Last Day at SHAWCO!

My 4th grade class

I'm Worthless on Sundays

Hello. It's Sunday evening, Day 2 of 2010's March. As you can see below, I had a great bungee jumping experience last weekend. It was part of a four day trip along the 'Garden Route'--which is basically highway N2 along the southern coast. The route is accompanied by beautiful views of the ocean (Atlantic, then Indian) outside the right window, and amazing, mountainous landscapes outside the left. We rented two cars, Mazurka (whom we were fortunate to have for the second weekend in a row) and Desert Rose. Travelling inside Mazurka and Desert Rose were seven fine friends--Ani, Ben, Eli, Alex, Alex, Daisy, & Kristine--whose names probably don't mean that much to most of you. We stayed in different backpacker lodges each night, hiked and explored Wilderness National Park and Tsitsikama National Park, ate good food, and toured the coolest cave in which I've ever been. Overall, it was another exciting and expensive road trip. Eli, Ben, and I stayed an extra night and traveled home on route 62, which is an alternatively scenic road that parallels the N2 and winds through the rocky mountains. On our way home, we pulled off the road to catch the sunset and enjoy a Columbus cigar. I'd have to say it was the best sunset of the semester thus far, and I've seen some mighty-fine sunsets.

In other news, I had a very nice Saturday yesterday. In honor of Mifflin (in Madison) one of the international houses threw a party during the day. We drank out of solo cups and played beer pong--two things I haven't done since leaving the states. Then, in the evening, Ben, Eli & I went on a 'jazz safari,' which is something we'd been talking about doing since arriving in Cape Town. It's set-up by a company that drives people around to local jazz musicians' houses in the townships. It was awesome! We first went to Mac Mackenzie's house--an internationally-recognized guitarist. He and his fiance made and ate dinner with us. The meal included fried snoek, baked potatoes, salad and beer. It was a great time...we talked for a while and then he got out his guitar and performed for us. The next stop was another house in the township...home of an amazing jazz female vocalist named Tsitsi. Her friends and family were there to chat with us and listen to her sing. She blew all of us away with her voice. Tsitsi's blind uncle was quite the character. He sang along with Tsitsi and danced when he felt inspired. He seemed to be particularly fond of me. By the end, he was talking my ear off, the whole time patting my leg to make sure he maintained my attention. Fun, fun night with amazing musical talent. I'm really glad we finally did it...definitely worth the 700 rand. At midnight, the tour ended and we went off to Stones (a bar in Observatory) to meet up with everyone else. As the study abroad time is winding down, everyone seems to be making a point to have fun and not miss opportunities to hang out with friends we've made here. Everyone was out, and it was really fun. Didn't get a cab ride home until almost four in the moanin'.

Time to write 2 papers that I must finish before another road trip begins on Wednesday. This time we're going up to Namibia to explore the second-largest canyons in the world, sand dunes, and Windhoeck (the capital city). I hope Mifflin was enjoyed by all who partook. I really like using the passive voice; however, it's not enjoyed by academics who grade my papers. Anyways, peace and love. I'll be home in no time.

Bungee Jump at Bloukrans Bridge

24.04.2010

Bloukrans Bridge, Tsitsikamma, South Africa

Tallest bridge bungee jump in the world.

216 metres.

2 MONTH WARNING

"Mazurka" [vehicle] atop Signal Hill

Greetings. It’s Thursday morning here on the 22^nd of April. Oh, it’s Earth Day. Happy Earth Day. I’m just finishing up an African lit paper, so I can head out of town this afternoon. I thought I’d catch in before taking off along the Garden Route for the weekend.

Cape Town weather has steadily been getting cooler. It’s nice to be able to sleep with blankets again—much more comfortable. We’ve been getting an increasing amount of rain, as well. As much as I like this cooling-off of Cape Town, I am missing Wisconsin’s spring. It’s one of the best times to be in Wisconsin.

Anyways , I had a change-of-pace weekend last weekend that centred around the sky. Five of us took off after school to a city named Sutherland—“the Gateway to the Universe”. Sutherland is a small city surrounded by the barren Karoo—four hours northeast of Cape Town. It’s thought to offer some of the nicest southern sky stargazing. Wikipedia also claims it to offer the best lamb in South Africa.

