Hey everyone! 

It’s been long since last time, but I’m still alive and I’m back 🙂 !

Last Friday I arrived back HOME! It was a veery long and exhausting journey….35 hours and I can quite literally say that I traveled around the world as I went from Cape Town – Johannesburg – Abu Dhabi – Frankfurt – Luxembourg!

Last time you heard from me, my family were arriving in 3 days and I was finishing off my shift at the Red Cross Children’s Hospital. I want to tell you all about that as well as a summary about my stay at St. George’s, but first a quick re-cap of everything that has happened after I finished my volunteer work.

The family arrived to come visit their long-lost sister and daughter in Cape Town! They arrived on Friday just as I finished my shift at Red Cross and there was indeed a couple of tears that were shed. I really had been looking forward to that moment, pretty much since I left them, haha! It was anyway, absolutely wonderful to see all of them and I was very excited about spending 2 weeks together with them showing them everything I had been doing and all the places I had gone to.

Big smiles when the Thomassens were finally reunited at the Red Cross Hospital! 

Over the course of the two weeks we were up to lots of things! Here’s a ‘quick’ summary!

Guess who’s been in Africa for 3 months? 🙂

A visit to a nearby beach where we were staying

Watching the beautiful sunset in Gordon’s bay where we even saw some dolphins jumping past!

We spent a day on Robben Island where I had a different guide from last time and got even more insight into the South African history

 A trip to Broadlands to meet Pat and Shelagh was a must! No matter how hard I’ve tried explaining my stay at Broadlands, I think the only way to really understand it and to understand Pat is to actually go there! So it was great to share this experience with the family as well! They even got to see Kaluu the chimp!

Christmas shopping at the Waterfront was a must!

 I was so happy to celebrate Christmas with my family! It really didn’t feel like Christmas seeing as it was approximately 25 degrees, but we had such a wonderful evening ❤

Christmas day was spent walking off the food from the night before! We had a nice long walk around Gordon’s Bay where we were staying.

Christmas day was spent walking off the food from the night before! We had a nice long walk around Gordon’s Bay where we were staying.

 I really enjoyed doing the Cape Peninsula Tour when I first came to Cape Town, so I decided to bring the others with as well! A day filled with penguins, Cape of Good Hope, biking and lots of wind and fresh air!

We had an absolutely amazing day at a place called Babylonstoren, which is a vineyard area in the wine areas outside Cape Town. They had the most beautiful gardens and so we decided to treat ourselves with some spa as well 🙂 

We had a tour of Khayelitsha the township on one of the days. It had been very difficult to explain what a township was like, so it was great for the family to actually see what it was like. If you want to look at some of the pictures I took on my previous tour click here: https://annathomassen.com/2014/10/23/township-tour/

We also spent a day with ‘my’ lovely children who I had been working with at FIkelela. They were the ones who weren’t placed with a foster family over Christmas. So Ed and Heather from Via Volunteers organized a day for them at a cafe where there was a pool and a playground and the children could make their own pizzas. It was so amazing to see how well-behaved and how much fun the kids were having ❤

❤

A quick stop in Muizenberg! 

And of course the compulsory trip up to Table Mountain! A family of bright colours 🙂 

It had been an absolutely amazing trip with my family – I’ll be writing about some of our adventures in some more detail later!

It was great to get back to Luxembourg for a couple of days! I finally got to see my dear Linnea and caught up with some other friends 🙂 After a couple days in Luxembourg, I left for Dundee on Monday for an interview at the university there *fingers crossed*. Right now I am in London visiting my Julie at Goldsmith and finally I am traveling back to Luxembourg tomorrow, but theeeen I leave for Grenada on Saturday *sick of airports; but I can’t wait*! So there’s a lot going on – but it’s all good fun (and a little nerve-wracking in terms of the interview, but I hope it went well)

I still have lots and lots to show you from my days in Cape Town, so you’ll see more in the coming days.

Ciaao for now!