After much deliberation, contemplation and master…ful thinking, I decided that it was the New Zealanders that were going to be honoured with the presence of Hoox. I know, they’re lucky aren’t they? It’s a damn long haul from Zeroville so they better appreciate it!
All considered, planned, booked and paid for. New Zealand… Here I come!
DESTINATION: 
My Chariots:
I went on a bit of a rant before regarding DHL and it’s incompetence of mass destruction when I had to get a package from Rome to Albania. It’s happening again. This is supposed to be in the top courier companies in the world right??? I quote from their website:
So Puccino calls them yesterday to make the arrangements (cos it’s easier for her to speak Albanian) and set everything up for a Thursday collection of documents at the South African Embassy in Rome. This way we are giving them plenty of time and notice so that the collection and delivery can go ahead unhitched.
This is what they told her: “It would be better if you email us on Wednesday to order the job for Thursday otherwise we might forget”. I mean honesty is one thing but this is just plain downright stupidity, ignorance and extremely bad business practise! So Puccino says to them, “You didn’t forget to send my passport to Singapore last time did you? How can you just FORGET?” So they ultra intelligently answer, “Well you know we have a lot of things in the system so we can’t be expected to remember and track everything can we?”
It seems they have fantastic global technology, a great fleet of planes, trucks, vans, cars, bikes and other methods of transport but what they lack severely is competent staff!
I can only wish that I was making this shit up! This is the new me so I’m not going to act on impulse and go and stab the bitch in the head with a cell phone!
DHL, you had better take care of your crap in your own back yard!
The beauty of the little red book, being the British Passport, is that it means very little consideration has to be given to travels plans including routing and destination. Most importantly, NO VISAS!
My original plan was to fly from Johannesburg to Tirana via an Istanbul layover. Admittedly this was purely out of habit as this is the way I have travelled before. And that’s they way Puccino travelled before. Something clicked in my head the day I was buying the ticket, which happened to be a few days before flying, and I checked other airlines and other routes. Well blow me down and feed me biscuits! I was expecting to pay roughly $1400 on Turkish Airlines which included a crappy layover in Istanbul. I was pleasantly shocked to see Virgin Atlantic with a direct flight to London at $590. Way less than half the price! London, here I come! With the British passport, the gates just open! Hello world!
I was an idiot! I thought that it would be really kewl to try and slum it into town along with the other young travelling backpackers on the trains and tubes etc. Perhaps in a way trying to regain my youth if not for more than just a fleeting moment. I repeat, I was an idiot! What a stupid idea! Heavy bags, rush hour on the trains, delays, tickets which ended up costing me more than I bargained for and the fact that I actually hadn’t slept properly for about a week trying to sort my life out. It ended up costing me about 20 quid and 4 hours of my life let alone the pain in my back, neck and shoulders from lugging my crap up and down a million stairs. When I asked a mini cab how much a Heathrow pickup was he said about 35 quid. For the sake of 3 or 4 pints! Arrgghhhh! NEXT TIME!!!
It was fabulous to see all the old faces. Well not old but you know what I mean. Happy Bean and Katz, Knackers and Puddle Duck, Mildew, Fairlane and J9, Stu and Hawks, Syko and of course Shazza who was kind enough to offer me a bed for 2 nights. It was awesome to be back. I say that tentatively cos I have always felt that London is a great place to visit. I stand firm in the belief that the warm and fuzzy feeling would wear off quite soon and it would be a drag to live in again!
I got some shopping done. Some drinking. Some more drinking. A little more shopping. And mostly more drinking. It was a very necessary trip career wise as well as I managed the opportunity to catch up with an old boss and discuss future possibilities! Always a good beer when money is discussed.
I knew it was going to be a fleeting trip and that is exactly what it was. I achieved a hell of a lot in 2 days and then it was time to go.
Thanks everyone for such a good time!
The pet-free house rules changed one day when the kewlest, fluffiest, feistiest cat rolled in off the road, had a quick look around the pad, hopped up on her newly favourite chair and fell asleep. This all happened in about 5 minutes. When I left the house I put her outside and when I got home she was asleep again on her chair. Crazy.
After searching all over for lost signs and speaking to all the pet shops, pet supply shops and vets in the area for a couple of weeks it was evident that this cat was not going anywhere. Not altogether a bad deal except there was always our intention to leave. Puccino was staying with me at the time and she named the cat Micho. It’s actually an Italian name, Mico without the “h” but that’s too confusing so Micho it is. We knew that Micho would have to go some day but it was in the future so no big deal. “We will worry about it when the time comes”.
The time came. By this stage Puccino was already back home so I had to deal with it. Some mates said they would take her and then changed their minds which pissed me off slightly. Anyhow, I eventually asked LNELL if there was anything he could do and he came to the party. He called his mother and made all the arrangements. Micho is now living in Summerstrand, Port Elizabeth for the time being. Hopefully when our lives settle down a bit we can send for her and ship her to wherever we are in the world. Another drag is the cost. We had no idea this fateful day when Micho walked into our house and hearts that she would end up costing so much. To ship her it has so far cost about $200 in shots and vet bills for export regulations and will cost a further $900 to fly her around the world on Lufthansa. My return ticket was cheaper! Worth it? Of course! She is The World’s Kewlest Cat after all!
After sitting at home for a while wondering what the future holds and wishing I was back on the road, I decided that it would probably be better to get back on the road and then wonder which direction I was heading. Any action is better than just sitting on your ass.
It was actually while I was in Durban for Rethom’s birthday looking down over the valleys to the sea when the decision was made. To hell will SA, time to fly. It made perfect sense to head back to Alibanya and go stay with the Flying Majmun, Puccino! Or KP (Klein Puccino) as she has been affectionately known in the past. Decision made, now action.
