In an effort to make the cavernous lounge look a bit more like a home than a museum, we decided to buy some flowers - joke! The first major hurdle was finding a shop or person who actually sells real, fresh flowers - as you mostly only get the non-destructible, need-no-care, plastic variety in a number of totally unnatural colours and shapes.
When we finally found a florist who supplies some of the hotels with flower arrangements, they were only able to offer us either roses (at R20 each) or some rather wilted and sad-looking daisies. We settled on the daisies! But they do not sell vases. In fact they looked at us as though we were from Mars when we asked for a vase - "........a vaaaaazzzz?? No!" We have now searched numerous shops and are still no nearer to getting a vase, so we have finally settled on a blue plastic water jug. The locals are probably all shaking their heads at these mad Whities who are looking for flowers in a desert, and, if you think about it, who can blame them?
But, I refuse to accept that they do not have sheets here - at first we could not find any to fit our beds. It appears that each furniture makes just makes the bed to the size HE wants - there is no standard size for double, queen or king size. So none of the sheets fit properly. It seems that we have a king-size queen bed and DD has a queen-size double bed. Nou ja! We finally did find some sheets, but they are way too big - it seems that there is no standard size in sheets either - Queen can mean anything from double bed size to double king size!! And most of the sheets available here are made of pure cotton, which rustle like leaves when you lie on them and are impossible to iron - so crinkly and old looking. They have also all faded and blotched after just a few washes - so they look far worse than the 25 year old sheets that I threw away when we left home to come here!!
Pillows are another story - they also come in a number of different sizes - Queen, King, Supersize, etc, so you have to make sure that the pillowcases you buy are the right size for the pillows - ours are all too small for the stupid Kingsize pillows we bought, and have ended up looking like sausages with the stuffing squeezed out of them!!
When we finally found a florist who supplies some of the hotels with flower arrangements, they were only able to offer us either roses (at R20 each) or some rather wilted and sad-looking daisies. We settled on the daisies! But they do not sell vases. In fact they looked at us as though we were from Mars when we asked for a vase - "........a vaaaaazzzz?? No!" We have now searched numerous shops and are still no nearer to getting a vase, so we have finally settled on a blue plastic water jug. The locals are probably all shaking their heads at these mad Whities who are looking for flowers in a desert, and, if you think about it, who can blame them?
But, I refuse to accept that they do not have sheets here - at first we could not find any to fit our beds. It appears that each furniture makes just makes the bed to the size HE wants - there is no standard size for double, queen or king size. So none of the sheets fit properly. It seems that we have a king-size queen bed and DD has a queen-size double bed. Nou ja! We finally did find some sheets, but they are way too big - it seems that there is no standard size in sheets either - Queen can mean anything from double bed size to double king size!! And most of the sheets available here are made of pure cotton, which rustle like leaves when you lie on them and are impossible to iron - so crinkly and old looking. They have also all faded and blotched after just a few washes - so they look far worse than the 25 year old sheets that I threw away when we left home to come here!!
Pillows are another story - they also come in a number of different sizes - Queen, King, Supersize, etc, so you have to make sure that the pillowcases you buy are the right size for the pillows - ours are all too small for the stupid Kingsize pillows we bought, and have ended up looking like sausages with the stuffing squeezed out of them!!
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