a consultation with a trainer to give us a programme to do a ‘full body workout’ on the weight machines…needless to say, I have discovered a whole new set of muscles in my body that are now so stiff!! Anyway, we are both feeling so much better for all our efforts.
On Wednesday night we made a flask of coffee and set off with Rambo to go and see some special Christmas lights at an animal shelter called Holley Wild. It is about an hour away from our home so we stopped on route at a Mexican restaurant for dinner and then went on to the Christmas lights. The lights were very pretty – similar to the ones that we saw in Lexington during Christmas 2009. But the one difference was that they had an area where you could feed some of the animals from your car. We had such fun feeding the deer, zebra, horses and even some huge cows. The one cow was very keen on the food and literally stuck his whole head into the car, which of course got Rambo very excited indeed! Dave and I laughed ourselves silly. Poor Rambo eventually tried to attack the cow and he was completely hyped up and shaking for a while after we had left.
I also went shopping and bought some fabric to make a table runner for our dining room table. We got some gold and black fabric and some matching fringe type tassles to finish off the ends. It looks really nice on the table with a black and gold glass bowl in the middle and a pair of ‘elephant’ wooden candle sticks from South Africa on either side. I enjoyed sewing it and it was nice to use my sewing machine. My mother gave me a giraffe that we brought back from SA in November and we decided to put him on the stairs. He can be seen from downstairs too and he looks very good.
We are having 3 couples for dinner this next Friday, other friends for lunch on the Sunday and some others to stay over the next week on Wed Dec 21st so hopefully they will all be impressed with all our new décor!
Dave has had a bit of a frustrating week as he found a really good deal on 2 apartments that were bank repossessed, put in an offer which was accepted and so was very excited. However, although we were pre approved for a mortgage, it seems that there is a hiccup with this particular development as less than 50% are owner occupied and the banks are not prepared to do any more loans there. Long and short, I think we are going to lose the deal so he will have to keep looking.

Saturday December 17th

We have had a very lazy day today as we had a very late night last night as our dinner guests only left at about 1 am! The evening went off very well starting with delicious gluwein that Dave made. I made mushroom starters in little rumican dishes with puff pastry tops and then we had curried pork chops and veggies for dinner followed by chocolate mousse and ice cream. It all turned out very well and everyone enjoyed the evening. We had Malcolm and Thelma (Dave hikes with Malcolm), James and Kate (James is our lawyer and Kate our estate agent) and Leon and Melissa (South African friends who have lived here for about 20 years). We got a couple of gifts last night too, so those have been added to our pile under the Christmas tree.
Otherwise, we have had a quiet week just going to gym each day that I was off work. We also bought some Christmas gift tins and then I made rusks the exact length to fit into the tins. So I have a collection of gifts to give people. Dave used some off-cuts from our blinds to make me ‘ruler’ type cutters that I use to cut the rusk dough in the baking tins in nice straight rows and to the exact size that I need, so my rusks look very professional now. We enjoy the rusks as I put a lot of health seeds, raisons and nuts etc in them. Rambo absolutely loves rusks too! And this last time I baked them; I made some little bite size ones especially for him – spoilt dog!

Tuesday December 27,2011

On Wednesday last week we went up to Biltmore House, which is the biggest privately, owned home/estate in the USA. It is just 1 and ½ hours north of where we live. The home was opened in 1895 by a George Vanderbilt, who had inherited his money from a grandfather who made his money from laying the railways here in the States. Biltmore is a 8 000 acre estate and the actual home has 250 rooms and has 4 acres of floor space. The entire home was decorated for Christmas so it was really special. We met friends of ours there and so it was nice to spend the day with them. We went out for lunch after touring the house and then in the afternoon we went around the hot houses before heading for our home. Just as we got to our home, Keith got a call to say that his mother had passed away in England, so that was a bit of a dampner. But, they still spent the night with us and then headed home the next day so that Keith could organize a flight home to England to his Dad. We had planned to go to Keith and Dalena for New Year and we are still going to go even though Keith will still be in England.
I then had to work Friday, Saturday and Sunday but the hours were a little reduced so it wasn’t too bad and in fact it was better that I was very busy so that I didn’t have time to feel miserable. On Christmas morning we woke up early, opened our presents and phoned a lot of family and friends around the world. CJ and Mark gave me a lovely hand made leather bag and Dave a very nice long sleeved shirt. Daryl and Trish wanted us to get a bread machine but Dave wanted a special base speaker for our TV/ music system so we got that instead and we are very pleased with that. Rayanne and Don gave me a blouse and a lovely grey jersey and Dave some chocolates from SA and a new gym shirt. So all in all we had some very nice pressies.
We had a lovely breakfast and then when I returned from work at 3pm we went straight next door to Rich and Dominika where we had a super evening starting with snacks and drinks and then a glazed gammon with veggies followed by dessert and some eggnog – very American! We had plenty of Gluwein and by the time we rolled home next door I was very mellow – a Christmas very different with no family around but still enjoyable and something to add to our memories of this journey called ‘Life’.
The new year beckons and Dave and I have lots of exciting plans culminating with us being home in SA for Christmas in December 2012.

Saturday December 31st,2011

We have had a very quiet week but we are off early this morning to go and visit our friends in Aiken, which is about 2 and ½ hours south of us. Rambo is also coming with us for the night and he is sure to have a good time as they have a small dog called Daisy, whom he knows but they also have 2 cats who he has never met before!

The weather here is cold and we are spending most of our spare time curled up inside in front of our fire – eating, reading and watching TV. Next week we will have to get back into regular eating and going to gym etc.

Rayanne is back in Cape Town and studying very hard now for her Board exams at the end of January. Daryl is away down at the Transkei and CJ is of course in Escour.

Saturday January 7th 2012

CJ and Mark had a hectic night as their one dog, Tala had to be rushed to the vet in the middle of the night with a serious case of biliary. Anyway, I trust she will be much better this morning after being on a drip all night.
The weather here has been really mild and quite warm during the days – not nearly as cold as last year. On Wednesday, which was my day off we had a day at home with me washing and trimming Rambo and Dave cooking up a storm making bean soup and an Irish stew – all good wholesome winter meals. We had had a two week break from the gym as Dave had hurt his neck, but we also started back at the gym so that is a good thing. On the Thursday night we went to another branch of our gym and Dave managed to get a game of racquetball with some other guys, which was good for him as he is a bit stronger than me and needs to play with some stronger players. The guys playing racquetball at this gym seemed to be a lot friendlier than at the other gym, so we will go back there again to play. Our home is slap bang in between the two gyms so it does not make much difference which one we go to.
Dave is a bit frustrated as he is still trying to buy another property – the one good deal that we put an offer in on last year; the bank did not accept the offer. And then the second good deal that we were excited about, we could not get finance as there were already too many investors in that sub division and the bank would not loan to investors only to a person who was going to live in the house! Anyway, he keeps looking and something will have to work out soon. He has bought himself a radio controlled helicopter and is learning to control that – quite a skill is involved – as he also has a plan to get into some videography from an aerial point of view – perhaps to do when we come back to SA.
I am excited as we are planning a trip to Washington DC for about 5 days in early April to see the Cherry Blossom Festival and all the sights that DC has to offer such as the White House etc. Dave’s cousin, Kerrigan and his wife Charlotte are going to join us, so that will be lots of fun. Then in September we are planning a trip with CJ and Mark to New Orleans and Key West before they come to visit us here at our home. Daryl is maybe coming over in June/July and Trevor says he is coming to visit us in August and Sheila in May so all in all we have an exciting year ahead.

October 2011 Update

2011-10-31T08:32:00.000-07:00

October draws to an end and I am about to pop out of my skin with excitement to see my chickens, parents and friends! I really need to hug all these people for a good long time….enough to see me through the next year. We deliberately kept ourselves extra busy during October; otherwise I would not have been able to contain my excitement. So, we started off by spending a full day in our yard, over seeding our lawn, which is a ‘winter’ grass, and it is looking wonderful now. Dave is the main keeper of the lawn and all his research on the Internet has really paid off as one year after we inherited a completely dead lawn, we now have a lawn to be proud of.
We attended our first American Football match at Clemson University with our neighbours, Rich and Dominika, and what an experience that was? This was just a regular Saturday match in football season and there were over 70 000 spectators there complete with a 100 piece orchestra and all the cheerleaders! The magnitude of the event totally amazed us, as well as all the ‘tail gating’ around the venue – definitely a must see if any of you visit us during football season.
Of course it is change of season now so we took two trips up into the mountains to see the Fall colours. Dave and I went up to visit a fellow South African pharmacist in a town called Banner Elk for 2 days in the middle of October and then 10 days later we went with friends, Keith & Dalena for one night in a hotel. On both occasions the leaves were spectacular and we really enjoyed our time out in the mountains. There is a highway that runs from South Carolina all the way up to Virginia called the Blue Ridge Parkway, which is purely for sight seeing – no commercial vehicles are allowed on it. It is 469 miles long and traverses the mountain ridgeline with look out points every few miles. So, on each occasion we drove a different section of this road. There is only about a two-week window in which to see the Fall colours at their best – a bit like the Namaqualand daisies in Namibia. So it was well worth the double trip.
We also attended the annual SA gathering that is organized at Leon and Melissa’s home here in Greenville and this year they had a potjie competition. Of course it is always great to catch up with South Africans and it was a really fun evening with plenty of good laughs, delicious food and wine.
Ellen, the lady who we fostered the feral kittens for in July, invited us for dinner which was an interesting evening as she is American but her husband, Steffen is a German so we had lots of interesting things to chat about. It was good to get news of the kittens – they are all doing very well in their new homes.
This coming weekend we are going to a Halloween Party in downtown Greenville and we have gone all out with our costumes – I am going as a ‘She Devil’ with red hair and horns, black high heeled boots, red cape and Dave is my Devil partner also with a wig etc. There are big cash prizes for the best dressed but knowing these Americans, we do not stand a chance of winning. Anyway, we are looking forward to seeing everyone dressed up.
Our children have had a very busy month. Rayanne has been writing her final exams for her honours in Accounts and so now she is finished and will be starting her articles at Price Waterhouse Coopers next year, although she is doing her 1st year of articles as academic articles at UCT and will only do 2 years with PWC as such. However, she is employed as of January 1st and is very excited to be finally independent! Don is very pleased as he is captaining the UCT rugby team for the upcoming Varsity Cup and he hopes to get a lot of TV exposure. Daryl has formed a partnership with another videographer, Grant and they are really doing well and have even employed a graduate from Durban Tech on a full time basis. So he has had a lot of things to sort out and work out with the merger. Of course he has us laden down with electronic equipment once again on our return to SA. Trish is studying through UNISA and working so she is very busy now with exams as well. Carmen-Jo has had a torrid time at work this past month as there was some ‘inside’ thieving at Eskort and she had to fire 2 staff members which has led to a lot of stress for her and in turn, I think, for poor Mark! However, Mark has found time to dig CJ out a lovely veggie garden and so the Kotze veggie patch contest continues, as Daryl also has a veggie garden going!
Hopefully we are all going to have a good break at the beach when we are home in SA.
See you all for a glass of wine, chat and most importantly a HUG!

Sept 2011

2011-09-29T18:08:00.001-07:00

We have had a busy and exciting month – the weather has cooled down somewhat, which is really great as we can turn off our central air conditioning and just enjoy the outside air. Rambo continues to be our very spoilt little boy and I now have his grooming mastered and am managing to give him a very smart ‘haircut’ while Dave has bought some doggie clippers and is keeping his claws trimmed – I am too scared that I will cut his quick! We decided that he needed some new toys so we each chose him a toy when we went grocery shopping – of course then it was a contest between us to see whose toy he preferred! Dave’s ‘chicken’ won hands down as Rambo just loved it, but he also chewed and destroyed it very quickly, so at the end of the day, my ‘duck’ has been the better toy this time round! The things we do for fun.

Our humming bird feeder was getting mysteriously drained overnight and so we resorted to ‘google’ to discover that there were two options – either bats, but this was on the west coast of the USA or raccoons. On closer examination of our feeder we found the tell tale little muddy footprints where the raccoon was tipping the feeder and have a long thirsty drink of all the syrup each night! So unfortunately for Mr. Raccoon, we are now bringing our feeder in each evening after dark.

On the 9th September we drove to Charlotte to a Jason Aldean country music concert. It was great fun especially the tailgating before the concert. Tailgating is the American term for braaing in the car park before or after an event. The atmosphere was very festive much the same as in South Africa but the one difference was a game called ‘Corn Hole’ that nearly everybody unloaded and set up in their picnic area. It consisted of two wooden boards about one meter by 2 meters in size, which were placed on the ground at an angle and about 8 – 10 meters apart. There is a hole in each board and the game consists of throwing some little beanbags from one board to the other, trying to throw them through the hole.
The concert itself was wonderful although the beers were extremely expensive once we got inside the stadium - $ 13 for a 500ml beer! Anyway that’s life. I had the unfortunate task of driving us back after the concert and a 2 hour drive starting at midnight was not fun so I don’t think we will be going to another concert in Charlotte unless we sleep over.

In the middle of September we were very excited to have Sean Mc Gladdery and his girlfriend, Amy to visit us for lunch. It was wonderful to see Sean and I, especially was so excited to see Sean – it helps a little in my longing for my own chickens! Dave and I really appreciate the effort that people make to visit us – thanks Seano.

The big adventure of this past month has been our trip up to Niagara Falls. We left home at 6am on Friday Sept 23rd and first dropped Rambo off with friends for the long weekend, before heading for the airport. Unfortunately, it was pouring with rain and Dave likes to cut the timing very fine - it took us longer than expected to get to Charlotte and we missed our flight! Luckily they accommodated us on another flight but it entailed us waiting a few hours in the airport – Dave had his laptop and I had my kindle so we were entertained! We have decided that we need to reach a compromise – I am always over eager and get us to airports far too soon and Dave cuts it too fine – anyway we always have fun and enjoy ourselves from when we leave home. We finally got to Dave’s cousins home at 7pm in our hire car and had a very pleasant evening with Kerrigan and Charlotte. They have been living in the States for 22 years and it was wonderful for me to meet them and for Dave to catch up with them.
On Saturday we went to visit Letchworth State Park where the Genesee River winds through a gorge and there are 3 waterfalls to admire. It was a lovely morning with some hiking to the falls and just breathtaking scenery over the dramatic cliffs and walls of the gorge. We then all made the hour and a half journey to Niagara Falls as Kerrigan and Charlotte were joining us in Niagara.
Unfortunately, Dave had not realized that SA passport holders need a visa to cross into Canada and so he could not go into Canada – so we had to stay on the USA side while Kerrigan and Charlotte had booked a hotel on the Canadian side. Anyway we had dinner and spent the evening together at the casino before they went over to Canada. Sunday was the day for exploring the mighty Niagara Falls that actually consist of 3 falls – the American Falls and the Bridal Veil Falls on the USA side and the Horseshoe Falls on the Canadian side. The actual full view of all 3 falls is the best from Canada but we made the most of what we could on the USA side. We took a full day tour that included the Maid of the Mist, a boat trip right to the base of the Horseshoe Falls, which was quite exciting as you were right in the swirling churning water with the spray soaking you! Luckily they gave you rain jackets. We also took a lift to the bottom of the Bridal Veil Falls where a system of wooden walk ways have been constructed, that enable you to walk right to the base of these falls – once again we really experienced the power of the thundering water. These walkways are apparently dismantled every winter as the region gets 30 meters of snow! Amazing to think of all that snow and how life still goes on. The rest of the day tour included seeing the Hydro power plant a few kilometers down from the Falls. During the day 50% of the water is diverted via ducts to bypass the Falls in an agreement between Canada and USA so that they can both generate power, and at night about 87% is diverted. So these days when one looks at the Niagara Falls we are only seeing half the amount of water that should flow over the falls. Apart from generating electricity, this reduced water-flow over the falls means that geologically the falls are receding at a much slower rate. Who knows if that is a good thing or not? There is a very tiny island called Luna Island between the American Falls and the Bridal Veil Falls and this island has been stabilized with cables and re enforcement rods a few years back – once again, human intervention.
We had a lovely day on Sunday and a relaxing evening going to look at the Falls once again to see them all lit up with coloured lights that shine over from the Canadian side. All in all ‘food for the soul’. Monday we headed back to Buffalo, the city that we had flown into, returned our car and flew home – no mishaps this time round.

August 2011

2011-08-30T18:07:00.000-07:00

Another month has flown by and all is well with Dave and I. The most exciting event this past month was Doreen’s visit to us here in the States! It was really good to catch up with my sister and we chatted non-stop for the full four days. We spent the Friday night in downtown Greenville where we met up with Amy and Scott and a very good time was had by all! Doreen and Amy are both party animals and we really laughed till we cried with all the antics at various pubs. On the Saturday us two girls went shopping while Dave watched the rugby and then in the evening we had a South African braai at home and had our neighbours over to join us. On the Sunday, I had to work from 10am till 6pm, but Dave took Doreen off for a day trip in our little Merc with the top down and country music blaring! We now have converted Rayanne and Doreen to loving this country music that is just Dave and my best! They took a drive up to Chimney Rock which overlooks Lake Lure which is where the movie Dirty Dancing was filmed. On the Monday we just relaxed at home and then of course we had to set off on the journey back to Charlotte to drop Doreen at the airport – so sad but all good things have to come to an end. Rambo has got quite used to having visitors now – he absolutely loves the extra attention and readily runs upstairs to the guest room in the morning for extra hugs although he never normally goes up there.

