Part 3…Photos and info about our temporary home in The Villages, Florida….Easy living in the US compared to life in many other countries…

Posted by worldwide-admin on May 4, 2023 with 0 Comment

The comfortable leather furniture in the lounge area. The house isn’t huge but has everything we could possibly need.

Finally, I am starting to feel better. Only out of the hospital for eight days, during which I didn’t sleep more than a few hours each day with all the noise and interruptions in ICU, and then the 35 hours journey, only four days later, I was exhausted. Last night, I slept through the night and feel much better today.

My Fitbit showed I slept straight through the night for eight hours and nine minutes, and I feel like a new person today. Then, of course, the Afib bout on the plane set me back after the six-hour ordeal. Since we arrived here four days ago, and after unpacking, organizing, grocery shopping, cooking meals, and doing the daily posts, I was wiped out by yesterday afternoon. I fell asleep several times during the day and evening.

The computer station is located in the third bedroom. The thoughtful owner has ordered a new computer which will be delivered and installed next Tuesday. That works for us! The computer wasn’t working for us to print documents.

Waking up today, I felt like a new person. As soon as I was showered and dressed, I asked Tom if he was up to going for a walk, and he was happy to do so. We were out the door in minutes for easy walking on the smooth pavement to the end of the road and then turning around. It wasn’t very far, but the round trip was a start as we’ll continue to walk each day.

When we returned, we made coffee and sat at the table on the lanai while planning the food for the arrival of friends Karen and Rich, who’ll be here next Friday. We plan to make a few Chinese stir-fry dishes which is an easy meal to make once all the chopping and dicing is done.

The third bedroom is set up as a den with a pull-out sofa and is where we store our empty luggage.

We must purchase groceries online in the future, as is the case for many residents. The golf carts don’t hold much, as mentioned, plus it’s a lot easier to have groceries delivered to the house than the time-consuming grocery shopping process.

We’d used Instacart a few days ago, but the shipping and delivery fees were high and didn’t make sense to us. Instead, we found Kroger with a monthly cost of $7.95 instead of over $30 in fees for Instacart plus a required $95 a-year membership. Plus, the first 30 days at Kroger are free.

The second bedroom is where our guests will stay. The full bathroom is only a few steps outside the bedroom door.

Result? We’ll pay Kroger a total of $15.90 in delivery fees for the remaining almost two months we’ll be here. This made sense to us. Plus, the prices at Kroger seemed lower than those we paid for Publix grocery delivery when many prices were marked up for delivery purposes.

We’ll plan to socialize and get out for dinner tomorrow and Saturday. Once our friends Karen and Rich leave, we’ll begin contacting the many people who contacted us that would like to meet us. Then, our even more active social life will begin. Surely, we’ll enjoy it.

Also, we’re especially enjoying all the conveniences we’re experiencing now. Not only is this house more well-equipped than any holiday home we’ve rented, but the simple convenience of temperature control during the day and night, throughout the house, the tap water we can drink, the massive inventory of household products available for our use and being able to watch local news are delightful.

The view from the entry to the kitchen and lounge. It’s all the room we need.

In holiday homes throughout the world, we never turn on the TV. But here, it’s fun to flick through channels and see what we’d like to watch while we’re busy working on our laptops. The WiFi is steady, the power stays on, and the weather is perfect. We spend several hours a day on the lanai, enjoying the nesting birds who’ve found a home in the perfectly trimmed bushes and shrubs.

No, there are no animals around. Today is trash pickup day, when all the residents leave their large, sturdy garbage bags at the end of their driveway. When we walked this morning, seeing all the garbage bags in driveways, we couldn’t believe that no animals would get into the bags. But, not a single bag had been ransacked for its contents. How unusual this is to us!

None of these differences encourage us to rethink our plans to visit remote locations and countries with fewer conveniences than we’re experiencing here. We didn’t plan our world travels under the premise that life would be easy. We planned to explore new horizons, which we hope to continue in times to come.

Be well.

Photo from ten years ago today, May 4, 2013:

Palais de Longchamp in Marseilles, France, is not a palace but a tribute to the importance of the water supply in Marseilles. Please click here for historical significance. For more photos, please click here.

Part 2…Photos and info about our temporary home in The Villages, Florida….

Posted by worldwide-admin on May 3, 2023 with 0 Comment

The fully-equipped granite and stainless steel kitchen is terrific, although there isn’t a specific cupboard for food storage. I will use the storage closet in the hallway for packaged items.

After an awful night’s sleep, we were out of bed by 6:00 am. We had passport documents on our minds, and knowing we had to start the process today of preparing all the necessary paperwork must have impacted our ability to sleep. Tonight’s another night; hopefully, we’ll both get a good night’s rest.

