scones & rave wands

So I dropped R30k yesterday.

I have never:
1)Dropped that much money in my life
2)Imagined dropping that much money in my life
3)Imagined thanking a credit card

And there I was. The proud owner of two flights to Buenos Aires for me and my father (happy Christmas for the rest of your life Dad), and a flight to Rio de Janeiro for me.

I'm conquering Rio by myself. Toute seule. Just me and Peas. Alone. Fucking terrifying, but also unbelievably exciting.

So that's booked and paid for.

Now I can focus on Greece.

I went to see an old school mate of mine last night, E3, for dinner, lots of wine and swapping old raver albums. I just don't see her enough, and yet there was a part of our lives when we spent so much time together.

She, like me, just wants to travel and do important stuff while the going is still good. We're both pretty much at the exactly same points in our lives.

E3 introduced me to The Big City when we were at school. At half term, she and the rest of the Joburg girls would come back and talk about the amazing time they had at these big nightclubs, with all the boys and the music.

Peas, being a Midlands girl, spent her half term riding her bike and, like, eating cheese.


They would educate me in all the hip and incredibly cool stuff from the big city of 'Joburg', which I'd just embrace with glee:
'What are those?'
Jeans Peas.
'Jeens?'
'Yes. Instead of shorts, you can wear these, see.'

E3 taught me a lot about the ravey vibe back in the 90s. She's a knowledgeable and experienced girl. It's fascinating; always has been.

So she was telling me stories about the old ESP in town last night. Before it moved to Randburg. Way before.

Now I grasped much of what the late 90s rave culture of ESP was about, and I always wanted to go there, but by the time I ended up here after Cape Town, it was all over.

But she told me stuff that went on downstairs in the ESP basement that had me reverting back to my small town Natal Midlands mindset:

'What?'
No seriously, look at the pictures. This is what happened down there. Sacrificial.
'You can't be serious.'
Look. Listen.
'Never!'
It's a herd mindset, but way more diabolical than meets the eye, Peas.
'But it doesn't make sense!'
But it does, look.

Wow. E3 was a girl that embraced rave culture back then in the purist of ways, so I believe her, frankly. I wasn't streetwise at 16. My childhood just didn't allow it, and I am thankful for it. E3 and I were mates even though we had diametrically opposite childhoods.

I got to milk cows, ride my bike through paddocks, and eat scones. That won't happen again until I'm retired [in Provence.] Let's face it.