This past Sunday we went with Rich, Dominika and Nick (our neighbours), to Lake Jocassee for the day and we hired a pontoon type boat for the day. It was a glorious day and we had lots of fun – really brought home memories of all our happy times at Midmar Dam. There are a few waterfalls that fall into the lake and so we went around to two of them and had great fun swimming under the falls. The water was quite cool and of course Dave didn’t venture under the stream of water as he hates cold water, but I had an absolute ball.

Last night we went to the last of the series of the free summer time concerts in downtown Greenville. We have really enjoyed these outings on Wednesday nights and next year we intend to go to all the ones that I am able to, that is every second Wednesday. It is very relaxing to sit on the lawn and listen to music from 7pm till 9pm and just share some wine. Also it is so nice to see all the families and kids having fun together – last night there was a little girl of about 2 who just couldn’t stop dancing – just so sweet.

The weather is definitely turning and it is quite pleasant that it cools down in the evening now. We are heading up to visit Niagara Falls in 3 weeks time and I think we will really feel the change to autumn when we are there so far up north.

July 2011

2011-07-30T18:06:00.000-07:00

The big milestone of 50 has come and gone and of course I feel just the same as I ever did! But what an exciting month we have had with Rayanne’s visit. It was absolutely wonderful to spend 2 weeks of real quality time with our little girl – lots of late night chats, baths together, all of us cooking in the kitchen, showing her our day to day life, introducing her to Rambo, walks around our nearest golf club, sharing my new favourite country songs with her, mowing our lawn, shopping and more shopping with Dad for electronics and with me for clothing, cocktails by the pool and of course endless GnT’s – it was all so ordinary yet so special. Hard to believe that the long awaited visit is now history? Anyway, we are now looking forward to Doreen’s visit and then it will not be long before we are winging our way home to South Africa to see all our family and friends.

Our blue bird eggs all hatched on the 6th July, my birthday! We were so excited and Rayanne was thrilled to see them when she arrived. Every few days we checked on their progress and they were doing so well – at a week old they had most of their feathers and were starting to develop some colour; when tragedy struck! A black rat snake raided the nest over night and all that remained was the torn-out nest lying on the ground below. We are not sure what happened to Moma bird but we have not seen her since although we have seen the suspected snake climbing up our trees supposedly looking for more midnight snacks. I was so upset but I suppose that is just the course of nature.

We had my 50th luncheon on the middle Saturday that Rayanne was with us and it was very enjoyable with about 30 people for lunch – people we have met through the SA club, our neighbours, customers I have befriended and even our lawyer who has become a good friend to us. I made babotie and lasagna, Dave made paella and we served them with salad and rolls. Rayanne made carrot cake cup cakes that we served for desert along with chocolate cream éclairs and fudge. All in all it was not too much work and it certainly allowed Rayanne to meet most of our friends in one go. The party prompted us to really stock up Dave’s pub so now we have a fully stocked Kotze pub like back home in South Africa. I was very spoilt with presents and still have some gift cards that I can enjoy spending in the future. My children spoilt me TOO much getting me a kindle AND a computerized sewing machine so I am a very lucky Mommy! Somehow between the pre discussions of getting one or the other, I ended up with both! My manipulative skills must be pretty good.

Dave has let the investment house that we bought here in Greenville and so his business, Kotze Rental Properties is well and truly launched. He is now going to start looking for a second property to buy. He is playing golf most weeks now with either one of our neighbours and he is now shooting around 100 so he is very pleased with himself.

The other main news is that I volunteered to foster some kittens for a customer who rescues cats. So we now have 3 kittens to look after until homes can be found for them. It turned out to be a little bigger task than I had imagined as we didn’t get told that these kittens would be semi wild! Anyway we have all survived and they have all stopped hissing now and are quite tame – the one is especially tame and he really loves playing with Rambo. Of course in the beginning Rambo was beside himself with excitement but now he is quite calm again. I don’t think we would have coped in the beginning if Rayanne had not been here to help. The one kitten is going to be adopted on Monday and then we will just be left with 2 and hopefully they will find homes in the not too distant future. The lady, Ellen, who we are helping out has arranged for us to take them to Pets Mart each Saturday, starting next week, where people can adopt them.

Otherwise our life has settled back into our normal routine and all is well with both of us. Our walks around the golf course have been notched up a level as Rayanne instructed us (via Donovan’s superior knowledge) that we had to do short bursts of ‘power walking’ – so now we power walk up all the hills and I must say that we are definitely getting more of a work out. Not sure if Dave is too pleased about this but I am chuffed.

June 2011

2011-06-30T18:04:00.000-07:00

Today we woke up and had early morning coffee in bed and then I was out into the garden to get a couple of hours of weeding, watering, dead heading etc done before it got too hot. The garden is definitely my escape valve- I just unwind and take care of my yard with Rambo running around and the birds and squirrels all very busy foraging for delicacies – definitely takes my mind off of any homesickness or longing for my chickens! At 9.30 I came indoors to make cheese muffins for breakfast and Dave and I sat and had a leisurely late breakfast with a pot of tea! The weather now is really too hot to be out during the middle of the day, with temperatures going up above 35 C most days. The next time to be outside is between 7 and 9 pm when we either potter around the garden or go down to the pool with a couple of sundowners.
Dave has had a very busy month as we have set up a LLC (limited liability company) called Kotze Rental Properties and opened all the relevant bank accounts etc. On June 15th we signed for our first investment property and applied for the mortgage. We have been very fortunate as the lawyer who we used to register our home last year, has been an absolute gem – he put Dave in touch with a realtor who happens to be his wife! Together they have introduced Dave to all sorts of other relevant people – tax advisors, rental agents etc – who have all been SO SO helpful and with absolutely no benefit to themselves. On June 30th Dave signed for and took possession of our first investment home. Amazing that the whole process took 2 weeks from beginning to end! Everything is in both our names as I have the social security number but it is Dave that is actually running the whole show. At the moment he is busy trying to find a tenant – he put up a “For Rent” sign outside the house yesterday and today he has listed it on Craig’s List which is an internet based advertisement channel. Hopefully we will get a tenant soon. The rental return here is very lucrative and as soon as we have this property occupied, Dave will move onto looking for a second one to buy.

This weekend is a long weekend with Monday being the 4th of July which is Independence Day here – huge celebrations with fireworks etc. Most people are very patriotic and have USA flags flying outside their homes. We decided that we wanted to also fly a flag so we bought a beautiful big SA flag and an American one and we have both flying outside our front door! It looks really festive and we are pleased with the overall effect.
Rambo continues to be our spoilt baby – the latest ‘spoiling’ is that we bought him special doggie cookies – never mind that they are double the price of our cookies! So when we sit and have a cookie with our mid morning coffee, he does too.
Yesterday, on our 45minute walk around the golf course, we counted and he cocked his leg 37 times!! Unbelievable? No bush in our path is spared, although by the end there is literally just a drop or two coming out.
Shame last night we were out in the yard talking to our neighbour’s mother who is visiting from Poland, and he was stung by a hornet on his back leg. Anyway this morning the swelling has gone down and he is walking on his leg again – poor baby.

In the middle of June we went to a music concert right here in Simpsonville with the main guy being Willie Nelson who is a really old country singer. Well, most of our entertainment was looking at all the spectators as this concert certainly attracted all the ‘red necks’ in their droves – old and young but weather beaten people covered in tattoos and dressed like you can’t believe. Dave and I could not believe where all these people crawled out from, as we certainly don’t see them around town on a daily basis. When old Willie Nelson finally came on stage, he was completely past it, but seeing as he is about 77 that is not surprising. The evening was certainly educational! The main problem was that you were not allowed to take your own drinks and then they really killed us with drink prices - $8 a beer!! We much prefer the free music concerts in downtown Greenville every Wednesday evening during the summer, where you can take a picnic supper. We have been to one of those during June and we are definitely going to go when Rayanne is here. Only 6 more sleeps and my baby chick will be here – I just can’t wait! It is going to be so magical having her here with us.

CJ told us this morning that she was making a beef curry for dinner and so Dave said he also felt like one. I have just been busy in the kitchen putting that on to boil and it brought to mind that I just had to boast about our veggie garden once again! This past month or so we have eaten lettuce, zucchini, potatoes and tomatoes all exclusively from our own garden. I have just gone down and dug up another potatoe plant and got a harvest of about 12 beautiful potatoes plus every day I pick about 6-8 cherry tomatoes. And as for the zucchini, well we are eating zucchini bakes, crumbed and deep fried zucchini(which is Dave’s favourite) and of course normal zucchini and cheese sauce and we just can’t eat them all even though I give to my neighbours as well. So our veggie garden has been a real hit and all grown from seed. Mark actually gave me the confidence to try seed as he gave CJ a whole lot of seeds for her veggie garden and they were so successful that I gave it a go and I have been amazed with the results.

May 2011

2011-05-31T18:02:00.000-07:00

Well it is the last day of May and once again the month has flown by. We have had a busy last weekend as it has been Memorial Day weekend here in the States – Memorial Day is a public holiday on the last Monday in May each year so it is always a long weekend during which the Americans celebrate the official beginning of summer and of course remember all their war veterans. There is a 3-day festival like a mini Royal Show here in Simpsonville at our Heritage Charter Amphitheatre. I was working Friday, Saturday and Sunday but as I finish at 6pm on Sunday, I was able to join Dave at friends for a Memorial Day grill out and we all relaxed around their pool till quite late on Sunday night. Dave had spent most of the day there and so he had his first hands on experience of a true American cook out with ‘pulled pork’ and homemade ice cream. It was a great evening but we did not stay too late, as we had to get up at 5am on Monday morning as we had booked a Hot Air Balloon ride! We were up bright and early, very excited to be doing something on our ‘bucket list.’ There were 70 hot air balloons at the festival and they all flew each morning and evening of the 3 day festival. The balloonists themselves do it for the sport and they have to drop markers down on 2 designated targets during each flight, so paying passengers are just an added bonus for them. Once they were given their target coordinates in the morning, we all drove off to where they had calculated it would be best for them to fly from – the balloon cannot really be steered and they rely on the direction of the prevailing wind to get them to where they want to be. It was a totally fascinating experience watching them unload, assemble and inflate the envelope until it was upright above the basket. We then climbed in and at that point the basket was kind of rocking on the ground as the wind buffeted the balloon – I thought I was going to get motion sickness, but as the hot air was blown in and we took off up into the air, the whole basket stabilized and we just floated gently through the sky! It was an awesome experience and the view was spectacular. Mark, our pilot could manipulate the speed by altering our altitude to catch different wind currents, so at times we were quite high up and at others we were literally brushing the tops of the trees. Our ride was about an hour 15 minutes and it was just so tranquil. We flew right over Mark and Amy’s house and over Malcolm who was walking on Fox Run golf course so that made it quite fun too as they phoned us on the cell as we floated overhead!
After our ride we came home and relaxed most of the morning and then went to our pool where a lot of our neighbours were swimming and enjoying the beginning of summer. Then in the evening we went back to the Heritage Amphitheatre to see the US Navy Orchestra play from 8 to 9pm followed by a lovely fireworks display to end the 3-day festival. It was really very pleasant seeing all the families out on the terraced grass just playing with their kids etc – as people entered the festival, everyone was given red and white inflatable beach balls so you can imagine all the kids playing with their balls?
Work wise – we have had our annual stock take so that was a bit of extra work and we have had a work picnic one Sunday at Cleveland Park in downtown Greenville. Otherwise work is just work – something to do to enable us to enjoy life! Dave is very busy investigating several possibilities of investment properties and we have had a few meetings with various people – lawyers, tax advisors, estate agents etc to check out all aspects of us owning properties here if we never end up becoming residents – but it all looks good – as foreigners we are entitled to own and get rental income even if we are living back in SA. So now it is just a matter of him finding the right properties to buy. It will be great if he is also able to ‘earn’ money here, and we think that this is the answer.
Our children in SA are all doing well – CJ is very busy at work at the moment as the General Manager has resigned and between her and another guy at Eskort, they are carrying the extra load – anyway all very good experience for her. Daryl’s business is doing really well – he is in the process of getting a web page which he is very excited about and he is also very busy with lots of weddings booked – 7 in July! Plus he does other things like corporate videos and this week as I write this, he is in Mozambique, filming some deep-sea fishing! Rayanne is busy at varsity and of course all her extra tutoring, marking etc so that she has plenty of money to enjoy life – we are so excited to see her in just 5 weeks time! Our parents are keeping well and we are looking forward to seeing them in November.
Rambo has had his first ‘clipping’ and he really looks like a mischievous boy dog now! I can’t wait for him to meet Rayanne. He is absolutely spoilt by Dave and I but he really is a little gem – we pour all our love into the little rascal!

Hope you are all keeping well and it is really lovely to hear your news when you do get a chance to email.

Lots of Love
Dave and B

April 2011

2011-04-30T07:38:00.000-07:00

Life in the USA continues to go well for Dave and I. Rite aid legal department have started our Green card application process and during April they advertised our pharmacist positions in all the local newspapers in South Carolina as they have to prove that they cannot staff their pharmacies with local pharmacists…. This is just one of the steps in a very lengthly process. Anyway, at least it has all begun.

Rambo has learnt to cock his leg and our humming birds have returned! Time certainly marches on and we are well and truly into spring now.

The first weekend of April we went to Clemson University, which is about an hour’s drive from our home, to see Zac Brown Band live in concert. WOW is all I can say, it was dynamic and by far the best live show that Dave and I have ever been too. The lights, the music and the whole atmosphere were electric and the actual interaction with the crowds was phenomenal with the band coming down right into the crowds at various times via raised walkways and bridges. We had a really fantastic time and also met and made good friends with another couple from right here in Greenville where we live, so that was an added bonus.

In the middle of April Dave had a colonoscopy – here in the States they are very big on preventative medicine and over the age 50, they like people to have a colonscopy every 5 to 10 years depending on what they see with the first one. Seeing as we have a comprehensive medical insurance, Dave decided to go ahead with this and we were pleased to discover that he has no signs of cancer. So his next one will be in about 8 to 10 years.

Otherwise, life has just gone along… lots of working in our garden, which is looking great – Dave’s lawn is lush and green with little to no weeds and my vegetable garden is more of a vegetable jungle than a garden! I definitely planted far too much in the boxes! But, we are now eating our home grown lettuce and I picked piles of coriander yesterday, which I will have to refrigerate/freeze. Our baby marrows and broccoli are forming and the potatoes and tomatoes are flowering. Some things like our parsley and chives are battling as they are completely in shade due to the massive potatoe plants over shadowing them. Anyway it is all very rewarding. We have been doing quite a bit of cycling around here in the countryside and in downtown Greenville where they have a 15 mile cycle track along the Reedy river complete with picnic spots and take this…. Even fenced off doggy playgrounds and doggy water fountains!!! We put Rambo in the carrier box in the front of my bicycle and then at odd times, perhaps when we are cycling through the golf course or at the playgrounds, he gets to get out and run or socialize with other dogs…. It is certainly a dog’s life in this Kotze household.

I continue to really miss my family and friends but we just chat to everyone as much as possible and I am so excited that Rayanne is coming to visit us in July. So excited that we have decided to have a 50th birthday party for me on July 16th once she is here. We would love to have more of our family and friends here with us on this special day so please accept this as an official invite to…..

B’s 50th luncheon on Saturday July 16th No need to bring any food or drink and we have plenty of space for ‘sleep over’s.’

RSVP via email

March 2011

2011-03-30T17:58:00.000-07:00

March 2011
Another month gone past – lots of planting in our garden and we are really beginning to see the fruits of our labour. Our vegetable garden is complete with 5 raised wooden beds, a white picket fence around it and an archway at the entrance – a pleasant sight even without any vegetables, but we have lovely green veggies growing including baby marrows, cherry tomatoes, onions, potatoes, green peppers, chives, coriander, parsley etc. I am just so chuffed with our veggie garden! The rest of the garden is also coming along nicely and all the trees and shrubs are now beginning to flower as spring has sprung!

Rambo continues to delight us with his antics and Dave is busy toughening him up as he does all our dogs! When he would not let a toy or ball go, Dave used to pull the ‘release button’ that is his tail! But now Rambo has got tough and I am afraid that his ‘release button’ no longer works. Poor boy. The one thing that does work amazingly well is his electric shocking collar – in fact we have it set to only beep now - that is no shock any more as, as soon as he hears that beep, he turns tail and runs back into our yard. Whoever said that dogs did not have a good long-term memory?
On the 17th March, which happened to be St Patrick’s Day, Dave and I went on our monthly date to dinner and a show. This month it was to see Bryan Adams live – what memories his songs brought back – summer of 69 etc, also CJ’s song that she walked down the isle to at her wedding, ‘Here I am’ He performed at the Peace Centre in downtown Greenville, which can seat 16 000 people and there wasn’t an empty chair so the atmosphere was fantastic. Before the show, we enjoyed some shopping followed by some drinks at the St Patrick’s Day street festival and then a quick dinner at Sticky Fingers restaurant that specializes in ribs and wings – a definite place we will visit when Daryl comes here one day! The downtown park area is looking absolutely stunning with all the spring flowers in bloom – vibrant splashes of purple, yellow, pink and orange – it is so wonderful to see spring unfolding before us.