Upon arrival, we grabbed some lamb curry and headed to the campsite where the owner—an old, spunky, Dutch man—taught us about the stars in the southern sky and we got to look through his telescopes. After this, we threw our blankets underneath the stars, laid facing the night sky, and eventually drifted off to sleep.

Warning: I might come home an astronomy/astrology freak.

"S.A.L.T."

The next day we toured Sutherland's pride and joy, S.A.L.T., which is the largest single optical telescope in the southern hemisphere, to which international astronomers from all over the world come to study. This about sums up the trip to Southerland. It was a beautiful and relaxing change of pace from Cape Town’s bustle… A good 24 hour getaway.

"Ben, Gabby, Eli, & Alex at Sunset"[pictured left to right]

The following night, we took some Chicken Lickin' up to Signal Hill and caught a nice sunset.

That’s about all…we’re leaving on the garden route this afternoon and returning Monday night, I believe. Upon my return, I’ll be greeted with one speech and two essays needing to be written. Don’t feel bad for me, though; I’ve had it pretty easy in school thus far.

I wish luck to those studying in Madison as exam week begins to nearer. I’ll be home in exactly two short months. Time goes by.

Reluctantly sitting down to catch-up on things...

Good morning, y'all. It's Saturday morning here. I'm enjoying some French-pressed coffee, while forcing myself to get semi-caught up with this damn blog. It's been a busy few weeks, and I'll try and cover everything without being completely broad.

I am lucky to have been visited by my parents last week. They flew in Sunday night, and departed back to Wisconsin late this past Saturday night. It was a short stay for them—the longest they were able to do with only a week off of teaching—but we spent a lot of time together and packed a lot of activity into the short time.

We rented a car and drove around for the week. They got to explore the city and meet some of my friends. Highlights of the week include taking them to Pancho’s Mexican Grill (Monday night tradition), where they took tequila shots with my friends (I responsibly became the DD). Tuesday, we went on a wine tasting tour through the Stellenbosch vineyards. Tasted some nice wines. Enjoyed cheeses, as well. Food definitely seemed to be the theme of their visit. Lotta good eatin’s!

Wednesday evening, we returned from a long daytrip in Simon’s Town/Cape Point, and then headed to Rascal’s Pub for a few drinks. The plan was to hit up the Pakistani restaurant afterwards. En route to this plan, Mother—presumably unfamiliar with Cape Town’s uneven sidewalks (and possibly the alcoholic strength in the beer?)—gave my dad and me a scare when she plowed head-first into the pavement. Thankfully, she came up laughing and unscratched. She even redeemed her ego by conversing with the Pakistani worker at the restaurant, finding out that he had attended college only blocks away from our house in Lahore. It was quite the earth-shrinking discovery, actually.

* * *

Anyways, on Friday morning we toured Robben Island—a half hour ferry ride from the city centre. Our tour-guide, Tulane, was an ex-political prisoner on the island. He shared stories about playing soccer on the island with Jakob Zuma and chatting with Nelson Mandela. More importantly, he attempted to illustrate the gruesome and unjust conditions that surrounded the island and the apartheid system. He left us with an uplifting message of reconciliation and the power of the human spirit against evil. Later in the day, we went to the town of Hermanus for the night. There we stayed at a backpackers lodge, walked the rocky coast line, and ate. It was a relaxing end to their stay. Aside from all our financial talks regarding my reckless spending, I really enjoyed and appreciated their visit.

* * *

Alright, let me take you back in time a bit. Prior to the week of my parent’s visit, I went on a fantastic spring break road trip. 10 people (Americans, a Dutch, and a Norwegian). 2 cars. We named them Heaven’s Breath and Skymaster after two renowned pieces of literature that came along with us. We drove through the nights. It was about a 24 hour trip to our first stop, Kruger National Park. And then about 8 more hours to our final destination, Tofo Beach, Mozambique. Including the return trip, we spent about 64 hours on the road. It didn’t feel nearly that long. The car rides were full of fun conversations, games, and many other great ways of passing time. It was just a great group of people who all got along very well.

