Ok so it's been awhile since I wrote and quite a lot has happened but I shall try to focus on the main events as my memory isn't that great!
Again it seems that all my holidays/trips have been happening on the weekends.. On the 25th of November, me and a friend who is also a volunteer at the childrens home travelled to Boschendal Wine Estate for a local festival that was happening called Synergy. It was a three day music and comedy festival which meant bringing a tent and setting up camp which was a disaster as I am terrible at putting up tents! But eventually I got there and we went off to explore. The place was pretty big and was set right along the river which was nice as when it got too hot (or you had dome too much dancing ;) ) you could go down to the river to cool down and just chill out. The event itself was really fun and some of the music was really good, there was even a mosh pit started when a band called Hog Hoggidy Hog played which was fun, although I stayed on the outskirts of it as I didn't want to be crushed and the mud filled smiles of the guys in the pit was enough to make me want to avoid it, gross! Whilst there I ended up bumping into someone I already knew (and was erm.. close to earlier in my year here heh) and spent the first night trying to find him...then the second day I ended up seeing him everywhere and ended up trying to avoid him the whole night because it was so damn annoying haha! But overall it was a good weekend and I would go back to Synergy if given thechance.

The weeks in between have been rather hectic with it coming up to Christmas.. The children have had people coming in and giving them presents and have also had a Christmas party which was fun. There was a singer in singing for them (although who she was I do not know) and santa came to give them presents. Afterwards they got to go outside and play on this big soapy waterslide which was funny although caused lots of arguments as they didn't want to queue up. There was also face painting and a bouncy castle to keep them occupied so it was nice to see them all excited and having fun!

What is also exciting is that the Christmas holidays means that I am now moving onto day shift instead of night shift (FINALLY!!) What is even better is that because its the holidays and a lot of the children have gone home or to host families there is hardly any children left here (only about 30 out of 144 are here) there is lots of events or fun activities organised for the children. So on my first day of work there were some students in organising some fun games for the children which was really nice. They had all different dress up items and paper and bags and told the children that they had to get into groups and pick one person to dress up as funny as they could. This turned into an embarrassment for me though because I was walking around getting groups sorted when one of the students comes up to me and asks me if I'm in a group yet...she thought I was one of the children! haha but it was a fun morning and the children had good fun although by the end of it i had make up all over my arms as I got attacked while they were putting it on eachother. My secondday working was also a nice one. The kids were all outside as the childcare workers were away or something so they were all running about and having fun and then one of the more "difficult" children comes and asks me to play ball with him, so I was throwing the ball so he could hit it and ended up playing it for around 2 hours as he didn't want to stop but it was really nice because he was smiling a lot, giving me high5's and actually listened to me when I told him not to do bad things (like trying to hit a kid with the bat when he annoyed him) so I guess he just needs some attention now and again. Then afterwards we had to go inside and I was with the older girls so we were downstairs watching shrek and sone of the girls sat next to me and we were listenign to music and singing while one of the others was dancing so it was all abit crazy but fun haha.

The main thing happening this week was my "holiday" though! On friday, I got off work at 7am and went staright into travelling which was exhausting! We travelled for what seemed like forever until we got to Tsitsikamma at around 4pm. This was extremely exciting for me as it meant I got to do my Bungee jump from the worlds highest bungee bridge! So we got to the place and our first disaster struck... the person I was travelling with bumped our rental car into the kerb scratching the front of it (although I found it quite funny...) so she was imediately in a bad mood (which seemed to stay for the entire trip unfortunately)