Early on Friday morning we packed our bags and set off for our big adventure to Nashville after depositing Rambo at the vets for boarding for 3 days! It was a long drive of about 6 hours but the route was very scenic and we stopped a couple of times. On our trip we went through the Nantahala forest and saw some amazing white river rafting places so during the summer that will be a definite place for us to visit!
After we booked into our hotel that was out of Nashville center near the Grand Ole Oprey, we set off for Nashville downtown. It was just as magical as Rayanne had explained, with the main street, Broadway, just being lined with pubs and cowboy boot shops. The pubs nearly all had live entertainers playing music and singing and you could literally just pub-crawl from one to the next. People were dancing and the atmosphere was totally festive. We had a good time although we were sorry that Keith and Dalena had had to cancel their trip with us at the last minute, as it would have been more fun with some friends. But we had fun and Dave still had a couple too many and I had to drive back to the hotel!
We woke up at a leisurely hour on Saturday and after breakfast we set off for downtown again as Dave had booked us on a trolley bus tour of Nashville. It was very interesting to see all the recording studios on Music Row and we really realized that Nashville is truly the music capital of the USA. Apparently it is a city that hosts 750 churches and wait for it, 5 000 pubs! We also saw the Tennessee State Capitol Building and believe it or not an exact replica of the Parthenon in Athens has been built in Nashville! So Dave and I have visited the two Parthenons in the world. After the tour we walked around a bit visiting the Coyote Ugly Saloon and others and then went to the Country Music Hall of Fame and Museum where we spent the rest of the day tracing the roots of country music, seeing Elvis Presley’s solid gold Cadillac and attending a live broadcast interview of David Briggs – a songwriter and piano player who has played with many famous singers including Elvis. It was all very interesting. At about 4 we went for a pub lunch/dinner and then headed back to our hotel to go to the Ole Opry Show, which is the world’s longest-running live radio show having been running for 85 years. The auditorium seats 4 400 people and the show is broadcast live every Friday and Saturday night. Various country and bluegrass singers perform as well as comedians and square dancers. We saw some old country stars as well as Carrie Underwood, one of the latest. All in all the show was great and it was a good finale to a very pleasant weekend despite the rainy weather.
We got home at about 3 Sunday afternoon to a very quiet house as our little boy is still in boarding and can only be picked up Monday morning at 8am. Both Dave and I really miss the little soul!

Feb 2011

2011-02-28T16:10:00.000-08:00

The weather has certainly turned from winter and life is beginning to poke its head out everywhere! People and plants are all coming out of their winter hibernation.
Early in the month we went out with Malcolm and Thelma one morning for a walk around the Lake Conestee Nature Park, which consists of approximately 400 acres of beautiful natural habitat on the Reedy River, but down stream from where the Reedy River runs through the center of Greenville. We parked at the fire station in Mauldin and took our walk from there. There is an extensive wetland area and 3 miles of river to explore – Rambo absolutely loved his morning and then was quite content to sleep in his crate in the car while we went and had lunch at a typical American diner. All in all, a pleasant outing on one of my days off.

We have been doing a lot around our home. We have put photos of family in the clock that Daryl and Trish gave us for Christmas and we put photos of ‘bicycles in Africa’ in the coasters that Don and Rayanne gave us for Christmas so those are all looking great. We have had one of the family portrait photos that CJ and Mark gave me for Christmas, printed on canvas and framed. It looks stunning and we have hung it above our bed, close to us when we reach the end of each day! Dave has built me some wooden boxes to make raised vegetable beds and we are hoping to get some really nice veggies going now in spring. CJ’s veggies are looking so amazing at their farm that my enthusiasm has really been stimulated. We also bought a blue bird nesting box and hung it up at the appropriate height on a tree in our back yard – well I couldn’t believe my eyes as the very next day we had a pair of blue birds investigating the box?! I was so excited although they do seem to be still deciding if they like it or not? Hopefully a breeding pair will settle in there soon and we will have the pleasure of watching them raise a little family. I have also been very busy planting bulbs in the garden so hopefully our spring is going to be extra colourful.

We continue to spend money on our little Rambo – we have bought him a carrier box that clips onto the front of my bicycle so that we can all go cycling together and we have bought a wireless fence system to contain him in the yard when we are outside gardening. Of course this entails him wearing a collar and getting a ‘static electric correction’ that is a shock! Poor baby. We have put white flags in the ground to mark the invisible fence and he has learnt his boundaries with remarkable speed! The first time he was devastated and yelped for a good few minutes with Dave nearly wetting his pants and me nearly in tears – Dave has always found shocking games amusing as our kids and Brad Castle know only too well. Shame Dave is actually a softie but his evil side rears its head when it comes to electric shocks. Anyway, at least a passing car will not flatten our Rambo now.

We went to see our first live show here in Greenville at one of the theatres called the Peace Centre. What a fantastic performance of ‘Young Frankenstein’ – the stage props, acting, lighting and special effects were all top class and we thoroughly enjoyed our evening, which started with dinner at a very nice restaurant, called the Lazy Goat, then a stroll over the Reedy River to the Peace Centre. When we got home at 11.30pm Rambo was very excited to see us but of course an hour later he was back in his crate for the night – shame poor boy.

Within one week we heard of a caravan club friend being murdered during a robbery AND Melanie and her maid being held up at gunpoint in broad daylight! If I allow myself to dwell on South Africa, I become SO bitter and angry – to think that the government ‘stole’ my livelihood from me and I am now forced to work abroad to earn a decent living and that I am separated from my family is just too much to bear. At times I really get tearful and sad but most of the time I manage to conduct my life the way I always do, with the philosophy that my cup is half full and not half empty! Life here is just so good – everything works, is clean, efficient and well run.

Malcolm and Thelma invited us to raid their garden so we went last week and dug up quite a few plants which are now all safely embedded in our yard – certainly cheaper than buying them all at the store.
Well that is February over and done with. Happy Birthday to my Mom who turned 91! What a wonderful achievement? This Saturday we are going to Leon and Melissa for dinner to celebrate Melissa’s mother’s 80th birthday – her mother is visiting them from South Africa. So we are looking forward to our evening.
Tomorrow, Wednesday, Dave and I are both going to the doctor for our annual check up. Enjoy your lunch with Daryl.
Lots of Love
Dave and B

Within one week

January 2011

2011-01-30T16:09:00.000-08:00

Well, we have been back in the States a few weeks now and life has settled down into a normal routine. It seemed much easier to return to work and the staff were all very pleased to have me back which was rewarding to know that I had been missed. Each workday is still very long and exhausting but the days off in between are worth the long hours when I am at work. Basically, I work 2 days on and then have 2 days off.

We got back home on the Thursday and I went back to work for the Friday, Saturday and Sunday. But high on my priority list was shopping for a little puppy! Our local weekly newspaper came out on the Thursday and Dave and I both eagerly scanned the ‘Pets’ column – we found multipoos (these Americans even give mongrels fancy titles – these are supposedly Maltese cross poodles), Shiatsu and Yorkshire terriers. Dave went on Friday morning to look at a few options but after a bit of discussion we decided to go with the Yorkie, which we hadn’t seen as it was about 45 minutes north of where we live. I finish work at 6pm on Saturdays so Dave picked me up and we set off to purchase our new baby. The elderly couple had 2 bitches and a male and they had 2 litters but only one was ready to go. We had to choose from 3 little boys! After sitting on the lounge floor with all the puppies for about 10 minutes, we both agreed on the ‘red’ one – the lady had cleverly tied different colour yarns around each puppy’s neck. So by 7pm we were $600 poorer but the proud parents of a very special little boy who we named Rambo!

The week after we returned, South Carolina had the worst snowstorm in 50 years! Basically the entire state came to a standstill, as we are not geared up for snow. First of all, on the Sunday everybody went crazy as the weather channel predicted the snowstorm and everyone panicked – rushing out to get medicine, bread and milk etc. I was working on the Sunday and so it was chaotic to say the least. At the time I thought everyone was over reacting. Anyway, I got home Sunday evening and after a pleasant dinner and a couple of glasses of wine, we fell into bed, exhausted but looking forward to my first day off from work since we had returned. Monday morning Dave got up to make our coffee and he soon had me out of bed with all his exclamations of wonder at the blanket of snow as well as the quietness and beauty of the falling snow flakes – it was magical. We were warm and cozy inside and of course we had Rambo to entertain us. The TV was on all day warning people to stay indoors and so most businesses did not open and all schools etc were also closed. Of course, come Tuesday, my boss was on the phone encouraging us to go to work and so I had to brave the icy roads – to say I was nervous was an understatement as the roads were slippery and I felt very in experienced. Most people stayed at home and we only worked until 5pm so that we could get home before dark. Schools remained shut for the entire week so the school kids were delighted.

The weekend of the 15th January I was off and we went down to Aiken, which is about 2 ½ hours away to visit Keith and Dalena Crawley, to see their new home that they had bought and moved into during December. We had a very enjoyable weekend and caught up with all their news. They were smitten with Rambo and promptly went out that very next week and bought a puppy themselves – we still have to introduce Rambo to their Daisy! The weather is starting to warm up now so I am sure that Dave and Keith will soon start their regular weekly golfing sessions – they meet half way so it is just over an hours drive each.

On my other days off, we have been busy shopping for our home – we bought a rug for our lounge, a few more things that we needed in the kitchen and curtains for the French doors in our bedroom. Our home is really starting to look cozy now. We have also ordered a family portrait on canvas from the photo shoot that CJ gave me as a Christmas gift, so I can’t wait to see that.

Dave has joined the Furman University hiking club and he goes hiking on Mondays with them. Malcolm, his hiking friend, lives just around the corner from us and so they take turns driving to the hike. It is nice that he has this interaction with local Americans. We went and had lunch with Malcolm and Thelma the other day too, which was very pleasant. Everyone loves little Rambo and we have had several offers by our friends to ‘baby sit’ him when we go away on holiday, and that is an offer that we will certainly take up, especially when we come home to SA. We have planned our next trip home so we will be home from November 4 till 24. We are going to hire a cottage at Ballito for most of the time and try to have a holiday this time around!

Today we went out for the day, taking a drive up to the mountains to go snow tubing. However, when we got there it was a bit disappointing as the snow was very crusty and dirty and the ‘ride’ was just one slide down a steep bank. Dave and I both decided that to pay for 2 hours of sliding down one slide was not our idea of fun, so we watched others do it for a while and then made our way home, where we worked in the garden for the latter part of the afternoon as the weather was so pleasant. I had so been looking forward to the snow tubing and so it was a complete let down. Anyway we still had a very enjoyable day.

August 1st 2010

2010-08-01T16:07:00.000-07:00

What a busy few days we have had. Last Wednesday was my last day at the Lexington store and it was quite sad to wave goodbye to all my fellow workers but very exciting as we were embarking on the last lap of our long journey to live in the States. Thursday Dave and I packed up all day long – it is amazing how much you accumulate in 10 months! We arrived with 2 suitcases each and now we had about 20 lug boxes plus furniture and all our suitcases packed to capacity. At 3pm Morne, a friend of ours arrived with the closed in moving van and we loaded everything up except our mattress on the floor in our room. By 5pm we were done and the Waterway staff came to inspect our apartment – quite funny to be a tenant instead of a landlord! Anyway all was good and Dave and I then set off to the movie house as we had nothing to sit on at home and nothing to do. It was the first time we had gone to movies although the movie house was next door to our apartments.
Friday we were up bright and early and by 8.15am we were on the road – us in our truck and Morne following with the van. We reached our new home at 10am and unloaded all our stuff into the garage so that Morne could head back to Cloumbia. Dave and I went to get the water and sewerage connected, as we had to go in person, unlike the electricity connection, which we had been able to do over the phone a few days before. The water office was quite a way away and we only just got back up to the lawyers office in time for our 1pm closing. The closing was a new experience – although a lot of papers, sale agreements, bond applications etc had all been signed before – the closing is when everything becomes legal and binding. We all sat in a boardroom – the lawyer, the seller and his agent plus our agent and us the purchasers. The lawyer went over all the figures and agreements and got relevant parties to sign various documents including the final mortgage papers from the bank. Then he proceeded to take our cheque for the deposit and to hand out the commission cheques to the agents (who each get 3% so a total of 6% is paid in commission) and the cheque to the seller. It was all very open and everyone sees exactly who gets what. We were then handed the keys to our new home and they all congratulated us! So one hour later we were on our way back to our home where some more physical labour awaited us – no Flora or Phillip – but we managed fine even getting a double bed upstairs to the guest room! By the time we hit the sack at 11pm we were completely unpacked and 2 very happy but tired people.
Saturday was a day of admin and shopping and we have bought a headboard and base for our bedroom as well as a desk and a pub so our home will soon be looking a little less empty. Our washing machine and dryer are being delivered next week.
Today, Sunday we spent at home – weeding our lawn and meeting our neighbours. We have a couple with one 9-year-old son on the one side – she is from Poland but has been here 13 years and her husband is a true American. On the other side we have a couple from Canada with grown children out the home – their children apparently left Canada and settled here in Atlanta Georgia so they have also moved here. Ralph is on a work visa and his wife, Theressa cannot work like Dave. Both couples are really nice and we feel very welcome in the neighbourhood. We did go out for lunch to the Golf Club that is next door to our suburb and they were also very welcoming, giving us complimentary tickets for dinner on a Friday night and Dave a round of golf as welcoming gifts. After lunch we hung up my birdseed feeder and my humming bird nectar feeder, that Dave had given me for my birthday. We were tickled pink to have scarlet-throated hummers feeding off the feeder within half an hour! We have hung it just outside off our deck and we can observe them from the kitchen which is just so nice. Our neighbours tell us that there are also some resident deer in the area so we are looking forward to seeing them.
Tomorrow I start at my new store so I am looking forward to that and Dave certainly has a lot more to keep him occupied with now, so I think we are over our hardest hurdles in this journey.

July 24th

2010-07-24T16:07:00.000-07:00

It is only 1 week until we move into our new home and we are both just so excited! I finish work at my Lexington store on Wednesday, Thursday we pack and then on Friday we are driving the 1 and ½ hours up to Greenville where we meet with the lawyers to sign the closing papers for our home and get the keys. I start work on Monday at my new store and only have 30 hours to do to complete my required hours of my internship, so on Thursday we are driving back down to the Pharmacy Board here in Columbia and they say that they will issue me my pharmacists license there and then …. I will do my first shift as a fully qualified USA pharmacist on Saturday 7th August!! It has been a real adventure thus far and we are looking forward to the next step.
On Wednesday we received the shocking news of Lorraine Karg’s muder on their farm in the Midlands. It is hard to comprehend that her life has been snuffed out, just like that. I cannot begin to imagine how Neville is going to cope – I know that I do not think I could continue this journey of life without the support of my life partner, Dave. My thoughts have been with Neville and their children continually these past few days and I wish there was something that could be done to curb this violence.

July 6th 2010

2010-07-06T16:06:00.000-07:00

Well, what a special birthday I have had! Thank you to all my family and friends for the special messages – wish I could have been with you all but I must say that Dave and Rayanne did an amazing job of spoiling me rotten. My day started with a treasure hunt of all my pressies sent by family and ended with a magnificent roast dinner cooked by Dave complete with party hats, squiggly straws and party blowers all organized by Rayanne. In between we had birthday carrot cake and monstrous margaritas – all in all a wonderful day!
This past week has been such fun. Last Wednesday, Dave and I woke up really early and left home by 5.15am to travel down to Orlando to meet up with Rayanne, Sadie and Caitlin. We arrived just after lunch and joined the girls at Universal Studios and Islands of Adventure, which are 2 parks right next door to each other. We ran around doing various roller coaster rides and ended off the day at the newest exhibit – Harry Potter, which has only been open a few days. It is quite amazing, as they have replicated the English village, Hogsmeade complete with the castle that contains ‘talking’ portraits, Dumbledore’s office, the talking sorting hat and culminates in a 3-D ride on Harry’s broomstick! We then went for dinner at the Three Broomsticks where there was English fare on offer and even butter beer.
Thursday was Seaworld – my all time best park where we fed and stroked the dolphins, saw the spectacular Shamu killer whale show, the dolphin show, fed stingrays in the touch tank and saw the manatee rescue project. The funniest thing of all and that Caitlin captured in full on video, was the ending of the Shamu show – the trainers got the whole stadium to chant and do a sequence of hand movements which we all enthusiastically participated in – only to realize that we were instructing the 4 killer whales in the massive glass tank to splash us full force with co ordinated tail flicks! They chose to do it directly in front of where we were sitting and not only once but 3 times in a row! We were soaked to the bone but we laughed ourselves sick. Luckily, Caitlin’s camera survived the soaking although it just went black as the first massive jet of water hit us – see my FB for the video.
Late Thursday afternoon we took a shuttle to the Aquatica Park where we enjoyed the water slides and then we planned to return to Seaworld for the fireworks display. However, it came on to pour with rain and so we returned to the hotel, got cleaned up and we took the girls out to dinner at an Italian restaurant called Maggiatos where we enjoyed a delicious meal. It was a ‘goodbye’ to Caitlin as she left early Friday morning to go back to work in Philadelphia.
Friday we went to Epcot for the day and it was another full day of adventure with rides, mainly simulated ones – the best one being ‘Soaring’ which makes you feel as if you are in a hot air balloon soaring over various scenes. It is quite unbelievable how these rides are created and how authentic they feel. The Epcot center also includes a whole area of various countries from around the world – each country that is represented has genuine native people working in that area and the architecture and merchandise are all from the relevant country. So, for example, when you are ‘in’ France all the people are French, there is French food and drink and each country puts on a show at various times throughout the day! The most amazing show was by the Chinese when we saw them doing various balancing acts and dancing.
After dinner at Epcot, we waited to see the fireworks display, which was so beautiful.
Saturday, we had a more leisurely start and then returned to Universal Studios to do more rides. In the late afternoon we went back to Seaworld to see the night shows. The sea lion and walrus show had us in stitches of laughter as they ‘ripped’ off the other shows at Seaworld and we just enjoyed seeing these huge animals performing. There was also a little sea otter that did a rolling over trick – the same one that CJ taught Lilly, so we loved that.
The grand finale was a lighted fountain and fireworks display all choreographed to music – a truly spectacular sight. What a wonderful few days we had in Orlando?
The drive home on Sunday was long and tedious and we were all exhausted, so we were very glad to walk in the front door.

