I'm a Fisk

For those of you who aren't aware- my sister and I have met up in Joberg and will be together until the beginning of February.  How odd is it to be thousands of miles away from home and meet up with home? It's odd- let me tell you.  I haven't seen steph for about 8 months and so we have had a great time catching up on all that has gone on in both of our lives.  Things that seem to have happened a loooong time ago in my life she has yet to hear about.  Every item of clothing we pull out of our bags gets an 'oooo' or 'ahhh'  (as girls do) because we haven't seen it before.  It's quite fun I assure you!  We haven't done anything too exciting to report on however.  We were in Johannesburg for about four days and they were spent walking around, running and relaxing.  We went to zoo lake one day- tried to get in the zoo but it was afterhours.  We actually sneaked in and thought we had got away with it but a security guard walked up behind us and being the good girls that we are pretended "Oh really? You mean the zoo isn't taking visitors after 4pm? Hmm....didn't know that!" And sadly got escorted out.  :).  At least we tried.  

Now we are in Nelspruit at the mall and enjoying free wireless.  I think this is the first free anything I have enjoyed while being in Africa. One thing you learn is nothing is free and most people usually want more than what they have.  We have no set plans while we are here and it's just the two of us.  We meet up with the rest of the world racers on Friday I believe and camp for two days before heading to Kruger National Park for a 4 day safari.  On the 29th we head for Swaziland and no I'm not sure what we will be doing there- neither is steph.  I'm not sure how long I'll be there and then I'm still up in the air as far as what I do after that.  If I find a place to volunteer I will extend my plane ticket and stay an extra month- til the end of March, if I don't work anywhere then I may come home.  Not quite sure yet- but that is the beauty of it all! 

Whit and I went running in Cape Town several times and I was starting to get back in shape, but running in Joberg was torturous for me!! The elevation was much much higher than Cape Town and I ran out of breath and my legs were burning within 5 seconds of starting to run.  Hmmmm at least I am trying to keep with it- quite the challenge and I can assure you that I hope to live in a low elevation town.  

Still loving the south african accent.   I am tempted to record voices around me in order to listen to them when I get home.  hehe......I wouldn't mind going up to some random cute guy and asking them to talk to me! 

So many thoughts are coming into my head about what my purpose was for coming here.  I  believed that just by being away from all that I know for awhile that I would get a revelation about my life.  Something like a bolt of thunder coming down and smacking me in the middle of the forehead as I'm walking through the market.  Unfortunately that hasn't happened yet- and I have a feeling that I won't really know how far I have grown until I am home and facing the same challenges that were there when I left.  I think the decisions I make and ways that I live will be affected by my time here.  I like that I have forgotten to really think about my reason for coming here.  It is slowly evolving into just who I am and not needing conscience thought.  I like that.  

Steph and I have talked an awful lot about our parents and our childhood growing up.  We both agree that we pretty much had the perfect childhood- for us- and really couldn't think of anything we would change.  We had the vacations both big and small, we had the traditions at Christmas and Thanksgiving, we had parents who loved and supported us and always let us know, we had rules to follow and knew what would happen if we broke them- usually I did just to see if any sort of punishment would actually happen- most often than not I think I perhaps "cuted" my way out of them :). I had the sort of childhood that makes me want to copy and paste it for my children.  It was that good.  Thank you mom and dad.  But the reason why I brought up my family was the fact that we realized how well rounded we are.  We have the plant lovers, the people lover, and the animal lover.   Together we are a family that loves every single thing on this earth.   None would survive without the other and they are involved in a continuous cycle that has been around for many many years.  Random I know.