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.
Saturday, January 30, 2010
Wednesday, January 27, 2010
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.