We stayed at various backpackers lodges throughout the week. The first one was in Nelspruit right outside Kruger. It was called the Big 5. The first morning there we went on a 12 hour safari—from 6 to 6. Our safari guide was a man by the name of Vishnu--a chain-smoking, heat-packing, yet gentle man. We saw tons of wildlife and beautiful Kruger landscape. Elephants, water buffalo, giraffes, rhino, monkeys, various deer, birds, etc… One of the highlights was an old lion that strutted 2 meters away from our wide-open safari van.

Mozambique started with a bang, as I got pulled over for speeding within the first hour of entering the country. I had to pay the patrols 1,000 Meticais, and then I'm pretty sure they just kept the money and dropped the ticket. Either way, we continued on with our journey. The three nights in Mozambique basically involved chilling on the beach and staying up late with the other backpacker guests. Our lodge sat facing the ocean, and sand covered the entire backpackers place, including the pub, restaurant, and lounge area. We went out to sea one day to snorkel with whale sharks--the biggest fish in the world. No whale sharks were spotted, but we did get to swim around with a handful of dolphins and fish. Aside from this, we just soaked up the intense heat, the warm, Indian Ocean, and the friendly Mozambicans.

The road trip home went by fast, and ended with a beautiful sunset against the mountainous land outside Cape Town.

Well, it's no longer morning and my coffee is gone. Hope things are warming up in the Midwest. Peace.

LESOTHO

This past weekend, Ben, Eli, Andy, and I decided to road-trip to Lesotho, a country completely enclaved by South Africa. Lesotho--on average--is the highest nation in the world. It completely stunned us with its beautiful, hilly landscapes.

We left Thursday evening from Cape Town. Next, a fourteen hour bus ride brought us to the South African city of Bluefontain. From here, the fun began. We rented a lil, navy VW Citisport. As a result of my ability to drive stick, I was the driver for the trip. It was my first time ever driving on the left side of the road, and was slightly confusing at first. But before a while, I felt like a master of the road. Throughout the trip, we blasted out to the Beach Boys, Fela, Sublime, Tribe Called Quest, along with some Lesotho radio. The air was fresh and the horizon was constantly lush green and hilly.

I'd say the highlight of the trip was going deep into rural Lesotho to a remote town, called Semenkong. It was here that we camped Friday and Saturday night. The roads to Semenkong were the craziest roads on which I've ever driven. They were narrow, winding and constantly going up and down with the mountains. The guys had to get out and push me up one of the steeper hills. The worst part was that they were mostly composed of rocks. These rocks only had to be five or six inches from the ground to scrape the sole of our VW. Also, there were deep, sharp potholes everywhere. I slammed these potholes on countless occasions. I largely had to keep the car in first gear, and definitely wasn't able to get out of second. 'It's like you're always stuck in second gear....' And to top things off, donkeys, sheep, horses, and goats were scattered everywhere.

...Anyways, the highly-elevated Lesotho kept us pretty cold at night, especially with the limited camping gear we had. We survived though. We went on a pony trek Saturday morning. It was about three hours round-trip. They took us over the rocky hills to this beautiful waterfall that jetted off a cliff into a deep gorge. We soaked in the view for quite some time.

The remainder of the weekend was mostly spent hiking and exploring. We walked through the town. We seemed to be quite the spectacles to most of the locals here. The biggest thing that stood out to me was their simple way of living. Everything just seemed so peaceful. There were many herders who trailed their animals through the hills during the day. Most families had very cool huts of stone. I just got a happy and relaxed vibe from Semenkong. Huge change of pace from Cape Town.

Atop a tall hill, we watched the sun go down with a bottle of Vat 69. It was a good ending to our last night. On the Sunday drive home, we stopped in Roma to see some underwhelming dinosaur footprints. Then we went to the Mohale Dam, which is a huge project that's funded by the government of South Africa with the intention of getting clean water to South Africans, to stimulate the Lesotho economy, and to generate electricity. It's been quite successful supposedly, and was quite the spectacle, too. I drove about 700 km in total, and now feel totally prepared for our spring break road trip, which begins tomorrow. We left Bluefontain Sunday night, and fourteen hours later we were back in our home away from home...Cape Town.