Shortly after getting up and having our coffee, we began paying for CIBT, a passport and visa processing company we’d used in the past. The cost for both passports was over $1650, including US State Department fees, which were necessary to expedite the passports to ensure we got them sent to us in time for our departure in a few months.

The four-person dining room table is of excellent quality, with beautiful placemats and napkins.

Apparently, like in South Africa, passport renewal services are grossly backed-up, supposedly due to staff shortages from the pandemic. We couldn’t risk sending our applications directly to the State Department, which could take over 90 days to process.

We both cringed about paying such exorbitant fees, which have tripled in the past few years, but this was the only way to ensure we’d get the passports on time. The process is time-consuming and cumbersome, and we still have work to do. But, after this morning, we put a good dent in it. In the next week, we’ll deliver everything to a local FedEx store and send everything to the company.

The queen-sized bed is smaller than we’re used to, but it’s comfortable along with the bedding.

Also, this morning, our first Instacart grocery order was delivered. When the order arrived this morning (we placed the order last night), everything we ordered was there except for a few odds and ends, which we can pick up next time we go out. Again, we cringed at the fees for shopping online, but in comparison to renting a car in Florida when the golf cart doesn’t have enough room for a week’s groceries, it is well worth it.

So far, we’ve spent over $500 on groceries, although we have enough food to get us through the next ten days. We’re planning on going out to dinner on both Friday and Saturday nights, a habit we acquired going to Jabula on both nights. We have a schedule of activities, including live bands in The Village, that occur every night of the week. That should be fun, along with going out to dinner.

It’s a wonderful treat having a walk-in closet with lots of hangers.

We haven’t planned any social events yet, other than with our friends Karen and Rich, coming to stay overnight next Friday. In the next week or so, we’ll start contacting the many locals that contacted us to get together.

We’ve been starting our day on the lanai and ending it there in the evenings. In the past few days, we’ve been spending time on the screened lanai, where we can watch a mating pair of birds, overseeing the care of their chicks tucked into a dense bush in the back garden. It’s small but quite lovely. Of course, there are no animals to observe other than a few birds.

There is one dresser and one chest of drawers in the primary bedroom. I am using the tall chest of drawers, and Tom is using the other. Each had more room than we needed. The en suite bathroom is perfect. Tom is using the second full bath. It’s excellent for each of us to have our own bathroom.

With Florida heating up in the spring, we keep the central air on day and night but don’t change the temperatures the owner sets. It’s actually perfect for us, and we’re enjoying the comfort day and night. We’re both still a little sluggish from lack of sleep but overall are feeling well. With the time difference from South Africa, I have been napping here and there and need to stop doing this to ensure a good night’s sleep.

This house is very comfortable, and we like everything about it. The conveniences are way more than we’re used to. We’re in awe of the simplest things many take for granted. We’ll make every effort to ensure we don’t get spoiled by the extras we haven’t had for years.

More house photos will be coming tomorrow.

Be well.

Photo from ten years ago today, May 3, 2013:

No photos were posted on this date ten years ago. For the posted story, please click here.

Part 1…Photos and info about our temporary home in The Villages, Florida….

Posted by worldwide-admin on May 2, 2023 with 0 Comment

At certain points along the golf cart path in The Villages, the scenery was lovely.

The house photos will begin tomorrow, but today we’re sharing photos from our first drive using the golf cart that came with the house to the closest shopping area in our Fernandina neighborhood of The Villages. It was pretty fun.

I am a little tentative right now after the Afib bout on the plane, but since we arrived, all is well. My heart rate and blood pressure are normal, with no issues whatsoever. Hopefully, it was a fluke. It may have been too soon to travel on a plane so close to the time I was released from the hospital, only four days earlier. The cardiologist gave me the OK to travel. My fingers are crossed that was the case. I have no interest in going to more doctors and having more pointless tests.

The golf cart paths are easy to navigate.

We had never used a golf cart except in Belize in 2013 when rental cars were outrageously priced. We rented a golf cart to get around when we discovered the first holiday home we rented was infested with insects and had running water only a few hours a day. We used the golf cart to drive to other properties until we eventually found the excellent property where we stayed for our remaining time in the country.

If you’re interested in reading that story about Belize, please see our archives for the first few days of February 2013. It was quite a strange experience when we first started out, but it ultimately resulted in a wonderful experience when we settled into the lovely Laru Beya property in Placencia, Belize.

Zoom in to see the golf cart traffic jam.

We only used the golf cart for a few days at that time. While here at The Villages, the golf cart will be our only means of transportation for almost three months. At first, before we got it going, we were hesitant that this form of transportation would be sufficient for us. But, after yesterday’s first outing, we feel okay about it and will do well getting around. It just takes a little longer than driving a car.