June 2010

2010-06-19T16:05:00.000-07:00

The most exciting news is that we have had Rayanne visiting us! It is SO wonderful to have one of our chickens here, I just can’t tell you. She is over here with a school friend of hers, Sadie, and they are just having the most wonderful time. They started off in New York where they met up with another SA girl who is a friend of theirs and has been here in the States for about 10 months working in the hotel industry – in fact it is Guy’s niece! They then went on to Philadelphia and on down to Washington DC before meeting us in Greenville last Friday night. We spent such a lovely evening in downtown Greenville showing them around the city center park and having dinner. Greenville is going to be our new home city when we re locate at the end of July.
We spent the night in a hotel and then on Saturday morning we took the girls to see our new home! In fact, we met the realtor at the home and that was when we signed the sale agreement. I am so excited to finally have made a decision on a home. It is about half an hour from Greenville city center but only 12 minutes from my Rite aid store that I have assigned to. Our home is really beautiful with a very open plan floor layout and hardwood floors in the living area downstairs. The kitchen is stunning with granite counter tops and all new stainless steel appliances – it comes with stove, fridge, microwave and dishwasher. There is central vac and dual air conditioning so we can leave the upstairs air con turned off, unless we have visitors, as upstairs only has the 2 spare rooms, a guest bathroom and a bonus room. Dave and I will live downstairs for the most part. We are buying directly from the builder and so we are the first owners although he did have tenants in the house for a few months. There is a screened in porch (very American) and then an open wooden deck leading out to the back yard that goes down to some forest trees complete with squirrels, which I love to watch. Dave is planning where to install his pub so from the end of July, we will be fully kitted out for guests – you are all welcome whenever you like. Ant and Wends will be one of our first SA guests and we are really excited to see them here.

After signing for our home, we decided to head on back down to Lexington, as the girls were keen to just chill in a home after being on the road for a week. It was so nice to show Rayanne where we have been living for the past 8 months.

On Sunday we went to the public beach on Lake Murray where we had a picnic lunch and just relaxed for the most part of the day. It is very warm now with high temperatures in the upper 30’s so a day of swimming and sitting around in deck chairs was just what the doctor ordered. Later in the afternoon we popped in to visit friends and then of course the girls wanted to check out a few of our local shops.

Monday it was back to the grindstone for me while the girls caught up with washing and planned the rest of their trip. They headed off late Monday night on an overnight Greyhound for Nashville and then onto Atlanta and down to Florida where we are going to meet up with them and spend a few days at the end of the month.

This past week I have completed my training on immunization and so I am now a fully qualified immunizing pharmacist! Rite-aid certainly invest in their pharmacists and their new mission has been to train all their pharmacists to be able to immunize. They certainly do thorough training – we had to do about 12 hours of self study followed by an online examination, then we did a full days live training which involved receiving and giving 3 injections! And then to complete our training there was more online self-study and another examination, as well as us having to attend a CPR course.

Dave is playing golf once a week and going to the driving range at other odd intervals. His golf is coming along nicely and this last Friday he even went off to play golf with Jer, my American boss and another American guy – this was a big step for Dave as he normally plays with Keith, an ex South African who is also a beginner golfer. Anyway after a ‘shitty’ start he said he settled down and played a reasonable round of golf, so I am really pleased for him.

Our long journey of getting settled in the States is nearing completion! It has been a long road and we both can hardly believe that we have actually taken this huge step! We are now looking forward to just enjoying the American lifestyle and hopefully doing lots of trips to explore this great continent.

Hope you are keeping well and please remember that our door is always open and our beer always ice cold!

Lots of Love
Dave and B

Atlanta week by Dave

2010-05-22T18:43:00.000-07:00

Atlanta week by Dave

Right what happened? Well we left at about 8:30 am Saturday morning and arrived at Ray and Sharon’s at about 12:30. The city of Atlanta is huge- at one stage we were traveling on a 9-lane highway in one direction and still the traffic slowed down to about 20miles/hr at times. Not the sort of place I would like to live in.

Ray and Sharon stay to the north of Atlanta where things are a bit less hectic. Soon after arriving Sharon gave us lunch and mid afternoon Margaret and Tom (Sharon’s sister & husband who is an American) arrived. We had all met before and the afternoon progressed into the evening , beers came out and later Sharon served us a fantastic spare rib meal and more beers. It was a great evening talking all sorts of shit and solving the world’s problems.

The following morning, Sunday, after breakfast, we headed North to the small town of Dahlonega where they were by chance, having their annual flea market in the city center. We moseyed around the stands, bought ice creams and then headed to another small town called Helen. This was quite an amazing place; it looks just like a village out of Germany, all the building architecture is just like an old town from a 100 years ago, and all the builings are painted cream and russet red! The place was very busy - there were bikers, cyclists and even a VW Golf rally in town. Horse drawn carriage rides through the town were on offer and of course there were many pubs and restaurants to explore. Their annual October fest is supposed to be quite an occasion and we spoke of trying to make it there this coming October to sleep over one night so as to taste the beer properly !!!! We had a few beers, one called Blue Moon - it is an orange beer and is served with a slice of orange in it, quite different and not bad at all. The 2nd beer was one called a Fat Tire - also not bad. We then returned to Ray and Sharon’s and spent the afternoon and evening out in the back garden sipping a few more beers and watching the birds, squirrels and rabbits. Then in typical fashion a mozzie found my ankle, just like SA.

The next morning, Monday, after a light breakfast we headed for Atlanta to meet up with a friend of Beryl’s, Meridy Elliot. She did the odd locum for Beryl at Forbes but has been in Atlanta for 11 years now – working – can you believe it for Rite Aid? The traffic was hectic with, once again, the 7-9 lanes of traffic going in both directions (total of 14-18 lanes). It is quite daunting, but thanks to our GPS, we got there in one piece. After a cup of coffee and catching up we headed to the Bodies Exhibit in downtown Atlanta, I had seen this in New York but Beryl wanted to see it after I had said how impressed I was with it.

Meridy then suggested that we go to a Farmers Market - both Beryl and I expected to see a whole lot of stands and people selling fresh produce off the back of their trucks etc. Anything but - it was this huge building with flag’s from every country in the world, hanging from the roof and they had fresh produce, veg, fruit, spices, flowers, fish, crabs plus wines,sauces,dried goods etc from all round the world. Ingrid Hardman, they even had Jackfruit! It was quite something to see, but very cold, to keep everything fresh, so we grabbed some takeaway food from their in house restaurant and headed back to Meridy’s to eat. The day ran away with us and at about 4pm we headed on to the Sheraton Hotel near the Atlanta airport where Beryl’s week conference was to be held.

We booked in, and located Keith and Dalene, then went down stairs for a drink and dinner at Ruby Tuesday restaurant. Keith and I planned to explore the highlights of Atlanta while our spouses got a bit more clever, and the next 4 days they were certainly kept busy from 7am till 7pm! They didn’t get a moment off.

After leaving the girls to their lectures, Keith and I had breakfast in the hotel and then headed for the Georgia Aquarium. It is one of the largest in the world with 8 million gallons of water and has two Whale Sharks in its largest tank. We were also shown around the top of the tanks- this was a separate tour and it gave us insight into all the happenings from above. Back down in the aquarium the main tank has a glass tunnel with a moving walkway so you can view the fish from below. We then moved on to World of Coca-Cola - Atlanta is the HQ and starting place of Coca-Cola. They showed us all the products that Coca-Cola make world wide, which is about 60. We saw all the signage and billboards, dispensing machines, TV advertising and general history of the company. There is a big tie up between Coca-Cola and the Aquarium as the main owner/director of Coca-Cola donated the land and about $250 million to start the aquarium.

Then we went to CNN, once again CNN started in Atlanta and is still the HQ for CNN. They showed us around the studios and research offices as well as a mock studio where everything worked. It was all very interesting.

We got back to the hotel just in time to meet the girls for a special meeting for all the foreign pharmacists with the immigration attorney from Rite Aid. By the way this conference is purely a Rite Aid course for pharmacists in and around the states of Georgia that are newly qualified and are just having to write their Pharmacy Board Exam before getting their licenses to practice. There are 150 delegates in total and only about 20 are the older international pharmacists that Rite Aid has recruited from mainly South Africa..

That evening after the meeting Beryl and I went for a Jacuzzi in the hotel and then out to dinner where we shared a meal with some other South Africans from North Carolina.

Wednesday, after leaving Beryl to go on to her course, Keith and I headed off to breakfast at McDonald’s and then onto the Atlanta Zoo. It was not a very big zoo but nicely laid out and all the animals looked well kept. We then headed for central Atlanta to what was the old part of the city called the Underground - this is a quaint shopping area with restaurants - all below the city and covering an area of about two blocks. Quite different but I am not much of a shopper. We stayed there for lunch and then headed back to the hotel.

After lazing about reading, watching TV and having a bit of a snooze, Beryl returned from the day of lectures, but said that she had had a big lunch and that she had too much work to do so I headed off to dinner without her, once again having a few beers with Keith, Dalena and three other South African male pharmacists. The hotel shuttle took us there and collected us at 9pm. On my return Beryl was getting ready for bed.

Next day Keith & I headed for breakfast at the Waffle House, then onto golf. It was a 9-hole course that we went around twice. It was located right next to the Atlanta International Airport, so we had a plane flying low overhead every minute or so, spectacular but very noisy. I like to believe that I am improving at this golf game but every so often I make a complete arse of myself! Hopefully this will improve with time? We headed back to the hotel, then onto Ruby Tuesday for a few draft beers, then back to the room to read and nap. Beryl once again felt that she had too much work to cover and declined to join us for dinner. I really do feel sorry for her, she is the only one writing the exam next week so all the others had no problem going out each evening. We repeated the previous nights plan by catching the hotel shuttle, but this time to an Italian restaurant. This is the first time since we have been in the USA that I have found the service and cleanliness of a place to be poor. They were under staffed, the table had not been cleared and they ran out of our choice of food so one of us had to change our order. Goes to show, no place is perfect! On my return to the hotel I once again caught Beryl just getting into bed - good timing.

The next day we woke up to rain, Keith & I had planned to go and play golf again but that was now out the window. We also had to vacate the rooms, so after packing and loading the car I once again bade Beryl farewell. Keith and I headed back to Waffle House for breakfast and then decided to catch the hotel shuttle to the airport and to take the Marta (the train/tube) into Atlanta, followed by a bus trip to the Museum of Natural History. After walking around we ended the visit with an I-max show, after which we worked our way back to the hotel. A single ticket of $4.50 covered the round trip so not bad at all? We then wasted an hour or so at the hotel on the computers surfing the net waiting for the ladies who finished just before 4pm and after a few farewells we headed for home. Unluckily we caught the Friday traffic jam, plus a huge thunder storm all in the7 lanes of traffic so it took us about half an hour to clear the city limits. Three and a half hours later we arrived at home after a short stop at our local KFC. It was good to get home.

This next week is the last big push for B so then our life can return to normal.

April 2010

2010-04-15T19:13:00.000-07:00

Sunday 11th April 2010
Well since our trip home to South Africa in the first week of March, I have not put pen to paper or rather fingers to the keyboard! I have been very busy preparing for my exams at the end of May but today I have decided that I need to take a little time out and catch up with correspondence.
Going home was absolutely wonderful, as I really needed to just touch base with all my family and friends and especially my ‘chickens’! It was very special to be able to celebrate my Mom’s 90th with her and to see Mom and Dad Kotze again – when I think of how much I miss my children, I begin to understand how hard it must be for our parents to cope with our absence. The week of course flew by in the blink of an eye and all too soon it was over, but I did feel soothed and re assured that my children were coping with us being away from them. We had time to reconnect and chat about a lot of issues and I definitely left feeling at peace and confident that we could all survive the next lap of our journey.
Coming back ‘home’ to the USA was tough, but mainly because I had to come on my own without Dave. The whole experience of us being apart for 2 weeks was something that neither of us wish to repeat – nothing is fun on your own – with the 2 of us, even making our bed together is fun and we generally laugh and just have fun! I am definitely not cut out to living on my own.
Everything here is starting to feel more familiar and we are over the giant hurdle of getting to know how absolutely everything operates. The weather of course has turned the corner to spring and so everything seems more cheerful. The change to spring has been dramatic – Dave came home and literally within the space of 10 days a tree outside our bedroom window went from being stark brown branches, to being covered in a delicate feathery type flower that shed yellow pollen over everything, to being a fully covered green tree! We have never seen ‘spring’ unfolding before our eyes in a few days as we have seen here – all the azaleas are covered in flowers, cherry trees are in blossom and the birds are humming. Somehow in South Africa, our winter is not as dreary and so our spring is not as vibrant or dramatic.
The greatest excitement for Dave has been the acquisition of his brand new golf clubs! He has been for a lesson with a pro and he has been to the driving range a few times. In between, him and I are ‘putting’ down the passage and ‘chipping’ outside on the lawn! Dave gets a bit stressed that I am going to ‘take out’ the neighbours but so far all is well and we have had a lot of laughs.
On Friday night we went to the driving range and afterwards had dinner at the clubhouse called the ‘Caddy Shack’. We had to have a little celebration as the IRS gave us a ‘gift’ – we got a cheque back on Friday, a refund from the income tax that I paid in Nov and Dec 2009, as with me not working the whole tax year, I got a complete refund which was great. The tax year here is the same as the calendar year, that is from Jan to Dec. I guess we will not be as fortunate at the end of this year as I will have been working the entire tax period.
On Saturday night we went to some friends for a braai complete with boerewors and biltong! Tony and Colleen were from JHB and have been here 11 years now. We had a great time with them, some other South Africans and also some American friends of theirs. The evenings here are now very long as the sun only sets at about 8.30pm – this is due to the time saving and of course it does mean that it only gets light in the morning at about 7am. But I do like it as you can do so much in the evening.
This coming week, Rite Aid are sending Dave and I up to the Greenville area (about an hour and a half) NE of here, where there are 2 stores that they are wanting me to consider for my permanent posting when I am qualified in August. I am going to work in the one store on Tuesday and the other one on Wednesday and then on Thursday, which is my day off this week, I will be able to go and see some of the homes that Dave is going to investigate while I am at work on the Tuesday and Wednesday. We really want to try and buy or at least find a home to lease with an option to buy. In the States it is customary to get pre-approved finance before you start looking for a home to buy, so we have started that process. It makes the whole purchase happen a lot quicker, as when you finally decide on a home and sign the dotted line, it is normally only 3 weeks or so till you move in! We are hoping to take occupation of our home by the 1st August as our lease here ends on the 9th August so that will give us a week to move. So we have to make a decision by the end of June.

Thursday 15th April
We are back from Greenville and we are both so excited. The Greenville city center is really beautiful with a wonderful downtown area of shops and restaurants ending with a park and walkway over the river and waterfall that is in the very heart of the city.
I liked both the Rite Aid stores that I worked in but after chatting to my boss, I have been allocated to the one. It is nice to have closure on where I will be posted to work. And then best of all, we have seen about 4 homes that we like – the top two are just impossible to choose between and are the same price so I think we are going to put an offer in on them both and leave it up to fate – which ever one comes out at the best price, we will take. Very exciting times ahead of us but I have to knuckle down and do the last big push for my exams in less than 6 weeks time now!!! So this will be all for now and my correspondence days will only resume in June.

