So I have always really struggled with writing things for this blog. I can never come up with topics to write about that interest me, never mind anyone else. I doubt that anyone has actually ever read anything on here, besides myself. So, I have decided to take charge of my blog and use it for something that I decided to do a long time ago - tell the stories of my ever-so-slightly not-normal family.

I have been lucky enough to do quite a bit of travelling in my short lifetime. Though not much of this travelling took place in South Africa, this made my travels even more exciting. But each trip has stories attached to it. A couple of years ago, I made a promise to myself. I was going to write down the stories from my travels with my family, so that I wouldn't forget them. Then, over the next couple of years, I would revisit all of those places, possibly even stay in the same hotels and self-catering inns, and see how different my experience of those places was. Of course, this would require a great deal of time, a great deal of money, and a great deal of independence - none of which I have. But I suppose this could always take place over the course of my lifetime. I like to think that my exploits would make quite an entertaining book. At least, I hope they would. But, as I have yet to write down the humorous tales of my travels with my family, I have decided that I will use my blog for this purpose. It may happen that no one is particularly interested, but on the other hand, why should I care what people think? So here begins my first travel experience diary entry.

I have been to Zimbabwe twice in my life. The first time I went, I was three years old. All I can remember from the trip is looking up and grabbing hold of something brown hanging from the ceiling. I have been told that three year olds cannot have memories, but I am determined that I have this one. It is very clear in my mind, and it all clicked into place when I told my parents about it and they suggested that it might have been the piece of leather that people had to hang onto when the plane into Zimbabwe is landing. This memory is of my first plane ride. I think that is quite appropriate, since my memories of travelling are some of the best that I have.

I am not sure of all the places that we visited in Zimbabwe that first time, but I do know that we went to the Victoria Falls. I know this because of the photo that I have of my sister and I standing beside a man in a bright red tailcoat. This was later compared to a picture that was taken on my second visit to Zim, of my sister and I (slightly older) with the same man (who hadn't seemed to have aged a day.)

Zimbabwe is the only place outside of South Africa that I have visited twice, although my parents have been to the States and to the UK a couple of times without me, and my sister has lived in both of those parts of the world. I do remember the second time I went to Zim, however, and seeing as how I don't remember the first, it feels like I have only been there once. The second time we went, we did not go by plane. Instead, we drove through South Africa - from Cape Town, up to Bloemfontein where we spent a night, and then up to the Zimbabwean border. Flying would probably have been a better idea. My sister and I were not the most fantastic of passengers, and both started getting carsick shortly into the journey. Our parents tried to curb this problem by giving us tablets. This is also when I found out that I am not very good at taking tablets. They didn't stay down very long at all.

It was on this trip that I met Sophie Tomaszczyk and her family. Sophie was just slightly younger than I am, and we became fast friends. We have not seen each other since, but for fifteen years we have kept in contact through letters and postcards. We kept each other up to date with the little things that happened in our lives, as we are now even friends on facebook (amazing how some thing work out, isn't it.)

I think that Zimbabwe was probably one of the best trips for my parents. For them it was more a homecoming than anything else. Having left Zim thirteen years before, they were able to go to all the places that they remembered and see how they had changed. I hope that someday I will be able to go back and do the same, but I am not sure that will be possible. At the moment, I cannot imagine visiting Zimbabwe because the place has fallen into such ruin. The trips that we took there were before some of the bigger troubles started - before the land started being taken back from the white farmers and before there were billion dollar notes. Perhaps some time in the future I will be able to return to the land of my forefathers and -mothers (as my parents and even my grandparents on my father's side were born there). All I can do for now is hope.

This is one of the slightly less humorous adventures with my family, mostly because I was too young to remember very much of what happened. I do remember small details - like walking in the grass holding my skirt and having a giant locust jump into it, or driving past a baby elephant close enough to touch on a short safari that I went on. But these memories are foggy, and disconnected like pearls on a rope that are so close, but aren't quite making contact.