BCS on Breakaway

In order to give the division the opportunity to get to know each other outside the office, Glen, our executive head, took the whole of BCS (Business Consulting Services) onto a breakway to Sparkling Waters, a resort about 1,5 hours outside of Johannesburg.

Activities included teambuilding exercises, swimming in the pool (it was still quite cold though), a braai, more team games and and and... (drinking of course).

The highlight was a canopy tour sliding from platform to platform to through a gorge.

From BCS Breakaway...

Unfortunately only the early groups could go for it as the weather got worse and too rainy to continue. Everybody enjoyed themselves nevertheless, proof can be found here:

Sparkling Water Pics

Canopy Tour Pics

After the pool comes into the pool

At one of the recent Poker nights the guys to decided to play a game of pool as the warm-up with the losers having to jump into the pool (at night and it not yet that warm down here). Well, Alan and Paschal lost the bet, the results can be seen HERE.

Neulich im Gym...

...lief doch mitten in der V-Box class (thai-bo) die techno version von Bluemchens "Ich hab nur von Dir getraeumt". Und da hoert man ueberall das Land sei im Aufschwung...

Diesen Schwank musste ich einfach mal loswerden ;)

Visitors aus der Heimat

From Guys - Cape Town

My first visitors made their way to South Africa at the end of September, Andreas, Matthias and Philipp (Andreas took a bit longer due to the courtesy of Air France). I put in a few days leave and we travelled the country. Highlights included

• A South African braai
• Mixing German and Indian cuisine
• Safari in Pilanesberg
• Crayfish, (Languste), Wine tasting, Moyo’s, clubbing at the Hemisphere above downtown (ABSA Tower) and stunning landscapes in Cape Town
• Table Tennis tournament and hilarious horse riding in the Drakensberg
• Deep Sea fishing (and baiting) in Umhlanga, Durban
• A farewell evening including Poker and the Lionking at Montecasino

to name a few (feel free to add guys). The weather could have been better sometimes, but I enjoyed having you over!

Due to the huge amount of pictures being taken I had to make a selection which can be accessed in these folders:

Joburg
Safari
Cape Town
Drakensberg & Durban

From Guys-Joburg

Well done bokke!

They did it! After 8 weeks of an exciting tournament in France which gripped the whole nation the Springboks proved to be the best of the 20 teams and deservedly won the Rugby world cup 2007!

After the Saturday's victory over a better than expected playing English side in the final, gold and green celebrations lasted the whole night in the streets of Joburg and everywhere else in South Africa.

The players could be sure to have the support of a whole nation (even news presenter's and member's of parliament were wearing green jerseys to work) and being part of it is quite an experience, surely comparable to Germany winning the soccer world cup. By coincidence this will happen in this country the next time... I can't wait...

Gut Holz!

For the second time since in South Africa I played Kegeln at the German country club, this time with my colleagues from the Vodacom Web Team. Although there were some reservations at first to enter the German country club ("We will wait for you outside at the parking"), everybody seemed to have good fun while playing and having German food and drinks (My first Beck's in a while).
No surprise, the youngsters rocked the show after initial hesitations.

On the other hand I was quite surprised of the sophisticated German skills by some of my fellow colleagues, especially when it comes to ordering food and beverages ;)

To have a look at the pictures click HERE.

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)