Nom Nom Nom

This one is for the foodies out there!!

 Now I am in no way, shape or form (excuse the pun) headed for a career on the cat walk or swim suit editions of Vogue and I have come to peace with this fact. So instead of trying to do an all-liquid diet, no carbs after five, a tea only day (my own invention) or my favourite: cutting out EVERYTHING that has sugar in it – yeah right – I am now happy to indulge in whatever delicious treats come my way.

You see the key is not to cut out food groups or food altogether, or tasting food and then throwing it back up again, the key is, everything in moderation. Being the little piggy I am, this is still an on-going battle I am trying to win; striking a balance. It is, however, an extremely difficult feat when your boss buys 5 cakes at a time, making sure he finds out what your favourite is first as well as the fact that the chef on board is extremely proficient at dessert-making as he is an ex-pastry chef.

As a stewardess, its difficult to make it to meal times when guests are on board because we are at their beck and call and when we do get to sit down for five minutes we stuff as much as we can down our gullets because we don’t know when we will get another chance. I suppose that is also why we get extremely fat during the winter months, we are busy preparing ourselves for the busy summers. Anyway, I have picked out my favourite starter, main and dessert that (fellow safa) Bruce Marais has made so far and thought I should share that as well as a few other amazing meals I have been fortunate enough to sample.

Favourite Starter: Crumbed goats cheese with a baked fig.

Favourite Main: Grilled duck with beetroot, carrot and spinach, topped with an orange sauce

Favourite Salad: Salmon, quails eggs, beetroot, rose petal, and truffle salad

Favourite Dessert: Chocolate fondont 

Other delicious treats!

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Villa Life

You might think this is going to be a glamorous entry because of the title, but I assure you it is far from it.

The Villa

Sometimes when people have too much money they don’t know what to do with themselves so they buy a yacht. Basically a floating hotel that can take you almost anywhere in the world at your disposal. But this isn’t always enough so,  what a lot of yacht owners do is buy Villa’s as well. And not in a different place, no sir-ee, they buy a villa that is just up the road from the port that their boat is based in because when you get bored of the boat, you go up to the villa darling. And visa-versa.

So I found myself being taken away from the luxuriously air-conditioned interior of a super yacht where my most strenuous task was perhaps hoovering, to an ancient, dilapidated building where the furniture was older than me, clearly no magic cleaning fairies lived, and had recently fallen prey to a disastrous septic tank leakage and was now entirely covered in mouldy spores.

Beautiful olive tree

It has been the boss’s family holiday house for nearly five decades and not very well looked after. The boss’s wife, refused last year to stay there and I don’t blame her in the slightest. To say it needed re-doing is an understatement. So when the septic tank burst it gave her the perfect excuse to chuck the ancient furniture and start afresh. It was originally meant to be the top three rooms but it soon turned into so much more. Luckily we were left out of most of the upstairs re-modelling but we were dragged, forced smiles and fake enthusiasm on hand, to do all the dirty work. That’s right, there we found ourselves, in the middle of what I swear were the most scorching days of the summer, carting LOADS of crap in a wheel-barrow, up and down the hill. TV’S, couches, toys, tables, chairs, paintings, crockery, you name it, we chucked it.

Poolside view

Between the sweltering heat, heavy lifting and madam’s high pitched voice in our ears, I’m surprised no-one was killed. For four whole days we continued like this. Boris was near resignation point with the shelving incident, Tom, Ruben and Al were getting seriously ripped – against their will, Lisa and I were having our ears drilled and choking on mouldy spores, and all of us felt like we were going to drop down dead if there was so much as a light breeze the blew in our direction.

There was, however, a time at the end of the day that was magical. The boss barbequed all types of meat, there was bread of every kind, tomato tartar, and of course, the cakes. We all got to enjoy the sparkling pool and a cold beer. We also played badminton and boulles on the perfectly manicured lawn. That was our silver lining. But just as we were all getting comfortable with the good life, back to the boat we went, uniform, ice-buckets, dinner service and just like that the French Dream was shattered.

The boys playing Boulles

Pool break for Captain and Lisa

The funniest moment had to be when Madam was toasting us for all our help and said: “Ah but it was fun, and I think everybody enjoyed themselves.” This statement was greeted by silence and everybody hastily took a sip of champagne before they either laughed or swore at her.

