I absolutely love the idea of living a celebrity lifestyle.
Jetting off to different countries for parties, being invited to exclusive
launches, eating at fancy restaurants, shopping at little exclusive boutiques.
These are just some of my fantasies... you know, things that turn me on. Want
to get with me? Make sure you use the magic words: "I have VIP
tickets..." Then I am all yours!
This past weekend I lived a mini celebrity
lifestyle on a budget! It was as close to being a celebrity as I would get.
I flew up to Durban early Friday morning
to spend the weekend with my bestest aunty cousin, Chantal.
Chantal and I grew up together. Rumor has
it that when we were still very young she would cry in the shops if her parents
didn’t buy me stuff. She would always leave the shops with something for me. She
was by far my coolest cousin, she would always allow me to do things the adults
wouldn't. I had my first cider with her, she dyed my hair for me. She lied for
me when I was meeting boys at the movies, she helped me cover up hickeys... She
is the older sister I never had. (We even fight like sisters and steal each
other's clothes just like sisters do.)
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| This is Chantal and I at a fancy dress, my mom had a sick sense of humour and thought it would be funny to dress me up as a drunk! Chantal's mom was less original and dressed her as a zulu girl. |
I don't get to see her very often because
she lives in Durban (shame) and I live in Cape Town, but when we do see each
other it's usually lots of fun.
We don't even need to be doing anything
exciting for us to be having a blast. One time Chantal and I finished a bottle
of wine (in Champagne glasses, because we are fancy) and then took hundreds of
selfies in our pajamas. The flash was too bright that we had to put our
sunglasses on... and will you look at that, our pics looked so much cooler. (or
so we thought)
This weekend that I spent with her made me realise just how old
the two of us are. Gone are the days of us drinking till 4am, gone are
the days of us watching music videos and chatting till the early hours of the
next morning. Sleep has become more important. And dare I say this, but it has
become more important than drinking too!
The weeks leading up to this weekend were exciting! We were
counting down the days. Making plans to get "totally f***** up" this weekend. We
were going to get shit faced and the plan was for me to go back home with a
hang-over and feeling completely sleep deprived… nope, it didn’t work out like
that. If anything by the time I left Durban I was completely rested.
My flight from Cape Town left at 06:20, Chantal was to pick me up
at the airport with our friend Yugi at 08:30. I got there, and surprise
surprise there was no-one waiting for me at the airport with my name on a
board. What sort of celebrity doesn't have an entourage waiting for her at the
airport? (When Chants comes to Cape Town I always make sure she is met in
style)
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| This is a picture of me greeting Chantal at the Cape Town airport when she came to visit me. |
After messaging Yugi and Chantal and threatening to go back to
Cape Town they finally arrived and we could officially get this weekend
started. Let the drinking commence! Whoo-hoo!
We had breakfast at Mugg & Bean, you
know to get a proper lining for the alcohol we were going to consume throughout
the day, and then headed off to Beach Bumz, An awesome bar on the beach. It was
a lovely day, the sun was out and the wind wasn’t too crazy. We sat on the beach
and sipped colourful jam jars. Let me just add that it was probably only
10:00am when we arrived, but hey it was 5pm somewhere in the world right? Our
morning was spent soaking up the sun, talking shit and planning future weekends
away.
As much as we wanted to stay at the bar and continue drinking, the shopping mall was calling!
After beach bumz, we moved over to Gateway
to do some shopping, have lunch and more drinks. I was loving this life!
Loving the life until we broke down on an
off-ramp holding up peak hour traffic. Thank God for SupaQuick and a certain Mr Sean Jagpath who helped these damsels in distress!
It was Friday the 13th after
all. And let’s be honest, I would much rather have a breakdown on the ground
than have one in the air.
By the time we got home the plan was to chill, have supper and
then do this drinking thing properly. I brought a bottle of sparkling wine from
Cape Town and Chantal had purchased a 6 pack of hunters. There was talk of
making jam jars at home too, but after supper both of us were full and feeling
sleepy!
Our conversation went a little like this:
Chantal: So you wanna drink?
Me: Do you want to drink?
C: Only if you wanna?
M: If you want to go to bed that’s ok, then we can party hard
tomorrow on the bus?
C: Yeah lets do that, we have an early start tomorrow and we can always
go out after the function.
M: Ok shot. Its sorted then! TOMORROW we are really going to get
shit faced!
*And then we were in bed before 10.*
Saturday morning we really did wake up
early and because we didn’t drink the night before we weren’t fighting
hangovers and were feeling nice and fresh for our long trip to the “Prawn Shack”
Let me tell you a little something about the prawn shack! It was just that! A
shack! Not a fancy shack, no, a proper shack. I think this shack concept is
aimed at foreigners, or the rich white South Africans. You know how the
foreigners want to experience the real South Africa. I’m sorry though, my
mother struggled so that I didn’t have too. This eating out of enamel plates
and drinking out of enamel cups was too much for me. Then when you look for the
loo, you realise it’s one toilet and it doesn’t flush! AND there is no running
water to wash your hands… I could not even deal!!
The good thing about this place was that the food was pretty
decent and the alcohol was free. I had lots of tequila shots to help me forget
about how dirty I felt. The owners of the Prawn shack add a baby prawn
to the tequila shot. A live two week old prawn. I drank it like a champ- it was all part of
the experience hey? And if there is one thing, I don’t want anyone calling me is a
wuss. So as gross as it feels downing a live prawn I did it!
By the end of the evening I was pretty tipsy and I actually had a
blast! It’s a wonder what a little bit of prawn infused tequila can do hey?
So remember how Chantal and I promised that TONIGHT we were going
to end the weekend off properly? Yeah, it didn't work out like that again.
After washing off all of prawn shacks gunk we sat on the bed,
ate samosas and then decided that we are too old for this shit! Lets just be
realistic and call it a night!
So that was my mini budgeted version of being a celebrity. I flew to Durban on a low cost airline for a staff party (it was somewhat exclusive, if we are being technical) and I didn't have to pay for my drinks! So really, its all about perception.