11th Update

2010-01-24T17:19:00.000-08:00

What pain and suffering we have seen in Haiti? This past week, our hearts have gone out to these people – it is so upsetting to see people trapped under slabs of concrete and aid just unable to get to the scene! It really brings home to us just how very fortunate each and every one of us is that we are safe and living in secure homes. To see an entire nation literally flattened by an earthquake makes one very humble- Mother Nature is certainly a very powerful force.
Our week has been very un eventful and for that we are grateful. Sunday, Dave and I had a quiet day at home and I caught up with my studies. Dave cooked us a delicious roast dinner and then Monday it was back to work. I worked Monday to Wednesday and then had Thursday off which was very pleasant. Dave and I went to the dentist and we both need a filling so that is scheduled for 3 weeks time. I am also going to need 2 implants that I hope to get in the near future.
Friday, I had another day of work, and then it was the weekend. The weather has warmed up considerably – now a minimum of 16 instead of minus 7!! But the warming has been due to cloud cover and so now we have had a weekend of rain. Anyway, we really needed the rain.
Sunday morning, I made us cheese muffins – using my cake mixer that Daryl gave me for Christmas, for the first time and then we baked them in the little counter top oven that Sheila bought us. They came out perfectly and we both enjoyed our tea and muffins for Sunday breakfast.
The Americans certainly know how to celebrate events throughout the year – just after we arrived; it was Halloween, then Thanksgiving, then Christmas, New Year and now Valentine’s Day. For each event the shops have whole departments devoted to the celebration of the moment. At this stage there are red heart plates, cushions, floor mats, etc etc plus of course the normal candles, chocolates, flowers etc that we have at home for Valentine’s! We have never seen SO much of everything?
Sunday afternoon, I was really getting cabin fever so we took a drive out to Harbison Boulevard, our nearest shopping mall and wandered around for a bit and then had a Chinese lunch, which was very enjoyable. The most interesting shop we saw, was a ‘teddy bear factory’ – you choose your empty bear case, his clothes, his shoes, socks and whatever else you want, then you go to the stuffing machine and a lady helps you to stuff him with fluff which is blown into him with compressed air – just before he is closed up, you choose a heart, blow some life into the heart and make a wish before it is inserted into your bear! I wish we had known about this shop when my mother was here, as she would have loved it. But, we will definitely take Rayanne and Sadie there when they visit in July. The ‘bear factory’ cheered me up somewhat, as I have been feeling rather down this past week. Life is too short to feel down and it is time I cheered up anyway. Today, we heard that Judy Grobler’s son, Bruce, was killed in a head on collision – my heart goes out to Judy and her family – it is just a mother’s worse nightmare and I couldn’t imagine being able to bear that burden? Dave and my thoughts are with them over these next few weeks, months and even years!

Sunday 23rd January
Another week has passed by. During this past week I have started my application process to the SC Board of Pharmacy to write the last 2 exams that I need to pass before becoming a registered pharmacist here in the USA. I am hoping to write these exams at the end of May – if I pass them, I get a 50% increase at work, and it will be nice to get them over and done with. I should finish my required hours of internship towards the end of July and then I will be registered as a pharmacist and will get a permanent post with Rite Aid. In June we will hear where there are openings and Dave and I will decide where we want to go and look for a home to buy and settle.
We have had a very enjoyable weekend and can’t believe how small the world is? On Saturday night we went and had dinner with Cheryl and Morne Hobson, who have come out with Rite Aid, like us, but just 6 weeks ago. They are staying with Cheryl’s sister and husband, Eric and Karen Smith who have been here in Lexington for about 8 years – now for the small world part – Eric was in my pharmacy class at Rhodes and Karen was a year below me, but in the same residence as me! We had a really fun evening, having pap and wors plus some of Dave’s biltong, plenty of beers and wine and of course lots of good old catching up. There was another couple there last night and so Dave has found a squash partner and a prospective ‘golf coach’.
Today, we drove down to the coast to Beaufort to have lunch with another couple who have come out with Rite Aid, about 3 weeks ago – they are staying with American friends– and so we met them all. We are really starting to feel a little less isolated here in the States now.

Dave has done a web design course while we have been here and he has designed his first web site – for Express Signs! I am so impressed with him – the course was quite challenging but he has mastered it and the web site he has designed is really impressive, with interactive maps and all sorts. We are hoping that he can really make a career of this – some of the people we have met here are even interested in him doing a web page for their businesses, so things are looking good.

Our trip home is all booked and I am longing to just hug my children! The week is certainly going to fly by, but I am going to treasure every moment.

10th Update

2010-01-10T05:28:00.002-08:00

The weather this week has been really fresh with lows of minus 7 C and max of only 2 or 3 C! However there is still a perfectly clear blue sky and bright sunshine – quite a contrast for us. The houses and all businesses are centrally heated so you don’t suffer with the cold as much as we did in South Africa. But still, I hate winter and I will be very glad when this one is over – 2 winters in a row is not my idea of fun!
This weather is not the norm and it is just an exceptionally cold spell – apparently the coldest in about 20 years. The locals all say that it is about 6 to 8 degrees colder than normal.

We have booked our flight home on February 26th and we arrive in Durban on Saturday the 27th at 10pm. We will be at home to celebrate my Mom’s 90th birthday on the Sunday, which is wonderful, and such a special milestone for her. Then of course it is Mark and CJ’s engagement party on Saturday the 6th March. The party is going to be a lunch up at Heavitree Farm in Escourt and I can’t tell you how pleased I am that we are able to be there for this very special day! I will have to head straight back to the USA on Sunday 7th March to get back to work, but Dave is going to spend a little longer at home in South Africa to sort out things at home – I am very brave about this now, but I think I am going to be totally miserable when the time comes! CJ and Mark’s wedding date has been set – 31st December 2010 – all very exciting times for us. We plan to come home about the 10th December for Rayanne’s graduation, Christmas and then the New Year Eve’s wedding.

This week I had Tuesday off and I accompanied Dave to the Doctor, as he had to get a script for his cholesterol medication. We were very impressed with the doctor – he was thorough and friendly – in fact we both commented that he reminded us of our previous doctor at home, Colin Mackenzie, who delivered our children and was my doctor from when I was 3 years old. The Rite Aid medical was very good and so far we have not had to pay anything towards the doctors visit, the lab tests nor the medicine – so that is good news. This next week we are both heading to the dentist for check ups so we will see what that is like.
We have cleaned out our Christmas tree and our little home looked really bare for a few days although we have got used to it now. It is amazing how quickly time marches on.

We have just acquired a new landline – the cordless phone cost $27 and it is $25 a month and then all landline calls to 60 countries are free and here in the Sates we can phone landline and cell phones all free! So expect a few calls – our number is 1 803 233 4881. I think you put a 00 in front when dialing from SA so that will be 001 803 233 4881.

On Saturday we made a circular day trip up to Greenville, which is north east of us, and then down to Clemson and back around to Lexington. Dave had planned the whole day and we really enjoyed it. The city of Greenville has a very attractive city center with a curved suspension bridge over the river and waterfall in the central park. We had a Starbucks coffee there which was very welcome as it was absolutely freezing outside! Later in the day we stopped for lunch and our day trip ended back in Lexington at a local pub. Besides finding a fishing/tackle shop for Daryl to run and a whole host of prospective farms for Mark and Donovan to buy together, we came to the conclusion that it is cheaper to drink alcohol than coffee – our 2 coffees cost $7.50 and our 5 drinks (3 beers, a gin and a glass of merlot wine) cost $10!! Anyway, all in all we had a lovely day.

I have now completed 300 hours of my required 1 500 hours of internship so we are getting there slowly but surely. At the end of the year I had to submit my hours to the SC Board of Pharmacy for them to log.
Work is a lot more manageable and I am getting to know the customers, which is very nice, although I will have to start that process all over again when I am posted to my permanent store as a qualified pharmacist, as it doesn’t look as if I will be staying on in this Lexington store.

9th Update

2009-12-31T05:28:00.000-08:00

All the excitement of Carmen-Jo and Mark’s engagement, Rayanne coming home from UCT (albeit to a home without Mom & Dad), CJ’s birthday, the Cousin’s Christmas for all the cousins abandoned by their parents, the arrival of my Mom and Sheila here in Lexington, Christmas and New Year …… are all over now and it is back to a life of normality! It has been a very exciting past few weeks and we loved having my Mom and Sheila to visit – I really feel that my Mom enjoyed seeing where we were and left feeling a little less negative about Dave and my decision to come to the States.
The weather continues to be cold with a chilly wind, but mostly we have clear blue skies and bright sunshine, so it does not feel miserable – although it is if you try and spend any time outside!
Since my Mom left, I worked 3 long days to get in a few extra hours and then we have had a relaxing weekend. On Saturday night we had Cheryl and Morne Hobson and their 2 children for supper – they arrived here in Lexington from Johannesburg, earlier in December and Cheryl is starting work at Rite Aid in a week’s time. It was good to have some friends over and we thoroughly enjoyed our evening. Then on Sunday afternoon we went to the other side of the city of Columbia to visit Shane Gandy who has been here for about 15 years and is married to an American girl. So all in all we have had quite a social weekend. Tomorrow it is back to work. Dave is busy doing his ‘web design’ correspondence course and I am back to four 10-hour shift days a week, which is very nice as I get one day off each week as well as Saturday and Sunday. This week I am off on Tuesday.

8th Update

2009-12-13T11:59:00.000-08:00

Well, how did the last week go? Not too differently, the same Monday, washing of clothes and cleaning the flat. However, I have decided to get into Web site development, so I have embarked on a self-taught Web design on a product called Dream Weaver. I have started doing video tutorials. This I have been doing for about three to four hours a day and all is going well. Quite difficult getting the old brain going again! If this works out and I get proficient, it will give me the ability to earn a bit of an income without infringing on any USA laws.

Beryl worked four, ten-hour shifts last week and although she was off on the Monday, it was a long hard week. I really feel sorry for her and I wish there was something I could do to help, but is seems that only time will help her getting used to standing for these long hours.

Friday came along and in the evening we packed so as to leave at eight am on Saturday morning for Raymond and Sharon in Atlanta –Georgia State about a four-hour trip. Raymond and Sharon are friends of Ant and Wendy and they arranged for us to get together.

We eventually left at 8:30am and went sort of northwest towards Greenville and then down to Atlanta. The terrain was fairly boring, as it hardly changed much for the almost 530Km. But it did become a bit hillier as we approached Atlanta. We got to Raymond’s and Sharon’s at about 12:30pm and we were met with open arms. They live in a community with a large lake; their home is very nice and is exactly the sort of home that Beryl and I would like to purchase. A double story home with three bedrooms a cathedral type lounge ceiling, two garages and have an area of about 230 square metres. We had lunch and got to know each other. That evening Sharon’s sister, Margi and her husband Tom, joined us for dinner; we had a great evening with too much beer!

The next morning we had a late breakfast and then Raymond and Sharon drove us around Cumming, to give us a feel for the suburb that they live in. We returned to their home and we loaded up and hit the road for Columbia at about 11:30. We had a wonderful weekend and it was great to speak to someone who has been through the same difficulties as we had trying to settle into a new way of life. There were many moments of hilarity, I am sure we will be getting together again quite soon.

I was quite impressed with our Honda; it got just under 13L/100km for the round trip.

Just a short report back on my biltong production. The first batch that Beryl helped me with was very nice. The 2nd batch either I put too much vinegar with it when it lay over night or I did not wash off enough of the salt before hanging it, but it was over salty. But I ate it all any way. For the third batch, I got a beef roast and cut it up myself, and it has turned out fantastic. “Graham’s Biltong” beware, I am soo good !!! Ha Ha. Just a little bit of SA that I can’t do without.

Hello from B
Another week gone by and I have received my second pay cheque – YAH! It is quite nice getting paid every second week. Tomorrow we are going to buy our Christmas tree and a few other things that we need to finalize our guest room. It is so exciting that my Mom and Sheila are visiting us for Christmas – I can’t wait to see them – just wish my precious chickens were coming too! Anyway we will see them all next year.
Work this past week has been fine and I am even starting to enjoy it. Dave makes us delicious meals for dinner and does all the housework, laundry, dishes etc so I am really very lucky. In the evenings I just relax with a glass of wine, have my scrumptious dinner (that I have had to have nothing to do with) and then after relaxing for an hour or two, I put in an hour’s work on my studies. So really life is not too bad. When I am qualified next year and do not have the learning to do, I will have a fairly relaxed life! We are starting to think of all the places that we want to visit in the USA during our time here.
Our biggest challenge has really been that of starting to establish a credit rating here in the States, so that we will qualify for a home loan in the New Year. Even, sending a cheque with the application for a secured credit card (in other words, the bank stands no risk at all as we are giving them money to hold as security for the limit that they are going to put on the credit card), the Bank of America, has taken 4 weeks to finally approve our credit card!!! We are still to receive the credit card, but we can see that they are processing it through, as they have cashed our cheque! So, we are feeling very optimistic as we think we have conquered one of our biggest challenges.
We are expecting a cold wet weekend but otherwise the weather here has been fine – blue skies and sunshine but with a crisp cold chill in the air. Our apartment has central heating/cooling so inside it is always a pleasant 21 C
Our children at home are all fine. Carmen-Jo has been rated a ‘star’ performer at Deloittes and so goes into her 3rd and final year of articles with a very nice increase. Mark and her are looking at different work opportunities for them both for 2011, either here in the States or somewhere in Africa. Daryl still has his hands full with our rental properties – hopefully it will settle down in 2010 – but he is doing a good job so we are very grateful to him. Rayanne has been offered a bursary and a contract to do her articles with PWC, so she has signed up with them – she did very well in her exams coming in the top few students for Accounts and has been selected to be a tutor at UCT next year. She has also taken on a boarder mistress job at St Cyprians in Cape Town, so she has her time cut out for her next year. Donovan is going to be a boarder master at a boy’s school in Cape Town so they will both be busy with school duties etc.
So dear friends and family, Dave and I wish you a very happy and blessed Christmas and a peaceful and safe New Year. We certainly miss you all tons and look forward to seeing you all in 2010 – whether it is here in the States or in South Africa.

Below is another pharmacist’s take on his 1st few weeks in a Rite Aid pharmacy here in the States – very similar to our experiences!

Work is ok. Doing the hours. Learning a lot each day. Scripts (both new rx and refills) come in from all directions - drive-thru (drop-off and pick up - 40%), fax (10%), e-script (straight from Dr's computer to pharmacy computer, and printed automatically when it arrives - 15%), phone-in (including rx left by Dr or his/her assistant on voice mail - 10%), automatic 'courtesy refills' (if customer requests it, refill rx are automatically placed in list of rx to be processed that day, and computer automatically phones the customer to tell them their rx is waiting -10%), walk-in customers (15%). There is almost always a queue of 10 rx waiting to be processed, and average waiting time is 40 minutes i.e. no-one gets their rx right away - everyone comes back or comes in later for their rx. Strange.
They basically have a production line system, moving from right to left, with techs doing most of the work. Tech receives rx, scans the rx (if a new rx), types in the rx (or refill), fetches the items (you **have to** scan the item bottle before it will print a label), claims from medical aid, prints the labels and puts it in a basket. Another tech counts, packs and labels the items and places them back in the basket. Pharmacist, on the right, does QA (quality assurance) - i.e. scans barcode on label to call up the rx, including a scanned copy of the rx, checks the items, labeling, etc. and okays it. Pharmacist is entirely responsible if anything goes wrong i.e. must check correct tablets in each container, correctly labeled, etc. Only after the pharmacist okays it do the rx copies print (each item is a separate rx). The rx is then put in a clear plastic bag and hung alphabetically on racks in the 'Will Call' area. When customer calls for rx, a tech retrieves it from Will Call' area and rings it up. Each customer is asked if they want to speak to the pharmacist - very few do i.e. very little counseling done - techs can't counsel - only pharmacist or intern.
Almost no counter-prescribing - everything that you don't need an rx for is in the front shop (e.g. paracetamol, ibuprofen, flu remedies, cough mixtures, eye drops, nose sprays, etc.), and customers just help themselves. No otc painkillers or cough mixtures with codeine. No otc flu remedies with decongestants for children under 4, and law (I think ) requires you to tell the mother to take the child to a doctor if the child has flu. Flu remedies with pseudoephedrine kept in dispensary, and customer has to give name and address, date of birth, etc. with limit on quantities per pack per customer per 48 hours.
Medicine prices are horrendously expensive e.g. generic Ventolin aerosol $39, 60 metformin 500mg ER $69, 100ml amoxicillin suspension $19, etc.
Put my daughter and myself on medical aid - $230 p/m and company pays in another $460.
Pharmacy sells anything that goes, including food, cigarettes and cigars, beer, household cleaning materials, stationary, clothes, videos. Big cosmetic section - all houses, and all help yourself.
A few other things take getting used to. All sorts of people have prescribing rights, for all schedules (within the scope of their practice) - physician assistants (diagnose and prescribe, under supervision of a physician), podiatrists, osteopaths, opticians, nurses.
Had to learn a few new words:
line, not queue
last name, not surname
refill, not repeat
pick up, not collecting or calling (which means phoning)
thirrrrty, not thirty (which they hear as 13)
forrrrtry, not forty (which they hear as 14)
When you get in someone's way you say 'excuse me', not 'sorry'. You also move to the right, not the left to get out their way (because they drive on the right)
No burglar bars (when you open a window, you really open it), no fences between houses, no security at banks, the word 'theft' is not mentioned in your car insurance policy (it falls in the category 'loss other than by collision').
...

7th Update

2009-12-10T17:27:00.001-08:00

Well another week has gone by. The weather has cooled somewhat this past week, today was a beautiful clear day with sunshine and blue skies but it was only a maximum of 14 C. Today was Thanksgiving – our first in America. We have a lot to be thankful for, our health and that of our family and friends. This past week, we heard of the sad passing of a friend of ours, Colin Ball, from the caravan club – life is certainly short and one does not know what is waiting around the corner? Just 6 months ago, Colin was fit and healthy. So we all must treasure each and every day of this journey.
We had a quiet day at home, chatting to friends and having a long chat to Carmen-Jo, which was lovely. This afternoon we went for a cycle down the road through all the parking lots of the shopping area – it is only today and Christmas day, that most shops are closed – so we could cycle past all the shops without having to worry about traffic. We saw through the windows of a few shops that we as yet have not even had a chance to go into. We didn’t do the turkey thing today cos otherwise we would have been eating left over turkey for a month! However we are quite into pumpkin pie! At first Dave was reluctant to try it, but now it is one of our favourite American treats – with ice cream after dinner! Pumpkins seem to feature quite prominently in Americans lives – there is Halloween, pumpkin pie and at the moment Dave is watching a TV programme called ‘punkin chunkin’ – that is, catapulting a pumpkin as far as possible using only mechanical devices, nothing explosive. There is apparently a world championship held here in the States annually, although we don’t think there is anywhere else in the world that they hurl pumpkins into the air?? Dave thinks this is just such fun and he is fascinated by all the devices these people build to launch their pumpkins! So, I guess we will be heading to the Punkin Chunkin Championships next year, the first weekend of November, as it is up the East coast towards New York, and within range of us for a weekend away.