As it turned out, I downloaded a free app, The Villages, which provides easy directions to all locations. What was most important to us was the golf cart paths permitted for driving to any site. This app made it very easy for us to find our way to the restaurant where we had breakfast yesterday and found a Publix grocery store across the road.

The only problem with this particular Yamaha brand of golf cart which is in excellent condition is there is little room for groceries for the ride back to our place. This limits the number of groceries we can purchase at any given time. Now, we understand why so many residents use InstaCart and order groceries online. We may decide to do the same since I prefer to pick out our food. mainly meat and produce.

We inched closer to the row of golf carts and were moving along only a few minutes later.

Today, I am posting photos from our first drive with the golf cart, and tomorrow and for the next few days will add photos I took this morning of the interior and exterior of this lovely three-bedroom home. We love this property since it is in perfect condition, has central air, and is more equipped with supplies and “stuff” than any holiday home we’ve rented in the past.

Tomorrow, we’ll share photos of various storage areas in the house so you can see how thorough this owner is. Wow! It’s mind-boggling, and she told us we don’t have to replace anything we use while we’re here. Sure, we may run out of paper products and laundry soap, but we won’t have to purchase cleaning supplies and many toiletries she’s provided.

Tom had his eyes on the road while driving the golf cart.

We love sharing extraordinary holiday/vacation homes with our readers. We couldn’t be more thrilled with this property. If you are interested in renting this property in the future, you can find the listing here on VRBO.

Last night, Tom was still full from his huge breakfast at Bob Evans Farmhouse, while I had a small breakfast with an omelet. We purchased a whole-cooked chicken at the market and ate the dark meat with a salad last night. Tonight, we’re having soft-shelled tacos stuffed with leftover chicken for me and ground taco meat I’ll make for Tom. We’ll be using keto cheese taco shells we found at the market. They are only one carb each, so seeing how good they are will be interesting. I’d read about these taco shells but couldn’t find them in South Africa.

We’ll be back with more tomorrow.

Be well.

Photo from ten years ago today, May 2, 2013:

Sagrada Familia…Why is the Sagrada Familia so famous? Image result for Sagrada Familia La Sagrada Familia is a building that Gaudí masterfully designed. Despite not being finished, UNESCO made it a World Heritage Site in 1984 because of its unique architecture and how Gaudí created something so artistic and innovative. For more photos, please click here.

We made it to Florida, after a frightening experience on the long red-eye flight…

Posted by worldwide-admin on May 1, 2023 with 6 Comments

The lovely dining room is set in our beautiful new home in The Villages, Florida. More photos will follow tomorrow.

We are so grateful to have safely arrived in Florida after a terrifying event occurred on the 17-hour flight from Joburg to Atlanta. We’d had dinner at the airport restaurant, but the food was mediocre. I only had a grilled chicken salad and a pot of chamomile tea since I hadn’t had any wine since the heart event over a week ago.

Finally, after the five-hour layover, it was time to board the plane, and we were anxious to get to our seats and relax. We hadn’t booked our seats together. We booked a seat with two other empty seats beside us, which worked out for me but not for Tom, who was two rows directly behind me. Someone else had booked one of the three seats where Tom was situated, and he wasn’t ever able to lie down, although I was.

The flight took off about 20 minutes late, but the huge plane finally took off smoothly without incident. I was thrilled to have two empty seats next to me so that when I was tired enough, I could lie down on the three seats with the blankets and pillows provided for all three seats.

About half an hour into the flight, I noticed my pulse suddenly increased. It started at about 100 bpm and, within a short period, it had escalated to 160. OMG, I was terrified. I was afraid to have Tom get the blood pressure cuff out of the bag in my carry-on bag in the overhead compartment. My pulse alone was high enough to convince me that my blood pressure was equally high, and seeing it would only create more anxiety, possibly making it worse.

As stressful as the concept of this long journey was only three days after getting out of ICU in hospital, I felt very calm and at ease about traveling. Sure, I’d considered that something could occur on the plane, but I wasn’t stressing about it by any means. I knew it was afib and not an anxiety attack which I don’t experience.

As the event escalated, I imagined how awful it would be if I told the flight attendant I was having a heart-related crisis and the plane had to turn back. Oh, good grief, that would not be very good. Besides, even after deep breathing and working for hours to stay calm as my heart rate soared, I knew this was no panic attack.

There was nothing I could do but wait it out. I told Tom what was happening, and he checked on me often, worrying about what we’d do if this continued through the 17-hour flight. After the sixth hour, my pulse began to drop for short periods and eventually returned to normal. What an ordeal. No words can express how relieved I was when it settled down to a steady 65 beats per minute. at that point, I was exhausted and hadn’t slept a wink.

After my pulse returned to normal, I was grateful and watched a few movies, dozing off and on. Back in normal sinus rhythm, I was able to stretch out on three seats and sleep for a few hours. Almost 17 hours after the flight began, we landed in Atlanta for the five-hour layover until the next flight.