There wasn’t a lot to do really. Pack house, sell car, buy ticket and fly. I added the rest of the stress myself. What a wonderful idea to redo your entire kitchen with an estimate completion being the day prior departure. Not advised!
Rethom offered some sound advice: Make a list. I hate lists. Lists are for people who plan shit. I don’t plan shit. My shit just happens. I said to her, “I don’t need a list. All I have to do it this, this, this, ummm that, errr this, oh yeah and that…. Oh shit! I need a list!” God I suddenly had so much to do and less than a week to do it!
As a little insert here, there was the mission to sort out regarding Micho, the worlds kewlest cat! But that’s another story.
With the help of a few mates I got it done. All of it. It was incredible. What a buzz.
With the kitchen almost done, all my crap in my house packed into boxes and loaded into a freshly build shed outside, mates ready to move in to take care of the place, car sold and my bags 14kgs over the limit, I was ready to go.
Bye bye Port Elizabeth! Bye bye South Africa! Sort your shit out!
Ok it was a little while ago now but I never got around to writing anything about it again. As a recap, I had an issue with my drivers license in South Africa. I was overseas when the government converted the license system from a book to a photo card system. Excuse me but I never got that memo.
The end of it was my declaration that the government could go to hell and that would be the end of it. Wrong again. Don’t get me wrong, it can still go to hell but after doing a little investigation it seemed that I was screwed no matter which way I looked at it. So I went back to the Port Elizabeth traffic department and tried to plead my case. “Futile” doesn’t even begin to describe it. I would have had better luck talking to a warm steaming pile of dog turd. Needless to say what I was dreading what verbalized. “”Mr Hoox, you have to redo your entire license. Write your learners test and then do your K53 road test”. It’s no wonder why they have to put bullet proof glass windows at the desks!
In short, with a very special thanks to my friends back in Humansdorp license department, I achieved the impossible. I pleaded my case there on the Wednesday, I wrote my learner’s test on the Thursday, went for 2 hours driving lessons on the Friday and passed my drivers test on the Saturday. Street legal again!
Now the rest of the f**ckers can eat that warm steaming pile of dog turd!
Well if not, here is something to brag about. We currently have the best rugby team in the world. Ever. 2009 is the year of the South African rugby player!
Here is a great table showing all our current winnings. The best thing is, it’s only ever been done ONCE. By South African rugby! Go Bokke! Go Super Rugby!
Well I’ll be damned! I went to Woolworths the other day to pick up some great healthy fruit and veg. Yeah yeah I’m trying ok! And look what I found! Can you believe the size of these strawberries. I swear they are just like small apples!
And the Yanks think they have it bigger and better! These guys ROCK! Home gown South African fruit. Best in the world!
Today started just like any other day. Not a lot of plans with the exception of a bit of Playstation 3 and job hunting. I was successfully sticking to those plans when my phone rang. I didn’t get to the phone fast enough and it was a number I didn’t recognise so I just left it. 10 minutes later my mate Mullac called me. He had fantastic news. The call that I had missed was the Uitenhage traffic department to advise my ordeal with my driver’s license has been sorted 3 months faster than predicted. I had fortunately listed Mullac as a secondary contact in case I had already left the country.
Now I am awake and I am ready to get cracking. I was in the car in a flash and on my way to Uitenhage. All the way there I was thinking how wrong I was about this country and it’s abilities (lack of) to run a streamlined government and it’s associated services. Today I was impressed. Sadly though, my original impressions were more accurate. After standing in the queue for about 45 minutes I was issued the temporary license which is to be used while the new card license gets issued. That’s when I noticed it.
That temp license only has my new motorcycle license on it and was sorely lacking any indication of my light vehicle driver’s license. My heart started pumping when I enquired about this obvious mistake. That’s when she said, “Oh I think you misunderstood what the process is. When we sent your license details to Bisho to get sorted out, what they do is delete or cancel your license from your ID book, not give you a new one”. When I asked why, I was told because I never got it converted before so it just had to be removed from my ID book. Even after explaining AGAIN that I was overseas in 2003 when this stupid government came up with this ridiculous new 5 year money making renewal scheme system she simply said that there was nothing she could do there.
I asked with much dread in my gut what the next step was. She said, “Oh you will just have to rewrite your learners test and redo your entire K53 driving test.”
Please try to imagine how must constraint I had to exercise to remain calm and not hop on my imaginary soap box and scream at the top of my lungs exactly what I think of those people and their entire system of useless, fat, greedy bastard idiots in this useless Banana Republic that’s fast being “driven” down the toilet!
Thank God I still have my British diver’s license so I don’t need to put up with this crap. It can flush all on it’s own!
In what world is the backbone of any country’s defence allowed to strike? Oh, in this world it seems. In the crazy world of South Africa. Here we have our military in illegal protest that turned into a riot. Fantastic. What is happening to this country? It seems everyone can have a strike. Doctors, Metro Police, World Cup construction workers etc etc and now the military. The useless bastards of today’s military have demands of a 30% pay increase and suddenly it turns into a petrol bomb and rubber bullet party after destroying government property. What do they even do for their salaries?
In many countries, action like attempting to invade the seat of government is usually considered an uprising or coup and likely to to be declared mutiny or treason and punishable by death. Our police just get reprimanded for excessive force
Just to add salt to the wound, you get some prick Shaheed Mahomed of the Workers International Vanguard League saying ridiculous statements like “Soldiers should have the full right to protest as well as the right to strike”. But then again, this brain box also feels that “We fully support the right of soldiers to elect their leaders in the army and that their leaders should be subject to instant recall.” Soldiers electing the generals? This isn’t the fucking boy scouts! Oh hang on, perhaps it is!
One step closer to the Banana Republic! Whatever!