Work is getting more manageable each day, as I learn more and more, and get used to working for 10 hours straight on my feet. The good thing about the work schedule is that I only work 4 days a week and have 3 off, so that is great. The control of medicines like our schedule 2 Sinutab etc is even more stringent than I realized last week – when the customers photo id (driver’s license) is swiped through the cash register, there is actually a central computer that logs that particular customers purchases in the state, for the day, and if they have bought elsewhere that day, their sale is declined! This is amazing and would stop all the people who are addicted to certain cough mixtures etc from being able to go from pharmacy to pharmacy, as they do in SA, and apparently used to do here. This central checking system is quite new here and on Tuesday I had my first experience of a sale being declined – the guy wanting to make the purchase was just as surprised as me, but he accepted the news very well – in fact he laughed, and the pharmacist said he will probably just try and go to a smaller independent pharmacy that may not be integrated into the system yet!
Jeff, the letting agent at our complex, who has been a mine of information, told us about ‘Black Friday’ a couple of weeks ago, but now we are seeing it in action. The Friday after Thanksgiving is called Black Friday. The shops all have incredible discounts and specials from, wait for it, 4 or 4.30am till 11am or noon!! Apparently people sometimes get injured in the crush and there are lines of people waiting to get into the stores from before 4am! We have received piles of trash mail with all the specials advertised. I am working tomorrow and Dave says he is going nowhere near shops, so I guess we will just hear about it on the news.

I have started swotting as I write an exam in June next year – it involves pharmacotherapy (how drugs work, their side effects and drug interactions) and also safe and accurate preparation and dispensing techniques. All pharmacy graduates have to do 1 500 hours of work before writing this exam and then finally becoming registered pharmacists. However the pharmacy students do 1 000 of these hours during their years at varsity, so, the students that graduate next year in May, only have to do 500 hours before sitting this exam. I will complete my 1 500 hours by the end of July next year, and if I have passed the exam in June, then I will be a fully qualified pharmacist here in the States. A long and challenging road but all worth it in the end.
It is now Friday evening and I am at home after work. Dave and I are celebrating as I received my first pay cheque!! I also got my work schedule for the next 4 weeks and Jer, my boss, has been very considerate as he has only put me down to work 2 afternoons while my Mom and Sheila are visiting us over Christmas. So that will be great as I will be able to spend the rest of the 8 days with them. From next week, we also qualify to go onto the Rite Aid medical insurance, so that will give us peace of mind, as we have been without medical aid cover this past month of November. It was good to get my first pay slip and to see what tax etc I had to pay – they deducted 17% in taxes, so that wasn’t too bad.
Tomorrow we are planning to go for a long cycle. One thing we have noticed on our rides is the lack of weeds – the forests and sidewalks do not seem to get weeds growing everywhere. I think that the immigration and customs control must be much more stringent here in the States and so they have less alien plants – we don’t know but there certainly seems much less overgrown weed type growth around.
Well, we never got to do our cycle yesterday, as we shopped all day! We bought a bed and other furniture for the spare room plus some Christmas decorations. So now we are all set up for visitors! Today (Sunday) I have to get down to some learning and then we are definitely going for a cycle in the afternoon.

6th Update

2009-12-10T17:24:00.000-08:00

Well another week has gone by! Last Sunday we had a very relaxed day, the weather was beautiful with a maximum of just under 30 C and we went for a power walk in the afternoon over the Lake Murray Wall. This is a favourite pastime of the locals and at any time that we drive over the wall we see between 30 and 50 or so people doing this walk. It is 2 miles across and people park on one side and walk over and back again, so this is what we did. It was a good hours walk and we enjoyed it, but definitely not something to do over and over again. During our walk we saw literally 100’s of Harley Davidson bikes going past – it was a Sunday so I suppose it was a prime day for fun bike rides, but we were still amazed at the number of them.

On Monday I went for my local driver’s license, which involved the written test and then an actual road-driving test! Daunting, but I am pleased to say that I passed! I think having Dave’s experience in the matter, really helped me.

Tuesday, it was back to work and I must say, I am starting to enjoy work. I enjoy the interaction with customers. Also, during the week, I have started the ‘computer based training’ (CBT’s) and so I am feeling much more confidant each day. It is quite a learning curve to see how everything is done here. Alcohol may not be sold to anyone under 21 and any cigarettes or related purchases may only be made by over 18 year olds. As an assistant I have to get photo id from anyone who appears to be younger than 30 making these purchases, and if I don’t, I will be fired! Rite Aid has a policy of zero tolerance. Nobody complains about producing photo id, which is normally his or her driver’s license, so it is quite easy to comply. The drivers license has a magnetic strip (like a credit card), so it can be swiped through the cash register, to record that I have checked the customers age on any of these ‘restricted sales’ – certain over the counter medicines (like our schedule 2 meds e.g. Syndol and Sinutab) and the highly controlled script medicines (like our schedule 6 medicines), also require photo id at the point of purchase. The schedule 2 type medicines have to be bought in person and may not even be sold via the drive thru.
Everyday I learn something new – and today, it was that we give ‘doggie treats’ to customers at the drive-thru with little dogs in their car!!! Can you believe it? I was serving this lady at the drive thru and her little dog was at the window looking at me expectantly and even whining softly- she eventually told me that the little thing was waiting for it’s treat – and sure enough, when I handed the biscuit out, the dog took it all excitedly and jumped to the back seat to eat it. Too cute! Nobody had told me before and so quite a few doggies have gone without their treats! Pepi and Tinkerbell would love going out in the car even more over here.
I am only allowed to work 40 hours a week as an intern and Jer, my boss, is giving me 4 days from 9am till 6pm and then a 4 hour shift at my discretion. This is great as I only actually work 4 and ½ days. As soon as I feel ready to tackle a full 10 hour day, he said I can just work the 4 by 10 hour days, so that will even be better, as I will be off 3 days of the week with Dave.
The pharmacy I work at is busy, as I have said, doing about 300 scripts a day, and so we have an automated robotic counting machine with the top 200 drugs in it that are dispensed. If we enter one of these drugs on the computer to be dispensed, the robot collects the relevant drug, counts it out, puts it in a container and labels it! Not all Rite Aids have this machine – only the busy ones.

On Thursday night, Dave picked me up at 6pm and we drove straight into the Vista in Columbia downtown for the annual night street festival of the lighting of the Christmas tree by the mayor. The streets involved were blocked off to traffic and the town turned out for a street party. The pubs sold drinks in disposable cups and there were various food stalls out in the streets. Families were all out for the night and I wished that we could have been there with family and friends – then it would have been just perfect! The mayor lit the tree at 7pm, the local beauty queens were there in all their glory (remember, we used to have the Azalea Festival with Miss Azalea – Beverley was Miss Azalea junior once) and then there was a Bridal Fashion Show on a ramp in the middle of the street. I would have loved to have Rayanne and CJ with me, as Dave got a bit bored looking at all the wedding dresses! Anyway, it was all in all a pleasant evening.

How am I keeping myself busy? Well !!!, It’s not easy. I first run Beryl to work each morning. Monday is washing and cleaning day, two loads of washing, then hanging them up to dry in the apartment. The locals tumble dry all their clothes, but it seems such a waste as ours dry in a day to two. While the clothes are washing I vacuum the carpets and mop the kitchen & bathroom floors. That’s it - work done. Tuesday I change the bedding and wash that with the towels.
As for the rest of the time, I have been doing a lot of research on property websites looking for houses to buy. We are in a dilemma as to what we should get. On the one hand, property does not escalate in value to the same extent as it does back in South Africa. In fact if you bought three to five years back and tried to sell, you would loose, as property values have dropped. So, if we purchase, and after Beryl’s contract is up, we return to SA we could loose if we sold. On the other hand we could keep the property, let it and get an income from the USA. But this then presents another problem. If we spend too much, the property would not be paid for and the rent may not cover the mortgage. Perhaps we should buy a small unit and try and pay off as much as possible before returning to SA? We are really not sure which route to take.
We are very keen on getting a property on the lake or at least with a lake view. But these come at a price. A very nice 3 bedroom 2.5 bathroom, double garage home of about 600 square meters, away from the lake, sells for about R1m. The same size 600-900sq m lake view jumps to about R2.3m and water frontage starts at about R3.8m. So what do you do!!!
Thankfully this decision does not need to be made immediately and we will only be looking to buy around May- June 2010. By then Beryl would have completed her conversion process and she will be receiving full pay, therefore we would qualify for a larger mortgage. Secondly, we hope our credit rating here in the USA would have been established.

In the late afternoon I start to think about cooking. To cook for two is very quick, but I often cook too much and end up freezing enough for another meal. I pick Beryl up from work - the traffic is a bit busier at 5:45pm and it takes me about 15min to get to Beryl’s work, whereas in the morning it takes about 7min.

I go the odd morning to the small gym in our complex for about 40min, but as my friends know, this is not my favourite pastime. For the rest of the time I watch a bit of TV. However, in the near future, I am planning on trying to start doing some volunteer work, either in building or computers.

There are still motor homes around about and the other night when we went shopping at Walmart, there in the parking lot, was a huge one, parked off for the night, jacks down and satellite dish up outside on a stand! Behind the motor home, they were towing a big 4x4 vehicle – nothing shy or small about these Americans!

This weekend the weather is much cooler with a 9C min and only a max of about 20C expected tomorrow – I think winter is on the way.

5th update

2009-11-17T05:17:00.000-08:00

Well, my first day at work was over, and I was ready to take the first flight out of here! All my hopes of having some good training before having to tackle a whole new American way of pharmacy were dashed! I was thrown in the deep end – in one day I was basically taught everything, from the computer dispensing program to taking orders from the drive-thru, to calling up other pharmacies to get transferred scripts to working the fully computerized cash register! And when I say taught, I mean shown once and then told to proceed un-aided. When I finally got in the car at the end of the day, with Dave, I just burst into tears. To add to the problem, I had hardly slept the night before going to work, and so I was totally exhausted. In fact I just didn’t think that I could manage to continue with this, and had Dave offered me a ticket home there and then I would have jumped straight onto the plane and back to my chickens, who needed me at home. Anyway, after a delicious lamb curry & rice and a foot massage by my concerned husband, I felt that the next day might just be possible?

Tuesday morning, with renewed vigour, I stepped into the pharmacy, to be greeted by a jovial Anita (pharmacist) who couldn’t believe what she had done to me the day before- she had been under the impression that she had 3 days to train me, and then I would be on my own – but in the interim she had discovered from the district manager, that I had 9 months of internship ahead of me! I think this is a learning curve for everyone, as I am the first international pharmacy intern in the area. Anyway, she said she couldn’t believe how well I had done the day before and on top of it, I discovered that they had had quite a busy day, doing 146 prescriptions. Today was a completely different story – and I really felt on top of things a lot more. The computer-dispensing program is really sophisticated – repeat scripts that are faxed through come directly into the dispensing program. The computer times how long a script takes to get prepared and if it takes longer than is acceptable, the dispensary gets a ‘red clock’ instead of a ‘green clock’ against that particular script. This is just one of the ways that the district office rates the performance of the particular dispensary. Luckily, we got no ‘red clocks’ the day before!
Most of the patients call later to collect their scripts, either in person in the shop or through the drive-thru.
If a script is not collected within a day or two the computer system phones the patients to remind them to pick it up. And 7 days after a script is filled, the computer generates a list for us staff to personally phone the patient and further remind them to collect medication. After 13 days, if still not collected, the computer generates a list for us to undo the script and put the medication back into stock. This is all possible as the cash register and the dispensing computer are all linked up.
At this stage I am mainly doing the work of a pharmacy technician, which is capturing the scripts on the computer, claiming them from insurance and preparing the medication – basically doing the whole thing. The pharmacist then checks everything before it is packaged ready for collection. When the pharmacist checks, she can see the actual image of the original hand written script on the computer, a full medication history of the patient and a life size image of the colour and appearance of the medication. Both the technician and the pharmacist scan the stock bottle in and the computer double checks that the medicine being dispensed from the stock bottle is in fact the medication captured in the patients file. The computer will not accept a certain generic if another has been captured – it has to be the exact brand that was captured, not just the correct active ingredient.
When the patient receives their medication, they have to sign for it on an electronic system and this is integrated into the whole system. If they are at the drive-thru, they sign on a paper slip and we then scan their signed slip into the system, after they have driven off. If a customer wants to buy what in South Africa is a schedule 2 medicine e.g. Sinutab, they have to have photo id on them, which gets entered into the system, and they have to sign for the medication as explained above.
Rite Aid (like Game at home) have a policy of price matching, so if a script item is cheaper elsewhere (and the patient points it out to us) we modify the price to match the competitor. If patients transfer their scripts from another pharmacy to us, they receive a $25 gift card from Rite Aid, which we generate at the cash register.
Sorry if this is all too involved for some of you, but I know that my pharmacist friends back home want to know all about pharmacy in the States.

Some of the things that stand out for me, Dave: -
There are no taxies (kombis); this type of vehicle, for all intensive purposes, does not exist!
There are almost no pedestrians as everyone drives.
No litter and this is especially noticeable on the open roads between towns & cities.
There are so many trees.
At least 80% of all vehicles are V8.
There is no wash line to hang out your cloths in the complex as everyone uses tumble driers – we have bought a clotheshorse and most of our things dry overnight in our spare bedroom with the window open.
There are no fences separating properties or on the road frontage, but there are some signs (small ones 10cm high) saying ‘virtual fence.’
No petrol attendants – you fill up yourself.
Most garden service companies and general workers are white.
Motor bikers riders don’t have to ware a helmet.

When you look at your bank statement online, you can see a scanned image of the actual cheque, written and signed by you so there can be no arguments.
95% of the times that you sign for a credit card transaction, you have to sign on an electronic pad and your signature comes out printed on the till slip.

Well, it is now Saturday and I have survived my first week! I spent 3 days at the Irmo store with Anita and then on Thursday, I was supposed to accompany Kristen(my district manager) for the day. Things never go exactly to plan though, and this time, it was that Kristen got sick, so instead I was told to work in the Lexington store for Thursday and Friday. This is actually my assigned store but they had been wanting to ‘protect’ me a little longer, as this store is twice as busy as the Irmo store, doing 300 scripts a day! So I have spent 2 days at my store and I am pleased to say that I really love my store. The 2 pharmacists that work there are really nice and even the customers seem great. I suppose that because I am more on top of things now, I am able to interact more with everyone. Retail pharmacy is really what I enjoy and in these past 2 days I have already had some good interaction with a couple of our regular customers. Of course, like all retail settings, some of the customers are miserable. This Lexington store is literally 5 minutes from our home, so it is very convenient. My boss is a young guy, only qualified for a couple of years! His name is Jer (I think an abbreviation for Jerry, but we haven’t had time to discuss this) and he is really nice. He has 2 little daughters, 8 months and 2 years old who are too cute. He seems to be very accommodating and has given me Monday off to go and get my South Carolina’s drivers license (as I have now received my actual SS card) and he says that whenever I need time off, I must just let him know and he will work it into the schedule. My basic working hours are going to be Monday to Friday either 9 or 10 am till 6pm. I am only allowed to work 40 hours a week while I am an intern. So when we have family and friends visiting, I should be able to work the weekend before and after their visit, to then be able to spend more time with my visitors – yah!
The other full time pharmacist at my store is a lady, Dianne, who is a little older than me, but she has only been in retail for a couple of months, before that she was in hospital pharmacy. She was very nice too. The store is open from 8am till midnight and there is one pharmacist on duty at any given time. Dianne said she works four 10-hour shifts a week – on Thursday she worked from 2pm till midnight. They all seem to like their working hours as you do get more days off, even though you work a bit longer when you do work.
I should have my employee number and be in the computer system by next week and so I will do my computer based training (CBT’s) during the course of the week. Apparently there are 3 full days worth of these CBT’s and by the end of it, you want to shoot the computer! Having worked the week already, I think the training will make more sense.

Today is a beautiful day, clear blue skies with a min of 8 C and an expected max of 24 C. We are going to the library this morning and then probably a long cycle this afternoon. We did our grocery shopping last night; only finishing at 9.30pm as our Walmart is a 24-hour store. We thought it would be quiet but even after 9pm there were lines at the tills. There are a few things I have had to learn to say – last name NOT surname, line NOT queue, check out NOT till, traffic light NOT robot. If you don’t use their word, they do not know what you are talking about? Also a biscuit is actually a scone and a scone is actually a biscuit!

Dave has had a good week and kept fairly busy with housework, laundry and cooking as well as a bit of admin this week. However next week he has to look into doing something to at least get out of the house and integrate with other people for a couple of days a week. This will have to be volunteer work and at this stage he is investigating helping with ‘Habitat for Humanity’ which is a volunteer organization which helps to build homes for the under privileged.