Much to my surprise, the time passed quickly, and we boarded the last flight from Atlanta to Orlando. I slept during the entire flight, sitting straight up, sandwiched in a center seat between two burly male passengers. I awoke moments before the flight ended, and we rushed to make our way to baggage in hopes of collecting our bags in time for our 6:00 pm pre-arrange shuttle to The Villages.

Although this particular flight was over 30 minutes late, we managed to make it to the shuttle in time for our 6:00 pm ride to The Villages. By 8:30 pm, in the dark, we exited the shuttle just in time to see the SpaceX shuttle launch from Cape Kennedy in the night sky. That was exciting.

Now, we’re situated in this gorgeous place, well-equipped with everything we could possibly need. In tomorrow’s post, we’ll share details of our new temporary home in this fantastic retirement community of The Villages.

Be well.

Photo from ten years ago today, May 1, 2012:

This was the type of knife in our bin when we went through security in Barcelona, which was not our knife. A terrifying situation ensued. For details, please read here.

Final Kruger photos…

Posted by worldwide-admin on April 15, 2023 with 0 Comment

It isn’t easy to fully appreciate the tiny size of this baby elephant in this photo. It was so sweet to see this little one.

On this date, one year ago, Covid-19 (Omicron) was detected on the cruise during the transatlantic crossing from Fort Lauderdale, Florida, to Southampton, England. Five days later, we tested positive, along with many other passengers. We were extra careful upon hearing about the outbreak, but we still interacted with other guests during meals and at the bars at night. We weren’t careful enough.

It’s only been in the past two weeks, almost a full year later, that finally, I am free of most of the symptoms of long-haul Covid. I can confidently say that after a 10-day course of Prednisone, my headache and facial pain are gone, gone, gone. I’m still suffering from allergy symptoms, but mainly, I believe these started when I got Covid and haven’t gone away during this high allergy time in the bush.

Dust, dust mites, pollen, and grasses are the allergens that impact me the most after being tested over 40 years ago. I was on a seven-year regime of weekly immunological injections, but I believe that after all this time, the efficacy has worn off. At this point, leaving two weeks from today, I expect the allergy symptoms to diminish in short order once we leave the bush.

Doc Theo put me on a few new allergy meds that are keeping me from being miserable after the Prednisone wore off, which I’ll continue to take once we arrive in Florida, hoping I can eventually wean myself off of them. But Florida is also a hotbed of allergens, so we’ll see how it goes. At least, I’ll be well-armed with the few meds that I know help to some degree.

This time, leaving Marloth Park isn’t as hard as it’s been in the past, except for leaving our wonderful friends and, of course, our animal friends, mainly Norman, and family. Nina and Natalie have visited daily during the school holidays, but Nomran stayed away for one whole week, only returning at least five times yesterday. I can only imagine what he’d been eating.

A lone elephant was grazing in the grass..

Norman’s belly looked full. He’d been eating well…not necessarily healthfully, but certainly in volume. We knew he wasn’t hiding away during the commotion made by holidaymakers when almost every day, we saw photos of him on Facebook posted by tourists rather than locals whose names we would recognize and who often post animal photos on Marloth Park Sighting Page.

Norman and family are the only nyalas in Marloth Park, including their son Noah, who was forced to find a new territory of his own when Natalie was born five or six months ago. When visitors see them, they often take photos and post them on Facebook. So, Norman stayed away for seven days, but at least we felt comfortable that the lions hadn’t gotten to him when we saw the photos online.

When he showed up yesterday, I was beside myself with joy. Nina and Natalie were with him, and we fed them lots of pellets and healthy produce. I stayed busy off and on during the day, cutting up carrots and apples and tossing them to him and the girls as they patiently waited in the garden. If a nyala can look happy, Norman did, staring into my eyes, paying more attention to me than the food.

You may scoff at this assessment, but connecting with these animals here is not much different from connecting with your dog. In a short time, they learn the name we’ve given them and the sounds of our voices, even keywords that mean something special to them, such as food offerings and affection. No, we never touch him or the other animals.

Norman’s massive horns could eviscerate a human in seconds, as could any male bushbuck, kudu, male or female wildebeest, or other horned animals in the wild. A warthog’s tusks are razor-sharp; these and other animals could easily kill a human if provoked or even startled. We proceed with caution and respect for the fact that they are truly wild.

Many criticize the animals here for having an easy life in Marloth Park, with plenty of vegetation and humans feeding them pellets. But, there are numerous leopards and currently eight lions in Marloth Park. Carcasses are often found as remnants of a meal of a big cat kill. All the wildlife has to stay diligent in preventing being taken out. There are warning calls when such predators have been spotted, and we’ve heard those sounds from time to time.

