"Be Feet", Anyone?

I'm pleased to report that I not only survived the safari and didn't get eaten by lions, I also managed to survive a few bouts of food poisoning, and the HIGHEST COMMERCIAL BUNGEE IN THE WORLD!!! Ok so I was going to leave that till later bu I could not resist.

Due to the nature of our travels, it was next to impossible to stay in touch and as a result only now can I add to this blog, having travelled for 3 weeks and returned to our beloved (!) Aberdeen.

So I thought I'd start with something light, little funnies... On our long trek back to Aberdeen from Cape Town, we flew Kulula from Cape Town to Johannesburg, Jo'burg to Paris (Air France) and Paris to Aberdeen. I kid you not, I quote the air stewardess from Kulula, whilst on the flight:

"Anyone found smoking in the toilets or tampering with smoke detectors will be asked to leave immediately."

Really. A bit of unsecured skydiving is surely a bit harsh for smoking on a plane???

And then I saw this at Paris Charles de Gaulle Airport:

Be Feet anyone??

More travel gossip to follow....

Hello from Missy

Hi! My name is Missy. I am a chinchilla and my owners think I'm cute. I think they are strange, they seem to like to pick me up but I hate it. So I bounce about and bite everything in sight until they let me go...

I was born on the 1st of April 2006, but that don't make me an April fool! I'd like to think I'm very clever - I run and hide in the box when my owners annoy me. Also, I managed to plot my escape the other day by pretending to not notice the open door of my cage. Next thing they knew, I was out the door and hiding under the sofa! It took her 10 minutes but my Mommy found me eventually. Darn.

I live a simple life. In the morning when human beings wake up, I go to sleep. But I'm a light sleeper. Every now and then I wake up and chew on my bed. It's kinda cool being a chinchilla. Imagine waking up in the morning and thinking, hmmm I fancy chewing my blanket. And then you chew your blanket. And everything else that takes your fancy.

I get to run around outside in a hallway. My owners sit around and fuss over me but I just ignore them. Sometimes I walk all over them because I can. Then I get to take a bath! That's me in a bath, it's full of special chinchilla dust. I get to kick dust around and make a mess!

Anyways I must go now. My owners are going on holiday so they left me with the breeder who brought me into this world. I get to play with my chinchilla friends for a change, even managed to sneak on to use this computer! I will try to come back to give you an update soon. Till then I will be busy chewing and running around.

Shhh! It's human bedtime now and my day has just begun...

D-Day!

Tomorrow is Departure Day!! We leave Aberdeen at 11:40 for Paris, and from there fly on to Johannesburg. Oh, the anticipation...

I've spent the last few nights in restless sleeping, with the trip looming nearer and nearer. It's one thing to plan a big trip like this, quite another thing to be faced with it so soon! I suppose it's all to do with chartering into the unknown - a new continent, a new type of travel, a new length of travel, a new Hemisphere (ok not quite, I've been to Australia but still). For all my gung-ho behaviour in life, I'm pretty much a creature who prefers familiarity. What's that? Africa? I might get eaten by lions! (Speaking of lions, interestingly enough, I always assumed that lions and tigers live side by side. Hey it's not my fault, in those picture books I read as a kid, the two were always mentioned in the same breath! No one told me they live on different continents. =)

So, what's in store for the next few days... We arrive in Johannesburg on the morning of the 7th of November, where we get picked up (yeah yeah so we're spoilt). Hopefully we'll get to see the Apartheid Museum and survive the day without being mugged. Then it's off to a 4 day safari trip!

Not sure when I'll get to another computer, so wish me luck till then... =)