4th Update

2009-11-11T06:28:00.000-08:00

Mondays are laundry and house cleaning, so after gym, we put on 2 loads of washing and then Dave vacuumed the house while I mopped the kitchen and bathrooms! The entire laundry and cleaning exercise took us about 1 and ½ hours so that wasn’t too bad? I suppose with just 2 of us the amount of dirt is very reduced! Tuesdays we wash sheets and towels and then, that is us done for the week.
On Monday we went to see the South Carolina State House in downtown Columbia. The guided tours are free and it was very interesting to see the Senate and the House – politics are much more vibrant here than back home. We are definitely going to go and have a look between January and June, when they are in session. The grounds were also very nice and full of squirrels, which reminded us of Cape Town.

On Wednesday our bicycles finally arrived at the Walmart up the road from us. We were there bright and early to collect them and bring them home.

Dave assembled them and we were off on our first cycle. I was a bit apprehensive as I had insisted on us getting identical bikes, and my feet don’t reach the ground when I am on the seat! However, all was well and I absolutely love my bike. We cycled around some roads bordering Lake Murray and apart from a sore butt and tender hands (as the grips are quite rough), we loved it. There are enough hills to give you a good work out, but they are not daunting like our hill to our home in Lester Park SA. So I think we will be doing a lot of exploring on our new wheels – cheaper and good exercise and you get to see so much more than from a car.

Thursday and it was time for Dave to start a project – making his homemade biltong making machine! What fun we had going around trying to buy what we needed to make the actual machine – a plastic container, a fan, wooden dowels and an electric light, plus of course the right type of meat. The butchers here do not know what we are talking about if we ask for silverside or topside! The fan Dave decided would be best was a fan from a PC box and the power supply necessary to run it, so in the process we met a local computer dealer here in Lexington, and him and Dave were able to chat about things that interest them. Finally by the evening, we were all set and Dave started making his ‘machine’ with only my sharp kitchen knife as his hacksaw! He did really well and I have documented the whole affair on my camera. We salted and spiced the meat overnight and then hung the meat up Friday morning – Kotzes Biltong has been launched!

Every day I have been phoning the SS office to check if my number is there yet, but on Friday, we decided to pay the office another visit and then to go cycling around Three Rivers Greenway, a park in Columbia where the Broad and Saluda rivers meet and merge to form the Congaree River. Dave loaded the bikes onto the back of the truck and we set off at 8.30am. One hour later all our plans had changed – my SS number had been allocated and so we had a day of admin ahead of us. We first went to the Rite aid district office to finalize my job application papers, then the Pharmacy Board, Verizon cell phone contract, the bank and then my store to get my ‘drug test’ application. I was quite nervous about this as I thought they were going to be blood tests and even Dave felt sorry for me having to face a needle. Pleasant surprise – it was just a urine test!
So, all is on track now and I start work on Monday at 9am, although I believe the first few days are taken up with computer-based training which is great, as in the past, I have just had to ‘jump in and swim’ at any jobs that I have embarked on. I am really looking forward to starting work, well trained for the job.

Today we went and cycled along the banks of the Congaree River. It was a beautiful morning and we really enjoyed our outing. There were quite a few people walking, cycling and running and it was very tranquil. We cycled for about 1 and ½ hours and then on the way home we stopped for milk shakes – so that negated any good effects that our exercise may have had. Anyway we had a good time. When we got home we were able to sample the first of ‘Kotzes Biltong’ and it is perfect!

We are really getting into this ‘Southern’ lifestyle and I am now an avid country music fan! I have some top favourite songs already and when they come on the radio, I crank up the volume, much to Dave’s amusement, although I think he actually likes the music too! We have had a lovely time together since we got here and although we have been busy, it certainly does feel as if we have just had a good long relaxing holiday. We have had a lot of laughs together and no fights as each time, I think of being cross with him, I just think ‘what is the point? I have no one else to talk to!’ Anyway, we are about to enter the next chapter, when I start work on Monday and I hope it all works out well. Dave is going to be taking on ALL the ‘home executive’ chores and I keep adding to his list, although, as he says, I won’t know how well he vacuums etc in my absence. All the red wine with dinner etc will have to stop as I will be swotting in the evenings. So it will really be back to the real world.

3rd update

2009-11-01T04:25:00.000-08:00

Well, the past week has flown by. Dave and I have jotted down some more observations of our new home. We are really enjoying the challenge of a very different type of life – we have definitely been whisked right out of our comfort zone and almost everything poses some type of challenge – even grocery shopping is a learning curve with different brand names and different ways of the shops presenting their specials.
When we bought our Honda, they gave us a full tank of petrol, which was a pleasant surprise, as this practice seems to have stopped in South Africa a long time ago. We also got to choose between 2 designs of number plates. The one has a scene on it with the moon and a tree – I think it is what is on the SC flag, and the other is white with the USA flag flying and the SC flag and a quote ‘ We trust in God’. We chose the first one and we see that most vehicles have this number plate.

We tried to call the Social Security office to follow up on Beryl’s SS number on Tuesday and on the first attempt, Beryl held on for 45min with no luck and she finally put down. This morning, Wednesday, we tried again and the number just rings and rings un-answered. So not every thing is perfect here in the States!! Mom will be very pleased to read some criticism of the States from us!! On Wednesday afternoon we actually drove back into Columbia downtown to the offices. The lady checked everything very carefully, but could find nothing wrong with the application – she cannot understand why the computer has not allocated B a number yet? Anyway, she has lodged an inquiry and says we will hear within the week! A bit frustrating for us but Jim, the Rite aid lawyer says that these things do happen and we must just enjoy our ‘holiday’ together while we have the time. So, we have been trying to do that – preliminary house hunting in various areas, playing racquetball, checking out more furniture stores and generally walking and exploring our neighbourhood.

I had to download a 307Mb file the other day and it took 8 minutes, which is unbelievably fast.
Beef Jerky is shit – boiled meat, sliced thin and then dried with a paint-on flavour. Biltong is definitely far superior!

We get mail every day – most days there is something for us, what with bank statements, insurance policies, things from Rite aid etc – but there is also a bunch of ‘junk mail’. We have never seen so much advertising. Lots of it includes coupons that you can redeem at the various outlets.

The TV here is good with lots and lots of selection but also LOTS and LOTS of adverts. Luckily we have a PVR and so tape most programs and can then fast forward through all the adverts. If we didn’t do this, a movie would take about 3 hours to watch! Dave’s favourite channel, besides Discovery, History etc is The Green Planet Channel which I must admit, is very interesting, we never imagined all the possibilities there are to make your home more ‘green’ and we are really hoping to incorporate a few of the ideas into our new home.

Driving on the wrong side of the road is beginning to feel right! All the motorists seem to drive very well, indicating change of lanes etc. The most noticeable ‘obediance’ is to the speed limit – nobody speeds at all – they in fact all keep to the speed limit as it increases or decreases, so the traffic moves at the prescribed speed. Of course everything is in miles per hour and the speed limits alter between 25mph and 55 mph on town roads while the hiways are 60mph. Yellow school buses transport all children to and from school and whenever a school bus is stopped at a bus stop, all traffic behind and in front of the bus, stops. It is quite amazing to see!

Dave and I had our first game of racquetball today. It was absolutely hilarious as the ball is just SO bouncy! We went to the club last night and watched some guys playing to get a feel for the game, but it was quite another thing actually being on the court. The ball bounces very high and remains in play even if it bounces off the roof. It bounces so far off the back wall and does not die in the back corner like it does in squash. Of course we were both missing the ball big time, as we could not adjust to this super bounce and such increased speed off the back wall. We still had a good run around and both enjoyed our game a lot.

The weather has been great all week with clear blue skies and high temperatures of about 24 C.

Online purchases seem to be cheaper for some things than getting them in the stores. We bought bicycles online and saved $29 on each bike, that is we paid $199 a bike instead of $228. The only draw back is that we have had to wait 10 days for delivery. I wanted to buy some Youth Dew perfume and it was not available here in Lexington – we had to go to a shopping mall in Irmo. So I decided to buy it online – it only took 4 days to be delivered and by ordering online, I got a complimentary mascara, sample perfume and sample moisturizer. I was thrilled anyway, as I got a bottle of perfume and a perfumed lotion for half the price of the perfume in SA.

This morning I woke up and I could see by the light outside that it was about 8am, so I decided to get up and make us our morning coffee. When I got to the kitchen however, the TV timer was showing only 7am. Anyway, I decided that I was up and we were going to have coffee. When I took it through to Dave, he asked the time and he looked at his watch and it was 8am! Halloween was last night and it was a ‘damp squid’ for us as we only had one little ‘trick or treat’ visitor – perhaps the tricksters had come in the night and spooked our clocks? Dave got up and we googled our problem – daylight saving was the answer! In the USA daylight saving begins on the first Sunday of November and this year it happens to be the day after Halloween! So our Halloween time spooks did not exist but we had a good laugh on a Sunday morning. So now we are 7 hours behind you guys and not 6 hours - this will be until Sunday 14 March 2010 - apparently they change back on the 2nd Sunday of March each year.

Well, that’s all for now. Hopefully next week I will have news about working in a Rite Aid!

2nd week

2009-11-01T04:23:00.000-08:00

Thursday 15th Oct
We woke up early and went into the SS office in Columbia central to check on my SS no and to give them our residential address so that the card could be mailed to me. Afterwards we went to the SC Pharmacy Board to give them our residential address and we met Renee, the lady I had dealt with over the internet from SA to organize my Intern Pharmacist license. We then stopped by at Time Warner to swop our decoder for a DVR, which is like our PVR in SA.
Then, it was off to Honda Columbia to pay a $500 deposit on our Ridgeline. We have been advised to pay cash for the truck and then to use the title deeds of the vehicle to get a secured loan at the bank or credit cards. In this way we can start building our credit history. To actually take the vehicle, we obviously need the cash, which will take a day or so, but we also need insurance and to get that we need a SC drivers license. I cannot get this yet as I have to have my SS no, but Dave can get his license as he does not get a SS no. But first we had to go back to SS office to get a letter from them, stating that Dave did not qualify for a SS no. We got there just after 3.30pm and they don’t let anyone else in after 3.30pm! So that was that for the day. Anyway, apart from the deposit on the truck, today was the first day that we did not shop!
Home and a good home cooked meal followed by TV together on our loveseat.

Friday 16th Oct
Back to the SS office first thing in the morning to get the letter for Dave, then off to the Rite Aid District office for me to fill in all the application forms for employment. Once my SS card arrives, I can start the work the next day. We came home for lunch and then set off for the Motor Licensing Office in Irmo. They would not accept our lease as proof of residence – they wanted a utility bill or they were prepared to compromise on a letter from Rite Aid stating that Dave was my spouse and we lived at 121 Northpoint Drive! So off we went back to Rite Aid district office and straight back to MV licensing.
Dave had his eye test, paid $2 admin fee and did his written test on the computer. He passed and 5 minutes later an examiner called him to go on his road test. Next glitch – our rental vehicle was insured but not for injuries to passengers, so the examiner refused to take Dave! Crisis call to Kristen, my district pharmacy manager, who kindly offered to come over in her vehicle which had the relevant insurance, but she could only get there in an hour, that is by 4.30pm, which was the cut off time for road tests. So we waited and off Dave went – only at about 10 to 5, with a real butch, Gestapo type woman! She failed him – said he didn’t check over his shoulder and only relied on his mirrors – well we knew that we may have to have a trial run at this and CJ feels like she has company in the family with Dad not passing his drivers on his 1st attempt! He is only allowed to redo the road test in a week – obviously to give him time to practice his driving skills!
We came home, deflated, but after a glass of wine we had thought it through and realized that the one insurance company we had contacted had not said categorically, that we HAD to have a SC drivers license – I phoned them back and they agreed to insure us with our SA drivers licenses – hallelujah! So we applied and paid for the insurance – all done over the phone and the policy was emailed to us within 15 minutes. It is costing us $192 a month for Renters Insurance, that is household goods up to $20 000 insured against fire, flood etc – they do not even mention theft! – And the car insurance plus passenger injuries up to $100 000 per person to a maximum of $300 000. Now we just have to wait on the money we have ordered from FNB SA and money coming to us from Rite Aid.

Saturday 17th Oct
We had a leisurely morning at home catching up with admin. I also baked Jeff a chocolate cake to thank him for fetching our ‘loveseat’ on Tuesday evening. He has really been so helpful to us.
The money from SA was through but we were still waiting on the money from Rite Aid so we couldn’t go get our truck yet.
In the afternoon we took a drive around Lake Murray looking for houses for sale with lake frontage – we have set our hearts on this. When a house is for sale, the owners/agent put up a box outside with pamphlets in with pictures etc of the home and the price – it is a really good idea.
Lake Murray is a reservoir and it is approximately 50,000 acres (200 km²) in size, and has roughly 500 miles (800 km) of shoreline. It was impounded in the late 1920s to provide hydroelectric power to the state of South Carolina. Lake Murray is fed by the Saluda River, which flows from upstate South Carolina.
With 800 kms of Lake frontage, we have a lot of exploring to do and still many months to do it, but it was nice to get a feel of the places on offer. Then we stopped at Wal-Mart for a few groceries and things, I also had the need for some pot plants to brighten up our home. We bought a roasting pan and came home and made a delicious roast chicken with veggies.

Sunday 18th Oct
A real day of leisure – we didn’t even get in our car today – took a walk up to the complex office to see Jeff and to get a key for the gym, as tomorrow is Monday and our days of laziness are over, gym at 7am! We printed some photos at the business center in the complex and then walked home where I framed the photos. The apartment is starting to get some character.
At 3pm we took a walk out the complex to the shops right here just over the road. We have a store similar to the Hub, a massive ‘Exclusive Books’ equivalent, a supermarket called Food Lion, a hairdresser, movie house complex, butchery and 4 restaurants – all within a 5 minute walk from our home. Wal-Mart and a host of other stores are about 3 – 5 minutes away from us, by car. So we are very conveniently located.

Monday 19th Oct
Gym at 7am – it was good to get some exercise! Then we just had another leisurely day at home. Our TV wall unit and our other 2 lounge chairs arrived so that was exciting, but it is still another week till our bedside tables come.

Money from Rite aid is still not through so we can’t go and get our truck. After dinner we took a stroll around the neighbourhood in a different direction and only got home at 8pm.

Tuesday 20th Oct
We went to the Lexington Public Library to join – it was all done online and we had cards within a couple of minutes. The library is less than 2 miles from our home and we got some good books each.

Our flat which is on the ground floor – someone else above us
I have a nice little ‘garden’ on our veranda with a palm, pansies, hyacinth bulbs and a yellow daisy in full bloom, so it all looks very cheerful. Halloween is in full swing here and most people have ghosts, scarecrows, witches and pumpkins adorning their front verandas and the shops have entire departments with Halloween merchandise. We have bought a big bag of Halloween treats so I hope we get lots of kids knocking on our door on the 31st!
At 10pm, Dave checked, and the money from Rite Aid was through – Yah! Unfortunately because all us recruits do not have SS numbers, Rite Aid open up a very basic debit card for us all, which has severe economic restrictions. You are limited to $400 cash withdrawals and can only spend a maximum of $2 500 a day. So although we have the money in the card that we need to make up the balance of our truck price, it will take us a day or two to get it out.

Wednesday 21st Oct
At 9 am sharp we were at Wachovia Bank to start withdrawing money from our debit card and tomorrow morning we will be back and then we will have enough to go and buy Dave’s truck.

Wachovia Bank with drive thro My store, diagonally opposite the bank

When we got back the maintenance people were busy installing our new washing machine, as ours had been faulty, so a day of laundry was on the cards. Thank goodness as we were running out of clothes. It was a beautiful day with clear blue skies and a slight breeze – ideal. We got 4 loads of laundry done – a learning curve for Dave and I, as Gogo has managed this department for the last 21 years! We did quite well only making one blups – our white sheets are now soaking in bleach as we washed them with our brown towels!

Thursday 22nd Oct
After visiting Wachovia to draw more funds, we went straight to Honda Columbia to get our truck. It took the best part of the morning but just before lunch we drove out in our spanking ‘new’ truck – she is wonderful. Dave and I have separate air conditioner controls and there are lots of convenient cubbyholes and things in the spacious cab. She sails along the road and we certainly feel like we are occupying our share of the hiway! There is a big screen satellite navigation in the center – we were going to christen her Aggie Two (after our GPS that we had in Africa) but she has a much sexier voice and we have decided that she is better than Agatha so she has her own name – Sophia! There is a ‘listen’ button on Dave’s steering wheel, which he pushes once before talking, and then all Sophi’s commands can be given verbally! For instance, Dave can ask the time, change the radio station or tell her to take us home or wherever. At least when I am at work Dave will have someone to talk to! I wish husbands had this ‘listen’ button that Sophi has.

Our truck at home Sophia

After lunch at home, we went driving around the lake for Dave to practice driving in our rather large vehicle, as he is going for his driver’s license again tomorrow. One thing is for sure – he is going to have a stiff neck with all the craning around to check blind spots – he definitely won’t fail on this account again.
In the evening we drove to a restaurant on the other side of Columbia to meet up with a Travel Club, our first attempt at meeting some friends. It was a pleasant evening and definitely the way to really talk to people, but I think we will have to join a running or hiking/walking club to try and meet more active people, as these were really a bit old for us. Dave was taking his driving seriously, and only drank coke. However, I had a margarita, and was it a ‘glow fish bowl’ or what?