Happy Saint Patrick's Day to everyone. I'm of course wearing my green, Scottish jacket, which I wore for last year's Patty's day. Just bought some Guinness. Headin' to an Irish place on Long Street later tonight.

What Would I Want? Sky

First thing's first. The latter-half of "What Would I Want? Sky" by Animal Collective is so damn good! Also, on the topic of entertainment, I just watched "Fantastic Mr. Fox" again, and loved it again.

Sitting here, sweating to myself. Just another Sunday night. Had a fairly uneventful weekend. I'd say that the climax was probably the magical turning-on of my computer, who had been hibernating for the majority of this trip. I tried pulling an all-nighter Friday night so that I could skype with the 444. I ended up dozing off around 4 am, but a phone call came at about 7:30 am from Cameron, telling me to get my ass on skype! It was great to see a lot of my bros (Liesl, you are included in the bro category), despite my microphone leading to borderline incomprehensibility. Aside from this, the weekend was mainly just us spending too much time and money at Rascal's Pub. Watched soccer, conversed.

We did go down to Simon's Town for the day today. Phil, Andy, Johannas, Charlotte & I, that is. Took the train there, enjoyed the beach, then ate at a seafood restaurant that overlooks the water. The adventure came on our return trip. By the time we had gotten to the station, the train had stopped running, so we had to find some other way of getting back home. Taxi would've been far too expensive since we were probably 45 minutes out of town. We negotiated with a minibus driver to take us back, even though they typically don't drive all the way into Cape Town. This vehicle resembled our 15 passenger van from Pakistan, except that it was in far worse condition. The sliding door opened on the highway, so somebody had to permanently hold it shut. This van was very noisy, constantly rattling, and unable to absorb even the slightest of bumps. Personally, I had to go number 1 and 2, so that just magnified the discomfort for me. But things would only get worse... Halfway home, there was a loud bang and we could see tire shreds fly up. The driver swerved uncontrollably, then magically managed to pull to the side of the highway. We were lucky to pull over safely. Got out and driver tells us that he lent out his only spare tire earlier in the day. Great. At least I got to pee in a bush, which relieved half of my bodily discomfort. Thankfully, shortly after, another bus came, picked us up, and took us home where I would relieve the other half of discomfort. Here I am now. That, folks, sums up my weekend.

Lovely

Hey, my laptop turned on today for the first time in 3 weeks. I'm on cloud 9. Friday evening. Starting the evening with chardonnay and poker. I know the combination of those two seems kind of oxymoronic, but I'm fine with it. Catching up on all the bros' blogs, and just happy to have a computer in front of me.

This just in: There's a tentative plan to skype the 444 in the next 24 hours!

Paid for our rental cars for our spring break road trip today. 2 more weeks till it's upon us. We are trippin to Krueger National Park, and then heading into Mozambique for the latter half of it. There's 8 of us in all. It should be a blast.

Heading downtown later this evening. I'm not really sure what's up. I'm off.

Already March

It's Monday, the first day of March. It really is quite incredible--borderline scary--to already be in March. Before I know it, my time here will be winding down. It's constantly scorching here in Cape Town. Yesterday was probably the hottest day yet, reaching as high as 40 C (about 104 F).

Phil, Andy, Johannas, Charlotte, and I took this hot opportunity to spend the whole day climbing. We set out early to conquer Table Mountain, the range that overlooks the Atlantic. We started at 9:00 am thinking that we'd beat the heat, but we largely underestimated the trek on which we had set...We began in Kirstenbosch gardens (beautiful place that I'll have to take my mom to) on the southeast part of the mountains and navigated our own trail from there. By the time we actually began ascending, it was close to 10:00. Minimal shade on the rocky mountain. Penetrating sun and no cloudage. There were a few tricky passes, but for the most part it was gradual, yet very tiring. By the time we got to what we thought was close to the top, we reached a map that said we were still 3hrs away from the cable car that would take us down. We were exhausted at this point but just kept trekking; it's what we came to do. Overall, we got a fantastic few of the city, suburbs, ocean, and mountains. The total expedition lasted over 5 hours and covered over 10 km of climbing, all in 100+ F heat. Call me a wuss now, Chris, ok? At one point we ran into 'more-experienced-looking' climbers who asked us if we needed them to call an evacuation crew for us. I think they were actually pretty serious about it, too. Whenever we thought we were at the final peak, there was always a dishearteningly taller peak beyond. But alas, we made it to the cable car that would take us back down to the city, where we'd catch a cab back to our house. Nothing has ever felt so rewarding than the water, vitamin water, and frozen yogurt that i inhaled at the finish line. Upon arriving home, we watched the Tottenham game (they're 'my team' now thanks to a fanatic named Max), then the Carling Cup game, and we topped it off my going to see the movie, 'the Book of Eli'. Good way of finishing off an exhausting day.