Our last trip over the Crocodile Bridge as we exited Kruger National Park in the next 14 months.

We continue to hear from more and more residents of The Villages who’d like to get together, many of whom have been reading our site for years. One couple is from the town where we lived in Minnesota almost 11 years ago. Wow! This is exciting. Rita and Gerhard are connecting us with some old friends who live there. Please keep the messages coming from people who’ve found us through our site or other friends.

Tonight, we’re off to Jabula again for what surely will be another fun night like last night and others before that. We’re never disappointed, not in the people, not in the staff, and not in the fantastic food.

Be well.

Photo from one year ago today, April 15, 2022:

Finally, the ship’s chef got my dinner right with this delicious seafood dish. For more photos, please click here.

We’re all set to go except for packing…Posting plans for 90 days The Villages in Florida…

Posted by worldwide-admin on April 6, 2023 with 4 Comments

This morning, filling my 28-day pill case with my three prescription meds and vitamins, I started organizing and assessing how many tablets I’ll need to last while we’re gone for 14 months. I still have a little remaining inventory, and when Doc Theo writes me a one-year prescription for the others, I’ll be good to go until we return in mid-June 2024.

I disposed of a massive batch of useless packaging materials and reduced the amount to bring with us, which I’ll do again when I get the years’ worth next week. As for the supplements I take, I will buy those in Florida, most likely from Costco or Amazon. There’s no point in paying to haul those with us.

Each day, I plan to go through a cupboard or drawer to thin out what we’ll need to bring, what we can toss, and those items we’ll leave behind in the black plastic bins in the storage room. Again, there’s no point in paying to bring all the spices and condiments we’ve accumulated in the past 11 months in this house.

We’re trying to use up as much food as possible and won’t be grocery shopping again unless we need a few items for our meals, such as bacon, eggs, and salad ingredients. We’re working our way through all the meat in the freezer.

On top of that, we have lots of wine left from my birthday party, but each time we have sundowners, I have one small glass of regular wine (not light) and perhaps have a second glass of low-alcohol wine with 75% less alcohol than traditional wine. We’ll store the rest of the unopened bottles for our return, along with some items Tom drinks. All of that will stay fresh without a problem.

Also, we’re both leaving some clothing behind. When we return, it will be winter, and we’ll need some warm clothing. However, we’ll need warm clothing for the upcoming cruises to Norway, Greenland, and Iceland, where it will be cool even during the summer months. Also, it could begin to be cool when we arrive in Boston and Minnesota in September.

Johnny was on the other side of the garden while his mom was visiting. He seems to like it better on that side.

One thing I am looking forward to while living in Florida is easy-to-access products we use for cooking and general items one may pick up at a Costco or Target store. Plus, we’ll be able to place orders from Amazon and receive orders while staying at The Villages.

Speaking of The Villages, as mentioned in yesterday’s post and today’s heading, we look forward to sharing the details of what life will be like while living in one of the most popular and desired retirement communities in the United States. We’ll share photos, pricing, and information about many of the venues we’ll experience at our leisure, including dining out, shopping, and entertainment.

Perhaps our expectations are too high for meeting people. We plan to partake in as many activities as possible to improve the odds of making new friends. Plus, we expect some of our readers to live there, and we’re hoping those who do will contact us for dinner or a drink out at our location. How fun that will be! Please don’t hesitate to let us know if you are there and when we can meet.

Jasmine and Gordy seem to get along quite well. Could he be Johnny’s dad?

Even if you live outside The Villages and if it’s convenient, perhaps you could visit us for sundowners on the veranda at our new place. We also have a lot of old friends who live in central Florida, and we hope to get together with some of you while we’re there if it works out for them.

Of course, we plan to see friends Karen and Rich at some point. Karen’s mom Donna lives nearby, so surely we’ll see each other when they get together. Many of our “snow bird” friends will have left Florida for the summer months, and we won’t be able to visit with them. But we’ll see how it goes. Some may stay through May. We’ll be leaving at the end of July.

Once we arrive, we’ll be busy getting our passport applications mailed to the US State Department. We’ve already completed the forms, so all we have to do is send them to the appropriate address. Once we get one good night’s sleep, this will be on our agenda.

This morning, after an excellent breakfast and a few tasks completed, including booking transport from the Orlando International Airport to our holiday home for US $33, ZAR 600 per person, we went for our walk, which we’ll continue until we leave and pick up again, once we arrive and get a night’s sleep in Florida. It feels good to be walking again, but it may take a while to build my stamina after being relatively inactive this past year.

The weather has begun to cool considerably. No longer are we plagued with zillions of insects and courageously high humidity. This could change in a day. After all, TIA and one never knows.

Be well.