Friday 23rd Oct
Whoopee Dave got his license! That was the most exciting thing to happen today. I am still waiting for my SS number but otherwise we are finally feeling settled.
Tonight there is a Fall Festival gathering here at our complex with drinks and snacks and Halloween activities from 5pm till 8pm. There are 200 apartments here so hopefully we will meet some pleasant people.

Us driving into the entrance of our complex

Our first impressions of the USA – before they fade by Dave

When you get to a new country there are things that are different to what you do or have at home. Not necessarily better, but different never the less, and after a time they become normal and difficult to recall. So here are a few observations that have struck us so far, in no particular order: -

· A lot of the offices where you apply for new services like electricity are paperless, no forms for filling in, they just ask you for the info and any documentation they may need to validate you and the application. They make any photocopies they require at no cost to you.
· When shops have specials they are normally very good eg 12 cans of Coke for $2(R15.00) and ‘buy one get one free’ etc
· When you enter a business, shop or bank, you are greeted like a friend of theirs – Hi how ya doin? But we have realized that they don’t necessarily really mean it!
· Most businesses open at 9am and close between 7pm & 9pm, with a few open 24hours. However the staff don’t work long hours - they all work shifts.
· A typical workweek is 40 hours.
· The range of product is unbelievable, especially noticeable at the food shops.
· Nearly all the names of product are different, no Handy Andy, Bisto, Prestick etc etc– Prestick is blue and is called Mounting putty.
· Their level of automation is ahead of us; you sign an electronic pad for all credit card transactions, and your signature appears on the credit card slip.
· They have stock outside the shop on display for purchase which is totally un secured; you have to take it inside to pay for it. – No one is guarding or monitoring anyone, even at bank entrances, there is no security what so ever.
· When you leave the shop no one checks you purchases & slip - like Makro and other.
· They manage to have drive through for almost everything, banks, all fast food outlet, cell shops, cable TV decoder swap outs to name just a few.
· Their malls are big parking lots with the shops around the edge – you don’t walk down a passage that is under cover with the shops on the left & right of you.
· House construction is very different, few brick and mortar homes, mostly wood structure with aluminum slatted outside skin.
· Mail is big here and we get mail everyday except Sundays.
· Down the center of most roads where there are businesses shops or roads adjoining the main road they have another lane that is used by cars from both directions to move into in order to wait before turning off the main road. Or if you are trying to get onto the main road you can cross the first lane of traffic & wait in this middle lane while attempting to merge into the moving traffic. This is an excellent system.
· Most shops, offices & banks have a sweet bowl for their clients.
· Banks don’t have the funny security door to get in; there is no bulletproof glass between you and the teller (there is nothing). Also no security guards.
· All housing complexes entrances have no booms or guards you just drive in, houses have no burglar guards, security gates or alarm systems.
· Most people comment on our accent, often saying that they love it.
· You have great difficulty getting lamb or mutton.

1st week in the USA

2009-10-16T04:56:00.000-07:00

The last few weeks leading up to our departure were really hectic starting with our trip to Cape Town for Donovan’s 21st and to visit Rayanne, on the weekend of the 18th September. Saying goodbye to our beloved chickens is not an easy task! Anyway we had a fantastic weekend in Cape Town and we will see Rayanne in the USA in June 2010, so that is something to look forward to.
The next weekend we went to Escourt to see Mark and his folks and then on the Sunday we went down to Ballito to say goodbye to the Adnams and Castles – all difficult good byes – it is going to be hard to find such good friends on the other side of the world!
Wednesday 30th Sept was my last day at work and I was totally over whelmed by the farewell that I got from all the staff. In the evening we went to Kloof to say goodbye to Rob & Mel and to pick up Trevor and Judy who were visiting from Scotland. The next 4 days we spent some quality time with our parents, siblings and children.
Tuesday the 6th Oct we had our close friends around for dinner at our home and a very good time was had by all, especially Norman and Dave who had had a pub lunch since 1pm and just carried straight through! We really hope to see all our friends at our new home in the next 4 years.
All too soon it was Wednesday morning and we were saying our farewells to our parents – it is very hard for them and I am so sorry that our lives have worked out this way but Dave and I really feel that this is the best move for us and so we will just make sure that we keep in good contact and hopefully it will be a little easier for our folks to bear. Daryl and CJ took us to the airport – not a morning that we ever want to endure again.
We flew at 13.55 to Jhb and left Jhb at 5.30pm stopping in Dakar to re-fuel and landing in Washington at 6.30 am Thursday morning although we had been in the plane 19 hours! We had to collect our big bags to clear customs, but immedietly after customs, they went back onto a conveyer and we just hoped and prayed that they knew where they were going! Dave and I boarded the plane for Columbia at 8.30am and we landed in our new home town at 10.00am. Here is Dave in Columbia Airport foyer.

We went straight to pick up our car and off we set for the hotel, after a quick shower, we headed for central Columbia to find the Social Security Office. It was a 12 storey high Federal building and there was strict security at the entrance. Once we were upstairs on the 11th floor at the SS department there was a computer where you logged in and then took a seat, as you are called out by number in order. We waited about an hour but were then called into a very helpful lady who did my application on line - absolutely no paperwork was involved. She didn’t seem to worry that we had only been in the country a few hours – we had been told that we may have had to wait 10 days before applying for the SS number! The only thing she said was that as we didn’t have an address for the card to be posted to, we would have to go back in person in 14 days time.

We then set off back out to Lexington – about 15 miles from Columbia city center and where we are going to live and work. Apartment hunting was next on our agenda! The first that we looked at were nice but there was no ground floor flat available, the second was not as nice and the lady who showed us around informed us that they were income based – even as an intern, we earned too much, so that was that. Third time lucky! The Waterways was just perfect and they had a ground floor 2 bedroomed apartment so we signed the application and paid the application fee of $60 and a security deposit of $100. It was now after 6pm (midnight SA time) and we were exhausted. Jeff, the agent at Waterways was very friendly and helpful, welcoming us and giving us loads of advice about where to go for cell phones, cable TV etc etc and he advised us to go to Lizards Thicket for dinner. We found the restaurant, shared a traditional Southern meal(as the helpings are so large) and headed back to the hotel.

Friday 9th October
After breakfast we headed for Wachovia Bank on Jeff’s recommendation. There was a branch directly over the road from the Rite Aid where I will be working so we went there. As we entered the door – no security at all – the teller nearest to us called out a greeting! Dave and I took a moment to realize that she was greeting us! We told her that we wanted to open a new account and a moment later the lady bank manager came out of her office and invited us in. Her name is Vicki and she was helpful and efficient – although they always have quite a battle, as we don’t have a SS number. She opened us a joint cheque account and a savings account each. Because I am an employee of Rite Aid, I immediately qualified for a gold account as Wachovia Bank and Rite Aid have some type of association.
We then set off for Verizon, the cell phone company that Jeff had recommended. Here there was once again a computer to log into to get your queue number, and then you could help yourself to bottled water and cookies, and browse around the store. Within about 10 minutes we were helped although it did take 2 hours to sort out the contracts due to us not having SS number. We had to pay $400 security deposit on each of our phones, but this will incur 3% interest (Whopee) and we will get it back after 11 months. So here are our numbers
Dave 803 960 5138 and B 803 960 1872 The code from SA will be 001. We have discovered however, that we cannot receive/ send sms. So, the only way to sms us, is to my SA cell number that is Beryl’s and unfortunately this number will cease next year. Dave’s phone however, has data connection and he gets email immedietly on his cell phone, so that is a good way to contact us. Dave’s email is davekotze@gmail.com The cell contract that we got, gave Dave a Blackberry and me a Samsang Alias and gives us 700 minutes (any time) between the 2 of us for $100 a month. But once again they had an association with Rite Aid which gives us 20% off!
We then went back to Waterways to sign the lease and pay the pro rata rent for October of $474 and then we had to start shopping!!! First we needed a bed for the next day. We have a very good bed at home and we were not prepared to compromise on our bed so after much deliberation we settled on a bed that we both liked – it is much softer than our bed at home but still with very good support. The shop was able to deliver the next day so that was sorted.
We then headed for Honda Columbia to test drive our chosen truck, a Honda Ridgeline, that Dave had sourced on the internet. Dave was not disappointed and we basically have made our decision but we want to finance at least a portion of it, to help build a credit history, and so we have to wait for the SS number!
We then went to Harbison Blvd to start looking at things to buy and later we went to the Cracker Barrel for dinner where we once again shared a meal and then headed for the hotel to phone our parents and chickens.

Saturday 10th October
Bright and early we left the hotel and moved into our new home with our 2 suitcases each! Then off we set to start shopping but we had to be home between 1 and 3 pm for the delivery of our queen size bed! We started at Walmart and bought our bed linen, bathroom stuff, hangers and a few kitchen things like grater, whisk, can opener etc and some groceries and then went home at 1pm for lunch – cold viennas in bread rolls as we had no cutlery, plates or microwave – so this was all we could think of. Our bed was delivered and then off we went to Bed, Bath & Beyond where we bought a frying pan, crockery, cutlery, toilet brushes, pressure cooker, clotheshorse etc. Then onto Target where we bought other odds and sods as well as our microwave which was on special – a Panasonic Inverter which we had seen at Walmart for $184 but we got at Target for $89!! We shopped non-stop until about 8.30 pm and then went home for our pizza (ready made from Walmart just had to be popped in the oven) and a bottle of Merlot - enjoyed sitting on the floor! We phoned Kevin and Steph who are 1 and ½ hours from us in the mountains, and they arrived 10 days before us. It was good to chat to them and we will probably go visit them next weekend.

The apartment comes with fridge, stove, dishwasher, washing machine and tumble drier.

Sunday 11th Oct
Grocery shopping all morning at Walmart and Publix which is more like our Woollies. General shopping only opens at 1.30pm on a Sunday but goes through till 8 or 9pm. Walmart is open 24 hours a day but on Sunday morning you are restricted to groceries. Even grocery shopping is quite a challenge at 1st as nothing is packaged quite the same as at home! Prices are more or less on a par eg Nescafe Classic is R59 for 300g.
In the afternoon we shopped for toaster, iron, ironing board, laundrey basket etc etc everything that you can think of!! In between we were checking out all the furniture stores because we really needed more furniture.

Monday 12th October
We bought a small folding table and 2 folding chairs – seats at last. After that we went to Electricity Dept to get the electricity at our apartment put into our name. What a pleasurable experience – took us about 10 minutes comfortably seated in the lady’s office and all done online – total efficiency! Then off to Time Warner to get connected to cable TV and internet – they made an appointment for a technician to come out the next morning to do the connection.
At 12 o’clock we met Kristen at Rite Aid – she is my district manager and she introduced us to the staff at the store where I am going to work and then she took us out for lunch.
After lunch we went to look at more furniture stores, decided on the Lazyboy furniture and so we went to pay for our lounge suite, TV cabinet, bedside tables and bedside lamps. They were having a one-day sale so we got good discounts there (the sales lady had told us about the upcoming sale a few days before) but the bad news was that they could only deliver next Monday. After pleading our case of having absolutely nothing to sit on, the manager gave us permission to take the 2-seater couch off the floor, as normally you get furniture from the warehouse, but now we had to find someone with a truck. Jeff our letting agent came to the rescue and I could literally have kissed him on Tuesday night when he came with us after his work finished, to fetch our ‘loveseat’ as they call it here!
Me sitting in our new lounge suite while Myra, the sales lady processes the sale.

After making the furniture purchase, we had to go to Walmart to buy the TV Dave had selected, to have it at home for the Time Warner technician in the morning.

Tuesday 13th Oct
Another day of shopping after the Time Warner technician had been. The shopping malls are not like home where you park and then walk in an internal passage with shops either side. Here they are a whole row of stores all with frontage onto massive parking lots, a bit like Makro. So you drive to the shop you want and park near it.
Of course at 6.15pm we went with Jeff to get our loveseat!

Wednesday 14th Oct
Today has been our first real relaxed day at home. We only woke up at 8am and have just generally caught up with ourselves. Thank heavens our shopping mania has been able to come to an end. Although, I have to say that we are thrilled with all our purchases.
We have just got back from dinner at a lovely restaurant in Columbia city center called California Dreaming. Cal, my HR regional manager took us and we also met about 3 other district managers and some pharmacy students that are about to graduate and become interns with Rite Aid. All in all a pleasant evening.

How it began

2009-07-19T09:49:00.000-07:00

After Beryl had signed the agreement with Rite-Aid, we could not believe what we had done on the spur of the moment. While driving back to PMB we discussed what changes it was going to make on our lives.

Some of our thoughts at the time were:-

· We are still relatively young with at least ten years of working (part time like present or otherwise) before fully retiring and we could not imagine doing what we are now doing for the next ten years. It would drive us mad.

· In order to retire comfortably we needed to pay off a loan on one of our properties, this would take ten years in South Africa.

· We have always liked to travel, so working in the USA; we could see a part of the world we have never been to. USA, Canada, South America and maybe even a trip to the South Pole.

· Like most white South African’s we too are concerned about the future of the country and this presents another option should we decide to leave South Africa.

· Our concerns were of course leaving our children, parents and friends. But time passes quickly.

· Finally you only live once, so what the hell lets go out there and enjoy ourselves.

· We felt that having got to the USA, only to find that we are terribly un-happy, we could always pack up and come back home. (And pay back Rite-Aid). After all we are not selling up anything in SA.

So what was in store for us in the short term? Well, Beryl would have to study like hell in order to write the entrance exam in New York the first Saturday in December 2008. Prior to this we could have backed out, but from this point onwards backing out would cost us, we would have to reimburse Rite-Aid for any cost that they have incurred up to that point.

Beryl was absolutely amazing and her commitment to the task of studying was unwavering. Our tickets were booked and before we knew it we were in New York and Beryl was writing the exam. To our amazement there were 1000 foreign pharmacists writing the exam in New York alone. In Chicago and LA there were also people writing the same exam on the same day, so goodness knows home many wrote in total. In our hotel Rite-Aid had twenty South African Pharmacists writing the exam. It was interesting to meet them and find out where they were going to be based, why they were emigrating etc. There was also a black South African and his wife and they were moving for the future of their children.

We took the opportunity to sight see around New York, we saw ground zero, Central park, walked across the Brooklyn Bridge, I took in a show with a difference, the Bodies Exhibit, quite amazing, the human body in different forms of been cut up, showing you mussels, bones, internal organs, etc. It was surprisingly not gaury at all. Beryl missed this because she was studding and due to write the next day or I went on my own. She is now desperate to see the exhibit for herself.

We then flew out from New York to North Carolina where we hired a car; it was the smallest that they had, a 3.5L V6 Chevy. So off we set driving a left hand car on the right hand side of the road, thank goodness we had our GPS. Thankfully we have had experienced driving on the right hand side of the road in Egypt and Europe, but driving a left hand drive car is another story, you keep looking to your left for the rearview mirror.

We drove straight to Beaufort in South Carolina (www.downtownbeaufort.com); this was where we first chose to relocate to. It is a clean pretty sea side town. We looked in on a Rite-Aid and spoke with the Pharmacist who told us that a South African girl was working in that particular Rite-Aid but she however was off duty. He informed us of another Rite-Aid in town which we went to look at and blow me down but we bump into Michelle Hudson the South African Pharmacist. She has been a great help with information about the area, Rite-Aid and relocation to the USA. While looking around Beaufort, we were lucky enough to see their Christmas parade; it was like the old days in Pietermaritzburg. The fire department, SPCA, brownies, church groups, army etc all came drifting past. The town population where all sitting on deck chairs or standing, at one stage even the town Mayor and senior staff came past on a float.

The next morning we left Beaufort for Columbia (www.columbiasc.net ), we had arranged to meet Kall the HR manager for the Columbia & greater area. He met us at one of the Rite-Aid’s introduced us to the Pharmacist showed Beryl their computer system and gave her a general rundown on what happens in their shops. We then moved on to another Rite-Aid and then onto lunch. Thereafter he took us around Columbia showing us the city centre, suburbs and also took us to city hall and we were give information books and leaflets of the city (what a beautiful building) and surrounding area.

That evening, Beryl and I decided that it would be better to settle in a bigger city, because of access for friends, family and of course us to fly in and out to South Africa. There would also be more Theaters and general entertainment in a bigger city. Also Columbia’s location to a large lake (Lake Murray) 15Km from city centre and unlike Midmar, you are allowed to build around the lake edge, makes it very attractive. So there are some really pretty homes (out of our price range) in and around the lake area. What immediately strikes you in the USA is that most homes do not have any form of boundary fences, no burglar guards and I doubt an alarm system.

The next morning we left Columbia and headed north towards the mountains and Greenville, a town that one of the South African couples had chosen. But we did not see much as it was misty and raining. So we headed for Charlotte in North Carolina. At this point we had basically decided on Columbia but we had arranged to work our way up the east coast, past New York all the way to Maine in the north. Once again we never saw a lot while driving because of the bad weather, but when we stopped for the night we had an opportunity to drive through the towns and get a better feeling of what they were like and has to offer.

We had been fortunate enough to meet in South Africa Ally Gleason a girlfriend of Sean McGladdery. She is from Connecticut. She invited us to stop over on the way north, which we did and we met her folks, some friends and family. They were wonderful and Ally showed us around the area and the beautiful coastal region. We then set off to Maine and then worked our way back to Boston where we were scheduled to leave our car and fly out from.

We took a city bus tour of Boston, but what a disaster, it was a hop on hop off bus, but it was so cold that we preferred to stay on the bus, but then the windows kept misting up so you saw nothing. Oh well!