Big nights out in Johannesburg

Arriving into South Africa

Hey again all, hope you're all good. I know before I said normal service had resumed with these blog posts, but I've actually been so crap at writing any... think it's been over a month! I'm sorry, but with November being standby month & me barely being used there wasn't much to write about! I may try write a short post about standby, what its like & how our rosters generally work for anyone interested, as had few people message me asking about that sort of thing. For now here's what I got up to in my short trip to South Africa!

Might be why supermarket took so long!

I originally was rostered a trip to Orlando, but swapped onto the Johannesburg as haven't had one, in
I think about a year, so thought it was long overdue! The flights are tough because both there & back are night flights, but in terms of the service and passenger type I think they're quite a nice flight to work. We land first thing in the morning, South Africa time, so I got to the hotel and slept for a few hours. One big reason I wanted to swap onto this trip was so I could get stocking up on wine, Amarula and little christmas gifts. The wine is ridiculously cheap, some as little as £2.50 a bottle & it's delicious! Also for those who don't know, Amarula is basically the national drink here. The best way to describe it is like a slightly fruitier version of Baileys. Really tasty & perfect for christmas! So one of the girls & me headed to the supermarket, after we woke up, to stock up on all these goodies. The plan was for me to go gym before we all met for dinner, but we got carried away in the supermarket and I ran out of time.

Sundowners on the roof

Halloumi starter

What a shame eh ha! Back in the room, half an hour to doll up & meet at the bar for pre-dinner drinks. Another huge draw to coming to Joberg' is the amazing dinners we always have here. As I'm sure you know, South Africa is known for its amazing meats and the crew nearly always meet up to head to one of our favourite restaurants for a huge steak dinner, with endless wine. When you arrive they have Biltong on the table, which is sort of like beef jerky but not as tough, its really good & I made sure to buy some to bring home. The dinner didn't disappoint either with breaded halloumi to start followed by the biggest tuna steak I've ever seen! (I don't eat meat steak which is why I didn't have that, but everyone loved theirs) with a table full of sides like piri piri chips, fried onions & creamed spinach. You have to make sure you save space though, as at the end you should get a Don Pedro. Basically an ice-cream sundae laced with Amarula. It. Is. Divine! As we now have two flights a day here there was another crew also having dinner along side us. I knew quite a few of them so when most of our crew called it a night, a couple of the girls and me merged with the others. This ended up in us going back to the hotel for a room party, where the wine kept on flowing. Not knowing when to stop, 3 of us wandered off out & were on a mission to find a club a friend had told me about. After wandering around an empty mall we eventually found it and it was actually pretty decent, busy and good rnb/hip hop music playing. Just don't ask me what time we got in, all I know is I should of left after the meal because the hangover I was about to wake up to nearly killed me off!

A bucket list moment on my safari

When I eventually woke up the next day I had one of the worst hangovers I've had in a very long time! It was horrendous! I know wine always does this to me, but didn't stop me did it! The other two girls I was out with, had a safari booked and I have no idea how they managed to go! As I've been before I decided not to join, but I will quickly mention it now as when I went before I wasn't blogging.
Crew tend to use the same company called Glen Afric, who provide quite a few different options from staying over in the beautiful lodge to just half day tours. When I went it was for a half day & you get to see rescued lions, tigers & hyenas as well as many other animals such as wart hogs, zebras, springbok & giraffes. You can also have the walk with the elephants experience, which is an incredible way to get up close with these majestic animals. It was definitely a bucket list experience and something I won't forget. The only thing is, it is a relatively small reserve, so I would still love to go to one of the huge game reserves and have an epic safari experience there.
Anyway, the rest of this trip was spent struggling in the grips of this evil hangover & trying to get my sh*t together before check out! It's amazing what a bath, full fat coke & a cheeky nandos can do to sort someone out! Another night flight home & that's the South africa experience over again. This country is really high on my list of one of the destinations we fly to that I want to try to travel in & see on a holiday to see more of it as I love what I've seen so far!

A stunning rescued albino Lion

Next up... Las Vegas!