Photo from one year ago today, April 6, 2022:

Tom’s photos of this morning’s sunrise from the veranda of our bedroom at Karen and Rich’s home in Florida. For more photos, please click here.

New travel plans revealed….Leaving South Africa in 24 days, not returning for over a year…

Posted by worldwide-admin on April 5, 2023 with 4 Comments

Earl has been stopping by for the past several days.

We knew this time would come…that we’d be leaving Marloth Park for an extended period. We do this knowing we’ll be back in about 14 months after many adventures in between. It’s about time we get back out into the world! It’s been quite enjoyable spending the past few years, off and on, in Marloth Park, but the rest of the world awaits us.

When speaking with the immigration attorney, she emphatically stated we have to leave South Africa on or before April 30, or we will be considered “undesirables,” which would ban us from returning for five years. We wouldn’t qualify for another waiver after we’d already used that option after I had open heart surgery in 2019. We have no choice but to leave.

Baby nyala Natalie is so adorable. She’s growing up so fast.

The interpretation of the new dictates imposed by immigration for pending visa extension applications, like ours, is unclear, but we can’t take any chances. One never knows for certain what will happen when trying to leave the country.

Secondly, we have discovered we cannot apply for our new 10-year passports at the US Consulate in Pretoria, which we also planned to do while here. It was entirely doable before the pandemic, but now the phone at the US Consulate doesn’t get answered regardless of when we call and how long we let it ring. The website claims we can apply for an appointment online. This is impossible. The link doesn’t work. TIA.

Mom Nina is in the forefront with Natalie outside the little fence.

I called the US Embassy, and they refused to help, saying that a US passport applicant must go through the consulate. What a mess! We’d have to leave even if we could have stayed longer. Our 10-year passports expired in 2021, and now our 4-year passport expires in January 2024. The upcoming cruises we’ve booked require at least six months remaining until the passports expire to board the ships.

As a result of both of these scenarios, we knew we had no choice but to leave. Since it’s not easy getting US passports in foreign countries unless on a short-term emergency basis, which is not us, we also knew we needed to return to the US to renew the 10-year passports.

So the question became, where do we go in the US for three months? We’ll be spending time with family in Minnesota and Nevada in September after the completion of two of the cruises. Holiday homes are priced out of our budget in Minnesota and Nevada, and since we have three months to fill until the first cruise on August 1, we decided to step outside the box and try something entirely new.

Nina and Natalie usually visit together. From time to time, Natalie hangs out with her dad Norman.

A long time ago, we watched a documentary about The Villages in central Florida and were fascinated by all it offered seniors. Where could we go that would be fun socially, perhaps near other seniors? But, for us, this is merely a stop along the way to fill these three months and not a “look-see” for any potential plans for the future.

To stay in some arbitrary US location and try to meet people and have a social life right away it’s tough in the US and many other countries. It’s not as if strangers try to make new friends when they’re out and about. After living there all of our lives except the past 10-plus years, we know this. By leaving Marloth Park, we are leaving many wonderful friends behind.

Nina and Norman enjoying breakfast at our house.

We had a busy social life in the US, but it had taken years to build relationships, unlike when people were ultra-friendly and welcoming. We thought if we went to a retirement community with lots of activities, we might be able to enjoy a busy social life during those three months. The obvious answer was The Villages for the three-month stint.

We got to work researching at VRBO, our preferred holiday home site, and researched exclusively for The Villages, which was easy to do. When we started seeing very nice golf carts that were often included in the rental, we wondered…was it possible we could avoid the expense of a rental car? Every possible shopping and entertainment venue, restaurant, and more were within a short drive using the golf carts allowed on all streets within the community.

Yesterday, we signed up for a three-month rental of a three-bedroom, two-full-bath property with a golf cart that we’ll be moving into on April 30. We’ll be departing 90 days later to head to Scotland for the first of two upcoming cruises on August 1.As mentioned above, we’ll be back in the US in September to see family. Afterward, we’ll be off to South America for many months, including a cruise from Quito, Ecuador, to the Galapagos Islands.

We booked our flight from Nelspruit to Johannesburg to Atlanta to Orlando for April 29. The journey will take about 30 hours, with the long overnight flight of 16 hours and 50 minutes from Joburg to Atlanta, a flight we’ve become very familiar with. We no longer anticipate it with dread. We know what to expect…lots of movies, little sleep, and terrible food. We don’t like to eat in the middle of the night anyway. Oh well.

Tomorrow, we’ll share details of our posting objectives during the three months. This will be an entirely new perspective for our site that may be of particular interest to seniors, with many photos included.

Be well.

Photo from one year ago today, April 5, 2022:

Not a lot has to be said about a beautiful sunset. It speaks for itself. This is in front of our friends Karen and Rich’s Apollo Beach, Florida house. For more photos, please click here.