Being subjected to this kind of manual labour, which is not in the original job description can really open your eyes. And here are some valuable lessons I have learned:

1)      Don’t marry for money, it isn’t everything, in fact in the greater scheme of life it means nothing.

2)      Everyone deserves to be treated with respect, whether it’s the gardener, the garbage man or Richard Branson, they are all people with lives and families and stories that should not be judged or dismissed because of their occupation.

3)      Don’t let Tom get hold of an electric fly swatter.

4)      Putting yourself in someone else’s shoes always gives you the best perspective.

5)      There’s nothing a cold glass of wine can’t fix.

Charter madness

I’ve been a bit tardy on my blog entries because we have been on charter for the past 10 days….my first charter ever!! And man was it easy! Six Russian guests travelling Corsica, Sardinia and Cannes and lucky for me I picked the first late night and because we alternate Danny got all the drunken Jagermeister and Limoncello nights so I definitely had it good.

Erosion effects

A beautiful doorway in Corsica

We managed to have quite a bit of time off considering we had guest on board and Bonafacio, Corsica was our first stop. It’s a beautiful island that depends heavily on tourism for survival. It is a quaint, clean, fresh island home to some unexpectedly rough people so Im told – every second shop is a knife shop! You don’t want to mess with a Corsican…or call them French, even though it’s a French island and French is their native language (?). Anyway its particularly beautiful when entering the port because you can see the effect that thousands of years of erosion has had on the walls which gives the island its fresh, clean look.  The small bars, restaurants and shops on the ports doorstep are only the tip of the iceberg and if you venture up the winding path to the top of the hill you discover the real Corsica. Shops with all leather items, a beautiful greenhouse blooming  with flowers, rustic restaurants tucked away in street corners, a shop containing every kind of hat you could imagine and the best part once you reach the top are the breath-taking views. Its no wonder the island can survive on tourism alone; definitely a must-see!

Bonifacio harbour

After the guests got comfortable and enjoyed the island we headed off to Corsica’s neighbour, Sardinia. It’s a bit, for lack of a better word, weird to think that these islands so close together belong to completely different countries, Sardinia being Italian. It has a completely different feel to it; old world, rough and cosy. Porto Cervo, however beautiful and prestigious, for me, was just a glorified network of ridiculously expensive shops where credit cards go to be abused and it nearly caught me in its evil web with a pair of 270 euro Tiffany and Co’s sunglasses, and that was the discount price.  Porto Cervo was built by the Agar Kahn who is essentially a stateless king of Muslims and was paid in jewels from Muslims the world over. Needless to say he became extremely wealthy and decided to create his own resort. So Porto Cervo was born and is now a playground for the rich and famous. It is a very pretty place, don’t get me wrong and it reminds me a bit of a Smurf village, but unless you are out to do some star spotting or serious and I mean SERIOUS spending, I wouldn’t give it a must-see-before-you-die-rating. After a couple of nights there we started our trip to none other than St Tropez. Not the greatest trip I must say, the boat rolling and doing corkscrews in the waves while trying to serve tea and drinks is kind of a challenge but eventually we made it.

It was such a vaaib as soon as we entered, you could feel happiness bouncing off your skin. After a quick stop in Port we went back out to sea to a bay nearby where the guests enjoyed jet skiing, seabobbing, swimming and platform wars. I even managed to slip in a sneaky swim and the sea was gorgeously refreshing. A friends boat also pulled up alongside ours and they came to say hi on the seabob which was quite cool! Back in Port later that night I managed to get a bit of time off to see friends and take a walk around. Barbarac ice-cream was my first stop of course, try the cookies flavour if you ever go, delicious! While we were there we also managed to go into a great vintage shop called Blah Blah, Roberto Cavalli , just for laughs and continue my hunt for awesomely reasonably priced sunglasses…which was unsuccessful because we were in St. Tropez, duh!

Fireworks in Cannes

Alas our time there had to end and off we went to Cannes. A couple more days of jet skiing and swimming and an amazing and quite dramatic fireworks show and the guests were off. By the end of the trip it was a close contest about who had a better time, but I certainly enjoyed myself. So Im quite happy to say first charter done and dusted, next up is the boss and his family for 6 weeks of madness. I have been told to prepare myself so I am stocking up on plenty of chocolate and red bull. Bring it on!