Mondays (today) are the busiest day of the week for me. I begin with three classes, usually. Today, however, I am not beginning with 3 classes; instead, i'm at home writing this blog. And then, at 2:00, I always have SHAWCO volunteering which is a really great experience. I travel to the township of Khayalitsha, where I tutor 4th graders in maths, literature, and 'life orientation'. The kids are sometimes a little wild and hard to communicate with, but it's still something i'm glad i'm doing. This township is the saddest and one of the most impoverished places i have ever seen. It shares many characteristics with the 'shanty towns' you see in 'District 9'. But, both the kids and I enjoy the sessions, and hopefully they can get something out of it. I sure am.

After, SHAWCO, it's all play. Typically, I will then go to 'Scrumpy Jacks' with another SHAWCOer, Eli, and we'll shoot some pool and drink some litres. Then, at 8:00 we head across the street for our weekly reservation at Panchos Mexican Grill. About 15 of us consistently eat and drink margaritas here every Monday. We all look forward to it. After this, we will top off our night by traveling to Wynberg, and going to a jazz club called 'Swingers'. Here, we listen to some amazing local musicians play at open mic while we shoot pool with shady locals. All in all, Mondays are the best (and most expensive) days of the week!

Signing off from Cape Town. May each one of you have a very good opening week of March.

I will end with a fun video of spirited and drunk fans singing at the Stormers game.

Me just ramblin'

Hey folks, it has been a while. I'm getting used to this whole limited computer access sitch, but it's certainly affecting my blog frequency among other things. And as a result I'm going to just spit out anything that comes to my mind in this short 30 minute access period that I'm given.

 

Bare-footed. It's a very common means of walking around, here. It is socially acceptable to roam shoeless through the malls, streets, and campus. I've enjoyed it on occasion, myself. It instills a feeling of freedom. Consequentially, my feet's soles are always black, but it's no big deal because everyone else's are, too. Also, I have gotten used to sand constantly occupying my many crevices. Speaking of feet, my Birkie tan is becoming more defined.

We have a mini-gecko who constantly occupies our bedroom. I've named him 'Joe the frog' because i believe it's the reincarnation of the 444's late pet. 

Let's see...rugby. It's huge here. Super 14 tourney commenced a bit ago, which consists of the 14 best club teams in the world. We've been following the Cape Town Stormers religiously, who are 2-0 now. We're going to their 3rd game tomorrow evening, and it should be a blast. The more i'm understanding the game, the more I'm loving it more and more.

March should be a good month, despite the fact that I won't be able to catch any ncaa tourney action. We have our spring break, where i think some guys and i will be renting a car and roadtripping around southern Africa. We haven't discussed specific plans, yet. And then the week that follows, my parents are visiting and i'm really looking forward to that.

I've gotten into the whole school groove. My 3 classes shouldn't really pose any problems, nor should they really interfere with having fun. So far, quite easy. The classes are: history of so. Africa to 1900; African lit & lang; and crime and deviance in south African cities. Sadly there have been three students murdered in the past month. There was just a ceremony on campus held for the most recent victim, who was stabbed to death downtown.

I plan to begin working out, I think, in attempt to discredit Ben Oswald who claimed that it's impossible to study abroad and not come back 20 lbs fatter. We'll see. Mom, I'm wearing sunscreen and being safe. 

I think i've said enough, and i have no more time in which to say more anyways. Hi to everyone.