We’re off!!!…Sail day has arrived…The road trip to Fort Lauderdale begins…

Posted by worldwide-admin on April 8, 2022 with 0 Comment

Celebrity Silhouette Itinerary, Current Position, Ship Review | CruiseMapper — Our ship, Celebrity Silhouette, which we’ll be boarding later today.

The two weeks in Florida passed in a blur of good times, good food, great weather, and gorgeous scenery with our thoughtful hosts, Karen and Rich, who were married in February. We were sad to miss their wedding due to Omicron, but they shared many details and photos, almost making us feel like we’d attended.

Their lovely home on the waterway, known as Flamingo Canal, was the perfect soothing and pleasant experience we were seeking before all the commotion begins for our next several weeks of cruising, visiting family, and then returning on the long and exhausting flight back to South Africa starting on May 22, arriving on May 23.

This trip is not like a typical vacation/holiday for us. It’s simply another leg in our continuing world travels, this time, once again, returning us to our favorite place in the world. But, don’t get me wrong…we’ll be on the move several times during our one-year booking of the new house we’re moving into upon our arrival.

One never knows what the future holds. At one point, we’ll be gone for about 45 days, and another time, for a few one-week trips for visa reasons. Also, we may add even more cruises to our itinerary as more cruise options are posted online.

We’re excited to board the ship this afternoon and then the next cruise on the Queen Mary 2. But we are also excited to see family members and then return to live in our newly remodeled house in Marloth Park.

Surely. Louise will have everything perfect awaiting us. We will give her a short grocery list so we won’t have to leave to grocery shop for a few days. (This morning I got a message from Louise that the lions were seen near our upcoming new house. How exciting!)

Once we unpack our bags and the boxes we left behind, we will settle in for a few months until we need to get a new 90-day visa stamp. We may travel or apply for an extension. We can decide on that in the months to come.

Funny thing. While I was preparing today’s post while still in Florida, the power went out during an electrical storm. They hadn’t lost power here for a long time, and it was only for 30 minutes. It was out for about two hours, and we were all happy to see it restored by 3:15 pm. Ironic, eh? Ironic, eh?

We stayed in for dinner, deciding against going out on a rainy day when most restaurants are outdoors. The remainder of the day and evening was lovely with Karen and Rich. We are sad to say goodbye, but we’ll see them again soon. They are planning to visit us in Marloth Park in August this year. How wonderful it will be to return the hospitality to our dear friends.

The next time you hear from us, it will be on Saturday, long after the ship set sail on Friday evening. We’ll have plenty of photos and stories to share about how the embarkation and check-in process worked during times of Covid with an outrageous number of precautions. It could prove to be very chaotic.

Thanks for staying with us, dear readers, through this waiting period. Your continued interest and support mean the world to both of us. We will be back with you soon.

Be well.

Photo from one year ago today, April 8, 2021:

Zebra traffic on the main road in Kruger National Park. For more photos, please click here.

Two days and counting…A busy day preparing for departure…A great new recipe!…

Posted by worldwide-admin on April 6, 2022 with 0 Comment

Tom’s photos of this morning’s sunrise from the veranda of our bedroom at Karen and Rich’s home in Florida.

Note: The issue with the automatic email posts arriving in your inbox continues. It began once we arrived in the U.S., almost two weeks ago. That should not have caused the problem. Our web people in India are still trying to figure it out. Until they do, I will send the posts manually with a few clicks in the back admin area. We apologize for the inconvenience.

Good morning, everyone! In only two days, we’re off to Fort Lauderdale to board our cruise, Celebrity Silhouette, for the transatlantic crossing. Of course, we are very excited to be out to sea once again after a 29-month hiatus, all due to the pandemic.

I am in a bit of a rush this morning since we need to be out the door this morning in a little over an hour. Tom took today’s sunrise photos from the veranda off our bedroom this morning, making the photo portion of today’s post easy. I should mention that yesterday’s sunset photos were all taken by Karen. We’ve all been so busy yakking at sunset we’ve hardly noticed to take photos. It’s been quite fun being here with Karen and Rich.

Last night we all had homemade pizza using a new crust recipe Karen found made with ground chicken, although the recipe below suggests shredded chicken. It seems ground chicken is easier to use. It was delicious. We used our favorite toppings, not those listed in the recipe. See here for details.

We made enough pizza to last two nights, so tonight we can have it again after Tom, and I have been out most of the day wrapping up items we need for the cruises and getting our Covid tests this morning at CVS Pharmacy. My appointment is coming up in 40 minutes, so we need to be on the move shortly.

Also, today, we’re picking up Tom’s suit, making a trip to Target and Skechers for another pair of their comfy walking shoes. I purchased one pair so far but will need another to last me through the year we’ll spend in Africa. I am purchasing many items I can’t find there. It all adds to our luggage weight which will only be an issue when we fly from New York to Minneapolis and then to Las Vegas beginning on May 1st.

