Day 3: Pick n Pay/ Fruit n Veg

Sunday morning is lazy. I wake up at 7 something again, but immediately roll over and go back to sleep. A text wakes me up around 10:30, but I can’t reply to it because I never bought any minutes for my phone. I was provided with this phone that is straight out of 2001 – a black rectangle with a keypad that only has like 9 buttons on it. It takes me like 3 minutes to type a text message on it, so I’d really rather just not use it and get around to unlocking my Blackberry someday. And I have news for all of you haters: Blackberrys are super cool here! They have better plans than the iPhone or something… but I’m gonna be totally popular when I get that bad boy working here.

After eating breakfast up in my Liliya and Malisa’s apartment with a smashing view on the 16^th floor, the gang gets their act together and we go to the beach at Camp’s Bay, YAY! We get around by taxi just about everywhere here because the public transport that exists is a bit sketchy, and cab rides are pretty cheap. So we cab it to the beach, I put on lots of sunscreen, and lay down in the beautiful white sand and stare at the mountains surrounding me. Heaven. We decide to go for a swim and the water is freezing, that water must be floating straight over from Antarctica! I refuse to go in past my shins. After walking around on the beach, we go up to the street. Its very South Beach looking with restaurants and bars lining the sidewalk. We also discover, much to my delight, there is a Pick n Pay! I haven’t gone to the grocery store yet so I pop in, pick out some food, pay for it. And that is how Pick n Pay works!

When I wake up Monday morning, I notice that my skin hurts. I kind of ignore it until I wake up and look in the mirror and am shocked to see a giant, splotchy lobster looking back at me! Ew, what happened! I was only out in the sun for like 3 hours and had sunscreen on, no swimming, no towel drying, and I even reapplied on my shoulders. I guess I just transitioned too quickly from winter to summer. Regardless, I have learned my lesson, the sun here is a force to be reckoned with. I also heard that South Africa recently surpassed Australia as having a higher rate of skin cancer than anywhere else in the world. Man, I love these sunny places.

I go to orientation on Monday at my apartment and then get really lazy and sit on my couch reading and such, even though I really need to do some shopping for the apartment. I finally resolve to go out, looking like a totally angry burnt crawfish, to this place I heard about called Fruit and Veg. As you may have guessed, it is a place that sells mostly fruits and vegetables; my kinda place. I walk down the street and into the MOST MAGICAL PLACE – rows and rows of fresh, delicious produce that is SO CHEAP. I buy peaches, tons of mangos, grapes, turkey, bananas, I don’t even remember what else. And when I go to check out, it costs me about $8. Explosions go off in my brain and I have to actively restrain myself from jumping over the checkout thing to hug the cashier! This is the BEST. I waltz back down the street with my excellent produce in my excellent reusable shopping tote, looking at the excellent mountains and feeling the excellent breeze. And then I stop into a bottle shop and buy a couple of South African brews and a bottle of chenin blanc, which I have never heard of before. Sounds exciting.

I am euphoric; its been awhile since I’ve felt this happy. There’s something about being in a foreign country that shakes me and wakes up my senses. Its beautiful, interesting, challenging, always a good adventure to be had. I feel a release of all the stress and weight of the last year and a half, it feels like I’m free. I am deeply, deeply thankful.

Once back at my apartment, I don’t want to be indoors so I go hang out with Cherry at her pool for a bit before meeting up with my roommate, Cailey, to do some more shopping for our apartment at the Garden Centre. Then we decide to go for a run and have a beer on the roof as the sun sets. We talk about all my favorite things – God, boys, the conundrums of international development. And tomorrow, I go into my internship for the first time! I’m so excited, and a bit scared because I don’t know what to expect. Here’s to hoping its going to be great!