An exciting weekend

So, yet another weekend has past and exciting things have happened that I am here to tell you about :-)

Friday started bright and early with a visit to Durban's Early Morning Bead Market down near Warwick Junction. This market is full of ladies who spend their time making beaded necklaces, earnings, hats, key rings and anything you can imagine (even a beaded vuvuzela!). These ladies travel from the northern KZN rural areas every friday and sell their items at real cheap prices, usually to other retailers who then sell them to tourists for triple the price. It is a great place, but early is key! Since it is pretty hard to park down there, you need to get there between 6:30 and 7am, however, it does go on until about 10am. I bought a zillion pairs of earrings (at R10 a pop!) and a very big necklace that I am not sure when I will wear, but it is very wonderful. Our American houseguest dropped R250 on a beaded vuvuzela...those tourists! What I really wanted was an traditional wedding hat, but practicality caught up with me because, really, when would i wear that :-) It is a spectacular place to see and I will take you down there anytime you are here :-)

As a reward for waking up so early, my dad took me out for breakfast at a little, rather strange place, called Panchimaltos. It is a dutch restaurant in the middle of town right next to the Durban court house, so you usually get a lot of lawyers and judges eating there. It is a tiny little place that you could walk straight past and has been there for the past 14 years. It has fantastic breakfasts and really good prices. Plus, if the owner likes you, he will treat you to some homemade pastries on the house. A definite go to!

The rest of Friday was spent waiting in anticipation for the Brazil Netherlands and Ghana Uruguay games. The first game...well what a surprise. We are definitely a Netherlands supporting household but, it is safe to say, we all thought they were going home. But alas they won against the mighty Brazilians! Excellent News! Then came the ever so disappointing loss by the Black Stars. Look, i don't want to talk about it...lets just say, nothing will make me happier than seeing Uruguay lose 20 nil to Netherlands!

Saturday was a market filled day once again. I went off to two markets; once called 'Green with Envy' which is mainly a food market where we bought lots of yummy humus, feta, bread, cheese and olives. Plus the best coconut and poppyseed cake I have ever had! Then onto the 'I heart Durban' market. 'I heart Durban' is an sort of marketing campaign to promote different and new things to do in Durban. They have a market and a party once a month. I like to call it 'Cape Town exporting to Durban' because it is the Cape Town arty alternative vibe. The market was quite disappointing; very small and not too exciting. But now I can say I have been.

The rest of that day was spend waiting for more soccer, which was not too exciting really. Argentina went home and Germany has shown the world that they are not to be overlooked. And Spain won, rather unconvincingly, against Paraguay. So what I thought would be a South American based semi-final has turned into something very different. I vote for a Netherlands Germany final!

Sunday was a exciting day. We went off, with some more family, to the Prawn Shack. This place is about 110km out of Durban in a place called Amatikulu, and is a remote little restaurant. It is owned by an eccentric character who life is the beach! It is a 'food experience' where you taste 7 courses over a few hours ranging from prawns (obviously) to steak, pasta, soup and desert! Its on the beach, so you can take a break from your food and go for a swim, and in Durban you can swim all year long :-)
A really cool place!

The weekend ended with a trip to the movies to watch Eclipse, the third twilight movie. Yes, i am a fan and yes i have read all the books and seen all the movies (more than once), but let me tell you...I hated that third book. I have never read a more boring piece of junk book before. It took me like six months to read because it was so dull I never wanted to read it. I did finish it unlike some of my friends who just wikipedia'd the ending because they could not bear to read anymore! It was crap! So i expected the movie to be crap too, but i was pleasantly surprised! Maybe because I went in with low expectations it seemed really good but i enjoyed it. It was true to the book, expect it left out an odd 300 pages of the really boring crap! It has lots of love- beautiful vampire and werewolf love and a tiny fight scene of like 5 minutes. If you are a fan, go watch it; if not...then i don't recommend it :-)

That's it for now,
Have a good week!