Let's Beer It for Here!

joelene's been sick so i've had some time to myself. i figured i need to go out to the midlands to stock up on flavored coffees and so i did. the place that sells the flavored coffee is called 'the wine cellar' and it's tucked away pretty deep towards the end of the meander. i should take a picture of this place because it's so cozy. wine bottles EVERYWHERE many just going bad (or "going off" as they would say here).

the "i should take a picture" thing brings me to my first tangent. it took me two weeks but i've managed to place an order for a new cell phone. one with a camera. a 3.2 megapixel camera to be exact so the days of me forgetting my camera shall soon be over. getting my hands on a good camera was quite an ordeal. unlike in the states where you walk into a store and walk out with a phone 30 minutes later, here, no matter who you are, you need to provide a copy of your lease agreement or proof of residence as well as three months bank statements. no exceptions. now i can understand how people can walk in from some township, get a phone and disappear and never make their payments again but it is harder to get a phone than it is to buy a car. and here's a quote from a phone salesman: "a phone is easier to take out of the country". does everyone understand that one? good. vodocom wasn't satisfied that i had a letter hand-signed by one of my personal bankers at redlands saying, he hasn't been banking for three months but he's a on ok bloke. mtn didn't like that my work visa would expire before my 24 month contract would be up (in fact, they couldn't even figure out my work visa at first). so i've ordered the phone through my company. they'll deduct the bill from my paycheck. now i just sit and wait. expect to be inundated with pictures... until i'm robbed and lose the phone.


i bought a bottle of port and... 9 bottles of begian beer! after 3 months, i've finally found belgian beer. let's talk beer.

the beers that run the show here are 'heineken' (pilsner), 'caslte' (lager), 'hansa' (pilsner) and 'carling black label' (lager). now, similar to "mum deoderant" and "lux soap", carling black label is a product i'm familiar with thanks to my time with old time radio. it's not really popular in the states but the english love it so it sells here.

i'm not exactly sure how it all works but i think there's a little problem with south african breweries buying out other breweries and smothering the competition. i think hansa had leased the rights to brew heineken here but now heineken has pulled the contract saying that hansa is getting too big because of this deal. on a side note, namibia brews a 'windhoek' lager that isn't hard to find. but it's all megabrewed. so for the first many weeks here it was all lager and pilsner unless i bought something from the one local brewery (about a 30 minute drive from here) nottingham road brewery. they make a brown ale (whistling weasel) that is rich in flavor. tastes like home. few people believe that in the usa there is a huge selection of ales. nottingham road also makes a stout as does castle (milk stout). both are 7s out of 10 compared to guinness and mackeson being 10s and 11s. nottingham road only makes four beers typically. they had a pink beer i've heard last year and they commonly will come out with a fifth beer for a couple months... baited breath.

at the last company month-end drinks and dinner, kevin, who was in charge of beer couldn't find any heineken (due to that licensing problem) so he grabbed a bunch of tall 'bavaria' cans. the only wheat beer so far that i've found in this country modeled after the german style of brewing but made here in south africa. so that made me a little happier even though i've never been nuts for weisens.

but today i found three types of belgian beers at the wine cellar. duvel with it's requisite high alcohol level and two others; a golden and a brown. not cheap. they not only would cost less in the states but this duvel isn't the quality of belgian beer that you can get at trader joe's. sigh... this duvel doesn't have any yeast in the bottle so no master pour to show off to my friends. i've already taken the bottle to boozies the local liquor store across the street to say "get this beer here!". they must think the world of me there.

i also bought a bottle of south african port. here's the itemized receipt: 5 duvels. 4 other belgian beers, 750grams of gourmet coffee and a bottle of quality port. "see you next week" i said as i left.

this little mom and pops store has people walking out with multiple boxes of wine and booze. amazing. it's getting cold in south africa so this is one way to stay warm eh? it's now sunday evening and i've just cracked one of the duvels. very very good stuff. very creamy head on it, with the sweet very belgian flavor. not as good as the two beers that you can get at trader joes but i'm very happy still.

after leaving the wine cellar i stopped in at 'gunthers'. a small german eatery on a hillside overlooking some of the midlands rolling hills. the menu includes german sausages served on a roll with potatoes. i got a cheese sausage and spoke with the owner, gunther. he was in germany for world cup. we spoke about the night and day differences between germany and south africa. trains that run on time without interruption versus south africa's lack of a train system (or public transportation for that matter). gunther used to work in south africa's transport planning or something and he spoke to me extensively about suggestions he had for fixing the transportation problem in joburg and all of south africa. i had to explain that my job consists of design and not planning. it took me 1,5 hours to finish just the sausage and as i left a couple showed up and ordered 7 sausages between the two of them.

in other news, the public workers here are still striking demanding a 12% pay increase. whilst the upper-eschelon officials are giving themselves larger pay increases, they argue there's not enough money for the 12% raises. they did offer 6.5% but it was rejected. whilst there are plenty of similarities between the usa and s.a., the differences leap out at you during a worker strike. the strikers include teachers as well as the nurses at government run hospitals. deaths have been recorded due to lack of hospital workers and some people are losing sympathy for the strikers. also schools are closed and bridgit has brought her son to work the past couple of days. here's where south africa acts a little different from the usa (and more like ireland) with its strikes. here, teachers that are striking are going to work... to beat up teachers that aren't striking. the strike gets extra momentum when people are afraid to not strike.

also, i had a thought today: this country is renaming many of its streets to reflect its african pride / government. problem is the previous white government that named the streets previously had a serious lack of imagination. when someone gives you directions, the street names in howick can also be found in maritzburg and even durban (remember durban has 5 umgeni roads). so the result is directions that make you want to kill yourself. maps either don't have the street names people are giving you or worse the street signs don't match your map. also, it's not like the new government is renaming the ENTIRE street. in some case, just a few blocks get renamed. street names that change several times without you making a turn is not uncommon.

OR

today, in howick i took a right turn from "link road" onto a street called "hayfields road" (why name a street after a neighboring town?!). the street took a little loop and ended back up on itself. here's the crazy part: i did a u-turn and instead of finding myself on "hayfields road" again, i was on "tweedy road". address numbers started at 1 but before they even got to 4, the street took a little left turn and address numbers started at 1 again as the street name changed to "hyslop road". note that "hyslop road" also exists in maritzburg as does "link road".

so that's my story about roads. my new cell phone is gps enabled should i decide that i should shell out for the software. as i venture further out of pmb, i'll consider the option more feasible.

ok, tomorrow i'm gonna run to work for the second time tomorrow morning. hopefully a faster time this time... wish me luck and pray for my knees.

to wrap up, word got out in the office about my blog about my office. i never expected anyone in south africa to spend the time reading about my time in south africa... live and learn. maybe i now have some explaining to do? hopefully nobody found anything too scandalous or disagreeable in there.

as always, stay tuned for future drama!