We will have to pay for additional bags since those two flights are domestic. But once we head back to South Africa, we won’t have to pay for added bags since we are each allowed two -23 kg (50-pound bags) due to international flights.

Tom just came downstairs after showering. We need to hurry at this point. Back at you soon! Have a great day!

Photo from one year ago today, April 6, 2021:

I.B. (Itchy Butt) is lying in the wet, muddy cement pond, attempting to ease the itching on his butt. For more photos, please click here.

Three days and counting…Wrapping it up here…Busy days…Sunsets to savor…

Posted by worldwide-admin on April 5, 2022 with 0 Comment

Not a lot has to be said about a beautiful sunset. It speaks for itself.

There have been more tasks for the upcoming two cruises than we listed earlier. They include:

Applying for a visa for both of us for Bermuda, the first port of call in our itinerary which is required to board the ship, which we weren’t aware of until a few days ago: DONE
Get Covid tests – scheduled for tomorrow morning
Enter negative Covid test results into the Bermuda website to complete the visa process
Applying for an additional $100 cabin credit for the Queen Mary 2 since we own stock in the parent cruise company, Carnival, which offers this credit for stockholders: DONE
Complete health questionnaires for both cruises a few days before sailing
Pick up Tom’s suit, stop at Target and Skechers store in Brandon, Florida
Contact Costco about a considerable price reduction on Azamara’s website for our upcoming cruise in November. Tom is on hold now to see if the credit will be applied.

Our friend Karen made quite an observation over the past several days. She said, “Traveling the world is a lot of work! You two are busy all the time!”

This observation has dawned on us repeatedly throughout the past 9½ years. We are always busy planning, booking, filing documents, scanning, and preparing forms, applications, documents, and more to stay on top of our tasks. No doubt, it’s a daunting task. Whoever thought that traveling the world was one big holiday was kidding themselves. This is work.

Couple those tasks with the blog each day. Is it any wonder we need downtime to get through it all? On Friday, we’ll see passengers at the port cruise check-in, figuring out how to do all the paperwork and prep work they failed to do in advance. Surely, this will slow the check-in process to a snail’s pace. Hopefully, they will allow those of us who were well-prepared to move on through and board the ship.

The process will be slowed down even further with all the new Covid restrictions and protocol. It will be interesting to see what transpires at check-in for both upcoming cruises. Before the pandemic, the process was often cumbersome and time-consuming. I can only imagine what it will be like now. Of course, we’ll be sharing these details as they occur for our interested readers.

We’ll do our last load of laundry on Thursday, pack our bags and do my nails, and touch up my polish from my last pedicure. I’ll fill my pill case with my three little prescription pills and various vitamin supplements today. Tonight, Karen and I are making homemade pizza, two different types for each couple.

This morning, Tom and I headed to the grocery store for ingredients to make the pizzas. It’s so enjoyable to shop in the grocery stores in the US. There is every possible ingredient you can imagine, many of which we cannot buy in South Africa. Of course, I wish I could bring back some items with us, but with our new clothes and shoes, we won’t have any room to spare or weight allowance.

A few nights ago, the four of us sat outside poolside until after dark. I noticed I was itchy when we went indoors to eat dinner. It turned out, typical close to the sea, I was attacked by no-see-ums, resulting in hundreds of bites through my clothes. I had used repellent, but it has little effect on these pesky creatures as described here:

“Ceratopogonidae is a family of flies commonly known as no-see-ums or biting midges, generally 1–3 mm long. The family includes more than 5,000 species, distributed worldwide, apart from the Antarctic and the Arctic.”

We’ve lived in many seaside or desert locations during our world travels. Only in Belize, Morocco, and now, here in Florida, have they bothered me. And bother me, they did. I was awake all night long, itching, trying various creams I had on hand, and basically, being miserable and unable to sleep.

I am allergic to dust mites and no-see-ums, which is quite common for those with allergies. In an attempt not to be a “party pooper,” last night, I put on my compression socks, jeans, and a long-sleeve, tightly fitting tee shirt. I generously applied repellent on any exposed skin, my hands, face, and neck. Fortunately, that worked, and I never was bitten again. The old bites are still itching, but that should improve in a few days.

Well, at least we know now that if we ever thought of eventually settling down in Florida, that won’t work for me. No, we’re not thinking of “settling down.” We’re just getting ramped up again after this darned pandemic.

Tomorrow, I will prepare a short post in the early morning since we plan to be out most of the day wrapping up some of these last-minute details and completing the above as indicated by no later than Friday.

Be well.

Photo from one year ago today, April 5, 2021:

Tag: Florida