Straight for the air plane in to your car waiting for you at the air port. This has practically made it easy for tourist to avoid the hustle and insecurity issues they face while using taxi or other forms of transport once they arrive in South Africa. In the resent past most tourists either business or leisure related visitors have complained of harassment by various persons or of rip off by taxi drivers form the air port. car rental is here to change this bad behavior by simply providing you with means of transport straight form the airport to your destination anywhere within South Africa.

With a rental car, you are free from rip off by taxi people, free from street harassments and free from property loss in between the airport and your residence. Car hire has therefore saved you a lot of mental torture and valuable property that would have disappeared. With inbuilt navigation system, you will not need a tour guide and that saves you money. The after sales survives will also assist you get along well and avoid authority interference while in South Africa.

It may sound simple but anyone who has been a victim would have wished for a car rental experience then to avoid the mental torture they might have experienced. When visiting a new place be sure to meet some level of hostility but with the rental services, we help you minimize the risk.

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Two nights in a row was enough for me. I took Saturday off. I had barbeque with my family instead. Sunday all us gringos had a barbeque in the park. We played a game of soccer with a few of our Chilean friends. Last night we had a group dinner for USAC. A lot of us headed out for the bars afterwards despite it being the Monday of final’s week. After the first bar I went home. I was alone in this choice. All my other twenty-some-odd friends continued bar hopping.

Even though I arrived home at “only” 1:45am I missed my first class today. I did not care in the slightest that I missed class. Even my professor did not care as she met my in the halls to handed me my paper after class. Apparently only four of eleven had showed up. Two of those four had stayed out three hours later than I did last night.

Exam number one of two is tomorrow. It is currently 7:00pm. I have yet to start my homework or study. I probably will do little of both tonight. I am completely over school at this point. I still try to learn Spanish, but as far as class work goes I could care less. The last day of classes is Thursday. After that we will all begin to part ways. I do not leave until Sunday, an inconvenience, because that means I have to hang around Santiago for a few extra days. However, that is the price I pay for flying with LAN Airlines, and having them change my flight date.

As I mentioned I feel indifferent as of late. I should be excited to go travel, or at the least get done with school. But nothing seems to get me going. I think it does not yet seem real. How could the semester already be over? It seems as though we have just began. I feel fortunate to be staying for an extra two months. If I was not I would probably be regretting only studying abroad for a semester. But I am content with the way things have worked out for me. I had a good experience during the semester here in Santiago. I still have sufficient time to travel the continent, and I will return to the states with a job all lined up for me.

I cannot place my finger on why I am feeling the way that I am. Perhaps it is because I know that everybody I know is soon going to part ways. I am not super close with anyone I have met this semester so I do not think it will be that hard to say goodbye. However, it is nice to have those familiar faces around when in a foreign land. Whatever the reason may be for my indifference, I assume that once I step on that plane headed for Easter Island I will leave this feeling behind. You would think that I would be thinking that Sunday cannot come fast enough, but as of now I do not care one way or another. When it does arrive it will be a nice change. Until then I can enjoy what life has to give me, appreciate the friends I have made, do some studying, and make my final preparations for my trip.

Trains are great places for reflecting (if you can stop yourself nodding off to the rocking). Am on eurostar.
At the risk of being a know-all aussie abroad, the following observations spring to mind about England and France.

Newcastle’s multiculturalism is very European. You immediately notice the difference when you get to Sydney. Sydney is polyglot. England and France are similar.

When we got on the metro this evening there was a young girl wearing full fitted head scarf. She also had on skin tight jeans, was wearing rings and spent most of her time on her mobile phone. Her friend was a young woman of African descent. There was no doubting this young girl’s religious conviction. Equally there was no doubting her membership of the current youth generation. Their elders (muslim and non) may have difficulty with this hybridisation but for this young person and her friend this was the most natural thing in the world. I have seen young white males arm in arm with black and/or muslim females and vice versa. I have seen gaggles of young people mixing naturally without any seeming acknowledgement of the diversity of colour and culture amongst them.

“what we need is a great big melting pot
Big enough to hold the world and all it’s got
Keep it churning for a hundred years or more
And turn out coffee coloured people by the score.” – Blue Mink

We’ve had about 50 years. And i think 100 years might be close to the mark.

Now before i get accused of being overly sentimental or optimistic, let me lay some reality on these observations.
1. Racism is not dead. But it appears to be waning particularly amongst the young
2. Most menial service jobs (particularly in France) and done by blacks.
3. There is a massive wealth gap between black and white (and between white and white)
4. The belt tightening as a result of the financial meltdown will impact harder on the less fortunate which means blacks and those from the sub continent and the middle east.
But progress is being made. I’m not sure of the origin but someone said that comedy is tragedy plus time. Well maybe tolerance and understanding is strangeness and difference + time

“sometimes the best map will not guide you, you can’t see what’s round the bend
Sometimes the road leads to dark places, sometimes the darkness is your friend” – Bruce Cockburn

The problem with quoting from song lyrics is that you start seeing connections everywhere. On a really banal level i cannot imagine how we could get around without Clare, our GPS. But the certainty of the minutiae of which road to take may blind us to the wider question of whither are we going? The great thing about our trips is that we organise them ourselves. No “if it’s Tuesday it must be Belgium for us”. Sometimes that means we make mistakes. In hindsight we (for we read me) really mismanaged the Caen/Rouen sojourn. What we should have done is two days on Caen, caught a train to Rouen and then another train back to Paris and had an extra day in Paris. But we would have missed driving over the Pegasus bridge and Pont L’Eveque. Pegasus bridge was a canal bridge inland from Gold beach which was captured on the night of june 5 by British paratroopers. They held it until relieved and in doing so prevented German re-inforcements being transferred to the beaches. I was resigned to missing it. But our road trip to Rouen not only took us over the bridge but we had to wait while it was raised to allow a couple of tugs to pass under.

Back on the train, there is a tall, veryl good looking black man sitting in the seat opposite me. The young French lady sitting next to him (sitting there because i sat in the wrong seat i might add) just had the most minute flirt with him. See!!