KE NAKO "It's Time"

116 days 04 hours 20 minutes 27 seconds until World Cup kicks off. There's a constant countdown in all the McDonald's and on the TV's bottomlines. There's already quite the buzz that's getting me excited for it to begin. I find World Cup commercials to be more inspiring than any other sports commercials. I get goosebumps half the time I see one.
So far i have tickets for two games--the first one being France vs. Uruguay on the first day of the Cup. It is the opening game in Cape Town's brand new 68,000-capacity stadium, which is surrounded by Table Mountain and the shore that looks out to Robben Island, where Nelson Mandela and other political prisoners were imprisoned during apartheid. The stadium is designed to be "unobtrusive from the land but quite striking from the sea."
Also, they're setting up a Fan Fest zone downtown where they'll show all the Cup games on a giant screen. It's free and will hold over 25,000 people. There's entertainment and beer, and is open from 10 am to midnight every day. I may be just as excited f0r this as i am for the games. It's probably where i'll spend the whole month of June (especially if i don't find a place to live).
Cam, could you download season 3 of Californication for me? i'll have my parents get it from you before they visit me. I'm hooked on the show, and credit Hank Moody for all my recent bad decisions. My new computer doesn't work, so that's an additional cause of my Internet inaction. Peace be with you.

Hats

This Sunday I took another trip to the Muisenberg beach with two of my housemates, Phillip and Johannas. Phil is a 27 year old graduate from Western Michigan and Johannas is a 22 year old German who shares a room with me. Our fourth housemate, Andy, is 20 and goes to NC State. I had a pretty nice experience at the beach this time. We swam for a bit, and then kicked a soccer ball around for quite some time. The highlight of the trip, however, was my encounter with a local homeless man named Errian Kol (sp?). Anyways, he was walking around and decided to take a seat next to me. I was a little uneasy at first, but I soon understood that all he wanted was to chat, and maybe something to eat. We talked. I had no food for him, but I gave him a Coke. I told him where I was from, and he explained a little of his background. I learned that his mother’s mother’s great grandmother was a German, thus explaining his colouration. He really liked hearing about the United States. His first question to me was, “Have you ever seen Mariah Carey?” Sadly, I hadn’t. He really liked my Milwaukee Brewers hat, so I asked him if he wanted to switch hats. He really liked that idea. And so did I. I gave him my Brewers hat, and he gave me his faded green hat. We took a picture together, and then went our separate ways. I think we both were positively affected by the interaction. I told him that when I come back to this beach, I’ll wear my new green hat, and that he should wear his Brewers hat. That way, we can hopefully run into each other again. It was just a nice experience at the beach. I’m sure I’ll be back to that beach, and it'd be neat to run into him again. My new green hat has been very lucky at the house poker table, too! I've won 2 of the last 3 nights.

The southern-most “house” in Africa

We bussed down to Cape Point/ the Cape of Good Hope, which was originally believed to be the southern-most point in Africa, but later found to be out-“southed” by Cape Agulhas, a cape that jets out a few hundred kilometers to the east. Windy with rocky cliffs and sandy beaches. Sunny and blue waters. All of us little international ants filed out of our tour bus and ascended up to the watchtower at Cape Point. A satisfying lookout place to where the Atlantic meets the Indian. The ants then descended the trail back to the bus. But the five of us were not completely satisfied. In the short, more southern, distance stood an old man’s house. We needed to visit him—possibly the southern-most man of Africa. We were short on time but we didn’t care. We ascended, descended, and then ascended once more. Treacherous paths. At times only a misstep away from fatally dropping. Crawling on all fours with the incoming image of the shack keeping us motivated. Finally, it’s within reach, almost there. We joyously arrive at the man’s shack, which is vacant at the moment. He left it open, though, so we could take a look around. We think we see him in his houseboat out at sea where he spends most his days. Oh well, we are just happy to have made it. We need proof. I quickly find a rock on which to place my camera, set the timer…and flash! Great photo for an even greater trek! We descend back to the busses completely satisfied, to where all the ants have already gathered. None of them understand the significance of our adventure.

