Back to reality

To anybody still brave enough to read my blog, I apologize for not making any post recently. I have returned to my "day job" of managing casinos on board cruise ships. This will be my last contract as I have taken on another job.......This one is mamoth and I'm hoping I am man enough for it. I will marry early next year as most of you reading this already knows and so I will no longer ply my trade on the open ocean but rather somehwere ese. Where that may be I can't yet say as it is a mystery even for me.
So the posts may be fewer over the next few months and maybe I won't be able to post many pictures just yet but I promise to post at least something even without any nice pictures to illustrate just what it is I see outside my porthole every day!

Keep on reading and why not tell your friends to read my travelling blog...................Some of the places I go is truly spectacular and well worth a read!

Proudly South African

We went walking around New York City this afternoon. We went walking way to far for my liking but it was good getting some very much needed excersize. At some point I have to get back into shape so that I don't make a complete hash of our wedding next year!

So as we walked down at the very most southern point of Manhattan we came across a very small park with a monument in the park. The monument happened to pay homage to the soldiers who went missing and passed away in the Korean War. The monument was pretty moving but what did surprise me was what I found on the southern wall of this monument. As you can see in my picture that I included on the wall of this rememberance was the old South African flag. It was with incredibly mixed feelings with which I explained to Ginger what all the little flags in the middle meant and also when our flag changed from the old flag to the new one. Now let me just begin by saying I'm very proudly South African and I could not be happier with the new flag we have........It is just that for the predominant part of my life I knew only one flag. The old one. I would love for these mixed feelings in me not to exist, but they do. I would love for the fear I have in my heart for my families who live there not to exist, but it does. Life throws many curve balls at us and it is how we deal with them that define us but it still can never prepare you for the duality of loving your heritage and dealing with reality!

Its a party.....a birtday party

I have to apologize as the next few blog posts will distinctly look like a travel blog but if you read my header of my blog you will notice that this would be true for at least half of what I write here......So here we go with me being a travelling boy from Johannesburg.

At the end of last week Ginger and I got to travel to Atlantic City to celebrate my 33rd birthday. We stayed at the Bally's hotel and Casino right on the world famous "Boardwalk". It was not the newest or best hotel but certainly good enough for what we were looking for. You have to forget everything you have ever read about Atlantic City and just go there with an open mind. It is sometimes overwhelming, though not as bad as Las Vegas but it is very overpowering in all senses of the word. If you stay on the boardwalk and you have a stroll on this legendary piece of walkway you notice that there is some absolute abject poverty on and around the strip area. There are more vagrants on the side of the streets than most places. Also inbetween the nice hotels there are some very poor communities living right amonst the casinos. The contrasts are quite vivid and sometimes a little upsetting. With me being in the casino industry I know that this poverty is directly related to the casinos and you don't have to look very much further than the mother and father having their 10 year old daughter sing on the boardwalk for donations to realize that these casinos have forced a family to turn to its youngest member for some form of income!!!!

Ok ok ok so it was rough to see people live the way they do but I'm not here to discuss the fiscal situation of the Atlantic City population but rather my 33rd birthday with Ginger.

We got to gamble a little (which was not successful at all but we had a great amount of fun) and Ginger also took me to a very nice restaurant for dinner. We went to one of the newest hotels in Atlantic City called the Borgata Hotel and we had dinner at a restaurant called the Old Homestead. The restaurant is predominantly a steak house but they have different fares for every pallete. Ginger got to have some Oysters from Toronto as well as the west coast of the US. True to form I got a big, juicy piece of New York Strip steak which was glorious. We got this very cute picture taken in the restaurant. Note the bull in the background which is the signature animal for this restaurant. Funny thing is the bulls name is Anabelle. Go figure!!!

Atlantic City is a great place to relax and enjoy some adult fun. There are shows, casinos, restaurants and clubs. Oh and not to forget the beach is but a few meters away from the boardwalk. Just don't have any pre conceived notions about the place. Just go there and enjoy it for what it is! Come on the hard six!!!!!!

See you when I'm 33

Ginger and I are heading off to Atlantic City for 3 days to see what things are like down in Southern New Jersey and also to celebrate my 33rd birthday!
Plenty of pictures and stories to follow.

Mclaughlin Christening

The thing about any family or church experience is that it makes you miss your family and close relatives so very much. I had the priviledge and honour to be invited to some new friends special day this Sunday. Our friends, Molly and Frank Mclaughlin Christened their beautiful twins, Margaret and Colin in St. Francis Church in Bogota, New Jersey. We were fortunate to be able to be with them for most of the day and everything went off without a hitch. There were some great snacks to be had at the Mclaughlin home before moving on to the church for the ceremony. The two bundles of joy looked fantastic in their Christening Gowns and their behaviour was nothing short of exemplary. Not a squeak to be heard from either before, during or after the big event and if we can all remember back that far it can be a pretty traumatic experience for a youngen to endure!

It was all about God, love and family and the bond these things share when growing up and growing old.................I miss all my family and friends so very much back home in South Africa but please know there is not a day goes by that I don't think about you all.

All I can say is that I'm blessed to have found a partner that I can start my own life and hopefully a family with someday.

FOXwoods

Well we travelled to Upstate Connecticut to go to the two biggest casinos in the world. All I managed to find was this one hot FOX!!!!!!!!! (And Ginger was not too bad either:o)

Golfing in New Jersey

I had the pleasure to play at one of the most beautiful golf courses in New Jersey called Skyview Golf Club. It is a semi private course in Sparta, New Jersey which is about an hours drive out of New York City.

The course is beautiful and it also has some great homes situated on the golf course. Ginger and I have already made some enquiries about home prices there as it is the ideal place to live if we do stay in this area afer being married.

Back to the good stuff.......The course is a little short for my liking and also I did not have a sand wedge in the bag of clubs I hired. This coupled with the fact that I have no idea what a "yard" measures in the metric system so I hit the ball so well that I hit it over every green I approached for the first 9 holes. The course is extremely undulating but very picturesque. (See picture of me on the par 5 fifth hole)

I also had the pleasure of having Ginger with me. She not onl shared the beauty of the course but she also donned her "caddy" hat and helped me select some clubs. Te best quote I can remember her making was on the very first hole....."Honey can I kick the ball in for you?" :o) Now that brought a smile to my face!!!

I finished the round in 84 strokes which was not too bad at all considering I had no sandy and also I had never played golf here. In fact I had never even played golf in the US before :o)

I'll hopefully be plying another round somewhere before I have to go back to work and I will most certainly post some pictures.