But putting that aside, we got there and I had to signup and be weighed as preperation for the bungee...which turned into another disaster as it turns out I have gained half a stone since arriving here 4 months ago! Then there was the longwait which seemed to be forever and the butterflies were building up in my stomach and it got even worse when we found out there was live streaming of our bungees shown in the restraunt!! Eventually the time came where we had to get up to the bungee bridge and the group I was in was filled with crazy, over excited guys, me and the person I was with were the only girls which made me even more nervous! So we get to this bridge and it has to be one of the most terrifying things, ever! It is a not so sturdy metal bride connecting to the main bridge and when you walked on it it dented inwards and made you feel like it would collapse under your feet and to make matters worse it was a mesh botton so if you looked down you could see just how far you would fall and it was really really far! But eventually after a near panic attack I got off that crazy bridge and onto the main bridge for the bungee. This meant another torturing wait as I was the second last to jump! But as the straps were being put on and I was taken to the edge, excitement replaced the nerves and I did it! The rush that comes from doing the bungee was just incredible, it felt so good but once you finish bouncing and you're kind of just dangling there, upside down, it gets kind of scary again, especially as the feet straps feel like they are slipping... and to make it even worse, the guy who comes to rescue you takes forever and it is so horrible seeing how close he is yet how far away it is and as soon as he got near me I grabbed on for dear life as I genuinely thought my feet were going to slip out of the straps and I would fall to my death (which obviously I wouldn't but you had to have felt the feeling to understand!) Once I finally got safely back on the bridge I was grinning like a cheshire cat because I was so happy that I managed to do it and not chicken out!

After getting our photos and DVD of the bungee we went to our backpackers which was really nice and the guy who works there gave me a short lesson on playing the hand drum things...and said I have natural rhythem with them ;D haha! But yeah the stay there was short and in the mornign at9am I was woken to start our travels again and it turned out my "friend" invited one of the other people staying there to come with us...I was not to happy as one it is dangerous as they are a stranger and two the person she picked up was annoying with a capital A!!!

So I had to put up with a car journey of them speaking only german, had to put up with them bookingthings in german and basically just got left out the entire day which was lovely..NOT! Then to make the day even worse my stupid "friend" wasted our entire day trying to find a place to skydive only to be told she can't do one because it was too windy (which we already told her but she wouldn't listen!) sowe finally went to the backpackers to book a room only for her german she picked up to whine about how she doesn't want to be there so we had to go back, get our money back and find somewhere else..major stress! But I have to admit the place we did find was far nicer and we met two really nice people (although again they were german!!!) So we settled into our room and decided to go out for dinnerand the guy who was in our dorm came with us which turned out to be alright as he was really nice to talk to. So we all had steak and after filling our tummys went back to shower and then go out for a couple of drinks! Which turned into a disaster for me as he decided we should play buffalo which basically means you cannot drink with the hand you write with and must not clink drinks with someone with the hand you drink with and if you are caught you have to down your drink! And of course me being stupid forgot this and ended up having to down a full vodka & coke :( although on the plus side I impressed them all with how much I could down in one go haha I also found out that I am rather good at table football lol so overall it was a good night although I got rather irritated by the girl my "friend" picked up by the end of the night as she got drunk and even more annoying!

The next morning we went for a hike and got surrpunded by these really cute but funny loooking creatures who kept jumping up on us wanting food haha then it started to rain..but we continued hiking and saw a load of dolphins as we looked out onto the coast which was nice :) Afterwards we went to the beach and I went for a swin and ended up almost drowning twice when two huge waves came at me haha but I didn'tget to stay long as my "friend" was being whiney and annoying..she even made me sit outside of the car for ages just cus I had an icecream even though she was eating pizza and s*** in the car previously!

So I pretty much just slept all the way to Oudtshoorn as they were annoying me but it was so worth it! We went to Cango Wildlife Ranchwhich was just plain awesome! I got to go into an enclosure with two adorable 2 month old tigers, which is like incredible for me as they are my favourite animals and I have to admit I fell in love with them, they were so damn adorable! So it's fair to say that the short time I spent with them totally made my day and to make it even better, because the keepers liked that I was scottish, they let me stay in with the tigers for an extra 25 minutes for no extra cost, it was so nice :D

But then I had to leave and was very sad lol and the journey home was tortue, I was kicked out of the front seat so the idiots could speak german to eachother and ended up sleeping the next like 5 hours as it got so annoying!

But I don't know what else to write so I will leave it at this for now :P