Penguins at Simon's Town

Contact information though June 28, 2010:

Mobile: 27825601076

Residence: 3 Esher Rd, Claremont

Cape Town, Western Cape

South Africa 77708

All texts/calls are welcome, although they may cost you a small fortune. Same goes for shipments. Hottest day yet today, 26 Celsius. It's the first day without a strong breeze which really adds to the scorcher. I was called out by Josh for not being faithful to my skype promise. He has a point. We're trying to figure out the costs first before we do too much skyping.

Two weeks in and two of my friends have already been mugged. My turn may come at some point, but I'm trying to be smart about it. I usually leave my wallet at home and instead just throw some bills in my pocket. The less you have, the less they can take i guess. It's too bad though, because I love walking and exploring the city alone. I find it very relaxing. From now on, I'll try to just do that with empty pockets.

School begins tomorrow. Peace.

pub & mutton

We’ve been watching the African Cup of Nations and EPL games at a great sports pub—Rascal’s—just down the street a lot lately. Manchester United has a cult-like following among the locals here it seems. During the Arsenal/Man U game yesterday, Rascal’s was flooded with people, most of whom had some sporting attire for Manchester United. We all shared tables, and most people had to stand. And instead of ordering individual beers, they offer jugs, which hold 3.5 L of beer. Four jugs and two games later, I had some delicious mutton curry from the Pakistani place across the street. I even thanked the man in Urdu, I think. A few nights ago when we were watching the Egypt Algeria semifinal match, we sat with a local who taught us how to order Castle beers without sounding like foreigners. With my impressive grasp of accents, I of course nailed it. I’m slowly becoming African.

Winds & Fins

Today I made it to the beach for the first time. A bunch of us finished registering for classes, which is all done on paper and takes way too long, and hopped on the train near lower campus and set out east toward the coast in Muzenberg—just a few townships away. At the beach, there is endless coastline with sharp mountains everywhere. It is very, very windy, creating large, choppy waves that start a few hundred yards from the shoreline. It is a beautiful, quiet town—more of a place for locals, rather than tourists. We didn’t really do much..just ate sandy chicken burgers on the beach, swam a bit, relaxed, and got quite sun-burnt. It was only a few beaches down that a great white shark took a man out to sea last week. They have shark spotters on the beach where we were today. The black flag was up, meaning that the waters were too choppy for visibility. So, most of us went for a swim anyways. Comfortable temperature. Great waves. About a half hour later, the siren rang and the shark flag replaced the black flag, which means a shark had just been spotted. Pretty exciting. Back home now and getting ready for the night. Got a pretty good Birkenstock tan-line that I’m happy about. Skype is up and running and OK to use now, so I’m down to chat it up anytime. Peace.

the beginnings of this cape town thing

“Desperate times call for desperate friendships, which leads to really good friendships”

My first blog post is dedicated to Brett Meyer. Since Internet only partially exists here, this is the first time I’m able to do anything online, so I’ll brief you with some highlights to catch you up. I finally made it to Cape Town after 21 hours of air time. Stomach felt blank, and I was uneasy. Xanax didn’t help me sleep at all, and I didn’t really desire to eat for a few days. On Friday night, we did some big time clubbing with all the international students (there’s 600+ of us) on Long Street. At this point, it’s basically just hundreds of us doing orientation stuff during the day, and drinking heavily at night. Badgers have a bad rep because there are so many of us. Long Street in downtown Cape Town is crazy as fuck. Packed place. People and taxis plugging the streets, sidewalks and bars. Horns honking. A lot of beggars and infinite sketchy people. I felt incredibly vulnerable to theft (or something) but for some reason I really didn’t care. The atmosphere just kicked any feeling of vulnerability right in the ass. Also, I kind of (indirectly) got pepper sprayed that night and it was awesome!

Everything seems so cheap here, so I’m justifying spending incredible quantities of money. After this week of orientation, we have another free week where I have a lot of things planned. Probably going great white cage diving among other things.

I’m getting used to my living conditions, but they’re definitely weird and a bit isolated. Weather is hot, my tan is coming along wonderfully. South Africans come in all colours, so I feel like I’m doing a pretty good job trying to disguise myself as one at times. Overall, the first week has been very fresh and overwhelming.

A special hello goes out to all members of the 444. Hopefully, the Internet will allow some skyping.