Cricket Twenty20 World Cup in South Africa

Since being in South Africa I have become a big fan of cricket, watching and playing (Action Cricket indoors). Surely I cannot miss Twenty20 (short version of the game, very entertaining) games of a world cup hosted by South Africa.

Tickets are very reasonable, so we went to see a warm up double header in Pretoria (Pakistan beat Sri Lanka and host South Africa beat arch rival Australia) and a regular world cup game at the Wanderers Stadium in Johannesburg (Sri Lanka beat disappointing New Zealanders).

Quite an event an both times lots of fun. Check our the pictures for the Pretoria and Wanderers games.

The South African squad (Proteas) had to exit the tournament losing to India who eventually won the tournament in an exciting final against Pakistan on Monday.

And for South Africa, well, the Springboks (Rugby squad) will have to bring the Rugby world cup home from France now to make this "mad-about-sports" nation celebrating ;o)

You know you are German if...

Taken from Facebook.com (Vorlage fuer den recht billigen Abklatsch STUDIVZ.net):

1. You separate your trash into more than five different bins.
2. Your front door has a sign with your family name made from salt dough.
3. You carry a "4You" backpack.
4. You eat a cold dinner at 6pm.
5. You call your cell phone "handy" and a projector "beamer".
6. You have no problems with nude beaches and saunas.
7. You have asked your Asian-American friend, "No, but where are you *really* from?"
8. You have gotten splinters from environmentally friendly toiled paper.
9. You call an afternoon stroll "Nordic Walking".
10. You are shocked when you have to pay for dental care.
11. You own a pair of jeans in a color other than blue.
12. People start talking about Hitler and Hofbräuhaus when you tell them where you're from.
13. Tenth grade was all about dancing lessons.
14. You work 40 hour weeks and have 6 weeks of vacation a year, but complain about hard times.
15. Your childhood diet consisted of Alete and Zwieback. Your college diet consisted of Miracoli and Döner.
16. You were educated about sex by Dr. Sommer.
17. You yell at people for jaywalking.
18. You grew up watching "Löwenzahn" and "Die Sendung mit der Maus". And Baywatch.
19. You think college tuition is an outrage.
20. You routinely go 100mph on the highway and tailgate heavily.
21. On your last day of high school you made your teachers sing Karaoke and jump through hoops.
22. You wear brown leather shoes.
23. Your first audio tape was Benjamin Blümchen and Bibi Blocksberg.
24. You have ended an English sentence with "..., or?".
25. You can tell at least one Manta joke.
26. You're a college student in your 11th year.
27. Your first sexual experience was on Sat1, Saturday night at 11pm.
28. You spent hours in school learning to pronounce "th".
29. You expect chocolate in your shoes on December 6th.
30. You complain that in other countries everything is dirty

You know you're South African if...

Taken from Facebook.com (Vorlage fuer den recht billigen Abklatsch STUDIVZ.net):

1) you can sing your national anthem in four languages, and you have no idea what it means in any of them. Same goes for "Shosholoza".
2) you call a traffic light a "robot", a pickup a "bakkie" and everything remotely fun/enjoyable/tasty as "lekker"
3) your employees dance in front of the building to show how unhappy they are
4) you get cold easily. Anything below 16 degrees Celsius is Arctic weather
5) you know what Rooibos Tea is.
6) you know someone who knows someone who has met Nelson Mandela
7) you go to "braais" not barbeques.
8) you know that there's nothing to do in the Free State
9) you can do your monthly shopping on the pavement
10) you consider hijacking cars as a profession
11) you reckon that the petrol in your tank may be worth more than your car
12) People have the most wonderful names: Christmas, Goodwill, Pretty, Wednesday, Blessing, Brilliant, Gift, Precious, Innocence and Given
13) "Now now" can mean anything from a minute to a month
14) you continue to wait after a traffic light has turned to green to make way for taxis travelling in the opposite direction
15) your travelling at 120 km/h and you're the slowest vehicle on the highway
16) you know that a bullet train is being introduced, yet we can't fix potholes
17) you know that you have to take your own linen with you if you are admitted to a government hospital
18) you have to prove that you don't need a loan to get one
19) you know that prisoners go on strike
20) you consider it a good month if you only get mugged once
21) you take lunch with you when go to the Post Office/Bank/Municipality
22) you love biltong and droëwors.
23) you pay with Bucks, not Rands
24) you don't worry if you don't have a drivers license or registration disc, as long as you have a hundred bucks.
25) you consider a bakkie being a vehicle, not a bowl...
26) you can never find the street your looking for, because the street sign is always missing or unreadable.
27) Cricket and/or Rugby is all the sport you need.
28) you perfectly understand the term "Bring a chop, dop en n pop"
29) the word "Eish" makes you worry horrifically, the word "Sharp" makes you worry somewhat less..
30) the police advise you not to stop if they wave you down in the middle of the night, but rather speed past them and drive to your nearest police station.
31) you continuously vote until the right party wins.
32) your insurance is higher than the repayments on your car.
33) you start joking about the crime rate.
34) Christmas is about watermelon, beach holidays and swimming. Even though we hand out Christmas cards with snowmen on them.
35) Aussies are usually considered nice people until we play them in cricket/rugby, after which they turn into the scum of the earth
36) You know and use the term 'die ref is blind'.
37) You have no idea how to calculate miles, gallons, yards or pints. Or the Farenheit scale.
38) You actually get these jokes and pass them on to other friends from South Africa

Vodacom Country Challenge - 10k run

Last Sunday Kevin and I joined quite a few hobby runners (and professional ones) on the Vodacom Country Challenge, a racing event around the Vodacom Campus in Midrand. It consist of a 10k track, 21k track as well as a 5k fun run, we opted for the 10k one. It turned out to be quite tough due to the very hilly profile (and the fact it took place on a sunday morning at 8am! the picture was taken at about 7.45am), not comparable to the flat one I did in London or the good old "norddeutsche flachland", but lots of fun nevertheless.

We are already looking for the next one...

long time no blog...

...but there has not been much happening in July. Except a petrol strike maybe where 10% of all petrol station ran dry (including the one opposite my complex), but that was resolved in about a week.

Otherwise just work work work....

My RunX

It took a while, but here it is, my new car:

From RunX

It is a silver Toyota RunX 1.6i Sport.

I have been driving it for 2 weeks now and after numerous complaints I finally managed to get the pictures online:

http://picasaweb.google.com/bschoderer/RunX

In the end a practical decision, but I am very happy with it as it has been running smoothly for 1500 km being a very nice drive.

Schnee in Johannesburg...

...und die Welt steht Kopf. Gibts hier ja sonst nicht. Als ich Dienstag auf der Arbeit erscheine, fragt mich jeder Zweite, ob ich mich wie zu Hause fuehle. Thelo klingelt mich um 6.00 Uhr wach, da es bei ihr schneit... Dabei hab ich den Schnee selber gar nicht gesehen. Naja, zum Glueck hab ich das Foto oben von einem Kollegen bekommen.

Der Winter hier insgesamt ist (fuer mich) sehr angenehm. Nicht allzu kalt (bis auf Ausnahmetage) und es scheint so gut wie immer die Sonne, so gut wie kein Regen. Fuer mich persoenlich sehr viel netter als der deutsche Winter.