The Bland Band

You know, I keep thinking that staying in Genoa will get boring but every weekend just gets better and this weekend was probably the apex…of my life. And it was all thanks to the Bland Band who are anything but!

The Bland Band -  Gustaf Jacobson,  Olle Hylén,  Anton Torstensson, Axel Öberg   

Going for a stroll, Bruce and I decided to stop for our usual at Purple Bar. “We’ll only go for two drinks” he said. “Yes”, I agreed, “two drinks ONLY”, because we all know what happens when you say “one drink only”. We both nodded very seriously. So after great conversation and our custom made cocktails we headed back home. We rounded the last corner when what do I hear? A cover of Mumford and Sons being played in the square, and I can’t resist Mumford and Sons so we stopped to listen. The next thing we hear is that the band can’t play anymore, the police were shutting them down and we had already decided that we wanted to hear more, so Bruce went over and invited them to play at La Goletta (our local jol). They were cool enough to say yes. So off we went with our new band, their cello in a pram, guitars, drums, a bango, alles! 2 drinks turned into 3, which turned into 20, we jammed to an awesome sound, drank,  chatted, laughed, drank some more and the next thing we know the sun is coming up and we had made friends for life. Axel, Anton, Olle and Gustaf are currently travelling around Europe in their camper van playing whenever and wherever they feel like, going where the wind takes them and taking one day at a time. We happened to be in the right place at the right time to be lucky enough to meet them!

Transportation for the cello

The next day was recovery day but later that evening we were ready for round 2. Bruce and I had already secured our positions as co-managers by booking them a second gig at La Goletta because we’re cool like that. This time the drinking preceded the playing and by 10 o clock things were getting exciting. They started to play, and I’m not exaggerating, literally had the entire restaurant’s attention. They blew their opening act out the water and even attracted customers from neighbouring restaurants and bars. They wowed the crowd so much so that a captain from a boat down the key actually paid them to go back to the yacht and play. We were now officially their entourage so of course we went with. So there we were, sipping free beer, on the back of a beautiful boat, listening to the greatest band in the world. Life was great. But, the sun eventually began to rise…again, so inconvenient! So we decided to all call it a night; or a day?

Portofino beach

Portofino was on the agenda for Sunday lunch so off we hopped on the ferry and no matter how many times I go there, it takes my breath away every time. After lunch at a restaurant on the harbour we took a stroll to the beach where we swam in the crystal clear blue water and lay on the beach. After a while Gustaf, Axel, Anton and Olle joined us and while I slept (like a granny after two nights of hard partying) they enjoyed each other’s company sunbathing and bombing into the water. Last to leave the beach, we stopped for cold beers and ice-cream and Gustaf took a shower in his boxers in the middle of the street in Porto Fino – we all laughed at him but he ended up being the clever one because the boys didn’t have any shower in their camper van.

The last supper

We took the train home, and had a final dinner of good old Italian pizza and rosso vino. The next day we said a final goodbye and I must admit, there was I did have something in my eye, it might have been a tear or something. After meeting these incredibly  genuine, humble, talented young men my faith in the world and its people has been restored. Even though it was a brief encounter, its one I will never forget and they are definitely memories to be treasured.  

The Bland Band are extremely talented live performers who definitely deserve a listen so do yourself a favour and check out their video’s on YouTube and like them on Facebook: facebook.com/theblandband. 

Viva Italia!!

Having lived in Italy for just over two months now, I have come to realise a few things about the Italian way of life.

First of all Italian sense of time is completely different to the standard sense of time. If an Italian tells you that they want to meet you for coffee at 19:30, they don’t, they actually want to meet at 20:00 because as they are walking down the street to wherever they need to go, they will see their uncles, brothers, wife’s cousin and stop to chat about the weather, their new shoes and how baby Riccardo is doing. So instead of arriving early and getting looks of pity from passers-by because they all assume you’ve been stood up, always plan for an extra half hour and save yourself the trouble.

Another one that can be summed up in one word: coffee. Coffee with breakfast, coffee before lunch, coffee after lunch, afternoon coffee, a Guiness with the football (which they call a long cappuccino…so basically a coffee) and a coffee with dessert of course! It is their life blood, their holy to their grail, the bread to their butter, their i to their Phone. So if you ever want to make an Italian happy, learn how to make a killer espresso and serve it hot enough to burn their tongue and they will be calling you amore before it hits their stomach.

