Rehearsal Day April 23, 2010

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Carisa and Ulrich had some wedding details to take care of, so Shelley, Leeman, and I walked around the city. We explored the green market square, where we realized nothing is nearly as authentic as it seems (vendors would say my brother made that - you just missed him). Then we went through a cool park in the middle of the city with plenty of photo opportunities. On our way back we went along Long Street and visited cool shops. One shop in particular was very inspiring with such cute artwork. Leeman and I grabbed a burger at a place called Safari Burger and then we met back up with everyone at the flat. We had the rehearsal and dinner at the Brandt house later, but first we were going to meet Carisa's wedding hairstylist for a trial run. Svetlana*came highly recommended from a family member, but Carisa had never met her before. Carisa brought in photos like this and said she wanted big loose curls. Svetlana promptly, and without so much as brushing her hair, started creating half ringlets with her straightner. Just as quickly as she started she stopped and said look in the mirror and see if you like. It really looked bad and at this point I was thinking this has to be a joke, but she quickly grabbed me and said, "what would you like?". She proceeded to do the same to me, yikes! Carisa managed to tell her that she was hoping for something a little bigger and looser, again referring to the pictures. Svetlana said confidently not to worry that tomorrow she would bring her blowdryer and curlers and she could make her hair bigger. We left feeling scared, looking like morons, running to the nearest mall for plan b. We were too chicken to speak up and cancel her services (about $20 a head) and too polite to tell the family member so we opted to buy a blowdryer, a brush, and some volumizer and hope I could fix whatever Svetlana did to Carisa's hair tomorrow. We were literally running through the mall to make our purchases and get to the rehearsal on time. After successfully making it to the rehearsal and rehearsing, we headed to the Brandt's home where they had prepared a feast. We had no idea how bad the food at Moyo's was until we tried the Brandt version. We ate Bobotie (yum), chicken pie (yum), pumpkin fritters (yum), lamb (yum), broccoli and cheese (yum), and malva pudding (yum). I have temporarily given up on any weight loss and had an incredible time. When we returned to our flat we did a test run on Carisa's hair and it turned out pretty good. Then I finished her veil and went to bed around 2am.

*not her real name

Also, you can jump ahead if you like and visit my flickr page, but check back because I will be adding tons more