This next one ties in with my first observation but has to be said separately nonetheless. There will be arms waving around in the air of at least five people, yelling, pointing, rude gestures and heated debates when there is a problem to solve, whether it be how to rid the country of poverty or simply which coffee machine does the best job. Italians love to argue and complain about EVERYTHING, and they like to knock people out with their ‘waving of the handsa’* in the process. In this culture a good argument must always precede any action. That is why (and this is where the time thing comes into play), any task takes ten times longer to accomplish than in the rest of the world. Do not try to rush it, you’ll only get yourself in a tizz, rather sit down, let the hand waving rage on and have a coffee.

Enjoying an apperativo in Piazza Ferarri with Seh bear! 

There are things, however, that Italians are particularly good at. The first thing that may come to your mind is food, pasta, pizza, gelato! Correct! I know because I am an expert on the matter having fed myself with these things to the point of near overdose. Luckily it didn’t go that far so I still can (and do) have a gelato every day. Other than that: apperativo’s – small snacks that are ALWAYS served with your drink at any point up until about 8 o clock. Best invention ever and should be spread around the world immediately if not sooner. In the afternoon, you’re hungry, but In the afternoon, you’re hungry, but you are also thirsty and need to relax after a hard days work, you meet your friend for a beer and BOOM you get food and drink at the same time, at no extra cost! No wonder Italians are so happy!!

This next one is for the girls. I am quite a fan of all things girlie and hence have quite a bit of experience and knowledge when it comes to hair, nails and all things Venus. So I must say that Italians know their shit! Best hair dressing salon experience I’ve had was at Mods hair, a company originally founded in Paris with branches all around the world, but I swear Genoa has the best one! The manager comes around to each individual to discuss cut and colour in depth with you so that they know exactly what you want. When getting your hair washed the chairs actually massage you and there are little chocolates in the counter you can munch on when getting a cut! Your colouring (if you choose to do any), goes into their database so they know exactly what to use when doing touch-ups. It was seriously a heavenly experience. My waxer and facialist also knows exactly what she’s doing and is not afraid to get all up in there during a Brazilian if you know what I mean!

But the most wonderful thing about Italians has to be their friendly nature. They are always interested and willing to help any stranger they meet. Even when they cant speak your language they will talk anyway and do anything they can to make sure what you are trying to communicate, is understood.

Every country has its pro’s and cons but what with the delicious food, passionate people and old world charm, Italy is definitely a winner.

*To be said with an Italian accent

Midsummer Dream

You know those weekends where you feel like you’re in a dream and at the end of it you just feel like you’ve forgotten you work five days a week and have no idea how you’re going to survive on Monday? Yeah….I definitely had one of those.

Midsummer snacks!

Flower power!

It started off with Midsummer celebrations. Midsummer is a traditional Swedish holiday, almost as big as Christmas celebrated in the beginning of the summer with traditional food, dancing and flowers. I know what you’re thinking, “It’s not the middle of summer, its only the beginning!” but the Swedish are weird and no-one knows why it’s called that (well no-one I know anyway). So Anna, Dannie and I got into it full swing and made flower wreaths for our hair, got the chef Bruce to make traditional food and got everyone to go out on a drunken disorderly missions as that is what these holidays are ACTUALLY about.

Sys

So we started off at the Purple Bar in a Piazza in Genoa, they make really awesome cocktails and the place is humming with activity. Next we hit the Shot Bar. The boys got absinthe, which they couldn’t handle and the girls of course got marshmellow shots. They, give you a marshmellow on a skewer  then light some alcohol on a flat surface, over which you braai your marshy, dip it in the shot, consume then down the shot. It.Is.Delicious. We headed to Piazza Ferarri – slightly stumbling at this stage and hailed a cab. We were off to the beach front for the raucous part of the evening and Bruce got us nicely started yelling cazzo and vaffanculo out the window to passers-by. We headed to a new bar Sys and after a bit of haggling, Tom got us nice and sorted with VIP treatment: a table and a 1.5 litre bottle of Grey Goose and mixers that came in a sparkly haze to our dry mouths. After that was an epic blur of dancing and drinking and dancing and drinking until….uh oh, too much!! Made it home just in time though…

The next day was an early start and a four hour drive to Firenze for apartment hunting for Tom and Dannie for the end of the season. Sitting in a hot car with no air conditioning and no music is definitely one way NOT to cure a hangover. After the quickest tour around Firenze we were off to the countryside to stay at the Captain and his wife’s house for the night. Braaing ribs, watching hundreds of fireflies down in the valley and star gazing made the trip all worth-while. The next day was a late lie-in and a scrumptious breaky.

Firenze

My room in Firenze

But…its not over! We packed a picnic and headed for Pisa beach. It was packed to the max and you actually have to pay a euro each for a patch of sand, such a cheek! But once we hit the water, got some ice-creams and had quite a heated bat and ball match we forgot about all our cares and eased into the summer haze.

 But…its still not over! We made it back just in time for the England-Italy game, which normally I wouldn’t care about but Rubes and Al had money riding on it and I always love to see them squirm - mainly because they are always slagging off SA's sporting abilities. So when Italy won, I couldn’t help but laugh alone with the rest of the Italian fans. Don’t worry Rubes got his on back by ripping off his shirt and yelling: “We work on boats bitches”, (like it has something to do with anything) at the top of his lungs while standing on the bow. And with that a fireworks display erupted and we were mesmerized.  I swear I am not making this up. But come Monday morning it really did feel like a dream.  Sigh…back to toilet scrubbing I go. Until next time folks!

I AMSTERDAM!!

Dear Amsterdam,

I am sorry our time together was so short. Even though you left me liver-broken and penny-less, I will always cherish the memories of long walks in the red light district, visiting favourite coffee shops and making fun of wasted tourists while munching on brownies. You are perfect and I will think of you always, never change, until we meet again….

Train station

Ahhhh, the sweet smell of weed in the middle of the day….in the middle of the city….actually no, everywhere! When you think Holland, you think Amsterdam and when you think Amsterdam, you think red light district but there’s actually way more to do in Amsterdam and the red light district is awesome but surprisingly small.

I arrived on Friday afternoon after getting up at 5am, a change over in Rome and a hideous flight with 2 babies and a fat guy snoring and drooling on his belly, I made it! And my cousin, Alexandra (through marriage, twice removed) but cousin nonetheless, picked me up at the train station which is right below the airport. We took the train to Voorhout, I dropped my stuff off and we headed straight into Amsterdam. Some sight-seeing of random buildings obviously didn’t hold my attention and before long we were heading to a coffee shop…of course. Five minutes later we headed to the outskirts of Amsterdam and met up with Natalie (my other cousin) and her friend Sarah. Ironically we were going to the Goldfish concert. Down a path, through a park and into an opening in the middle of the forest was party central. Dutch bands playing, krokets on rolls – oh the cheesy goodness – and lots of drinks of course! We partied the night away, ‘no matter the weather’ (it was raining) and just had an all round epic time. Chilled Saturday, made a picnic lunch and headed…..you guessed it, AMSTERDAM! For a proper tourist round.

LIQUEUR

This picture really doesnt need a caption

Thats me on the E!

A stop on the pub crawl...or was it?

We started with a coffee shop…yes again, and if you ask me, don’t waste your time with brownies, just order a greencake, or smoke a joint. Next was a hubbly sesh at the Greenlight District, which is a shop, not an area, and then headed for the Bols experience (similar to the Heineken experience). And yes its an experience. It starts with a taster room where you guess the flavour, then you head into a room where you smell every liqueur they have to offer, then there is some boring movie which we skipped and then straight onto the free cocktail and shots, wooo!! Next we headed to burger king…most..amazing…meal…ever. (Note: I am a brownie, 2 shots and a cocktail down by now).  Finally we headed into the red light district for the pub crawl. I wish I could go in depth about this part of the evening but that could get pretty graphic and also….its pretty much a blur. All I know is that it lasted until 5am and we got a free t-shirt. Woke up Sunday morning for (Nat and Alex’s) father’s day breakfast. No questions were asked thank goodness and sunglasses where permitted at the table.  I already started getting withdrawal symptoms on the flight back and realised that I could easily live in Holland but not Amsterdam, that would be too much strain on the liver and wallet, and who knows, maybe that’ll be my next stop  on this journey we call life ;)