(Title subtext: Sorry, I HAD to name it that.)
Whew, sorry for the blog hiatus. I haven’t felt much like
writing because of the sorry state of my love life; didn’t want to get all
crazy on the internet. A few cool things have gone down since I last wrote –
went to (and loved) my first cricket match, saw an amazing concert in
Kirstenbosch gardens, another 3-day training at the Waterfront complete with
ample tea & scone breaks. This weekend was especially excellent: the other
student from UT’ s social work program who is in South Africa and her friend
came to visit me from her placement near Joburg. They’re working at an AIDS
orphanage/village that is very rural and reminds me completely of Haiti when
she talks about it. So when they arrive on Wednesday night, I make it my
mission to roll out the red carpet and welcome her back to civilization in
style. Yay Cape Town!
I send the two of them, Christy and Daphne (from the
Netherlands) on fun adventures to the beach while I’m working (late) on Friday.
I am pooped when I get home from work, but obviously ready to party, and have
hatched what I believe to be a most excellent plan. The girls don’t have very
many fancytime clothes with them since they live in the bush and all, so I
enjoy going through my closet trying to dress them in all my favorite clothes. Alison
comes over, we get ready, everybodys lookin’ hot, have some drinks, and then
get a cab to a sushi restaurant in Camps Bay. After sushi time we walk down the
street to Café Caprice, which is supposed to be quite the hot spot. The weather
is kinda bad tonight, so I just assume that is why Café Caprice is surprisingly
dull. There is some barefoot dude and his pink haired friend stomping around on
the dance floor to house music and old dudes checking us out. After one drink,
Alison and I make the executive decision to take this party to Club 31. Yeaaa,
my weekends are starting to make a pattern. We wrangle a cab and head downtown.
31 starts off great as I’m at the bar for the first time,
going to pay for our drinks when the bar tender stops me and says someone has
already paid for them. YES! I look around, and don’t see any particularly
obvious person who bought these. Even better! I think maybe it’s the guy to my
left, so I make small talk with him before bopping off to the dance floor. We
have a particular spot on the dance floor next to the windows close to the DJ
booth. While dancing, I keep looking up at the DJ booth thinking he looks kinda
lonely up there. I also think about how I would really like to request “Single
Ladies.” I don’t do anything about these thoughts for awhile until something
possesses me and I find myself up in the booth jammin’ with DJ whoever this is.
Next thing I know, he bends down and my eyes fall upon his private DJ
mini-fridge liquor stash. And then he starts pouring tequila for us. 31 is
being extra kind to me tonight. When I finally leave the DJ booth, for SOME
reason, I pull one of my cards out of my purse and leave it up on the counter
for him. HI! Here’s my work number! Call me maybe??
My head finally hits the pillow around 4:30, and then, I
swear my alarm instantly goes off and its 10:30. Time to go to Robben Island! I
bought tickets for Justine, Christy, Daphne and I earlier in the week to go on
the 1:00 tour. We plan to walk down to the Waterfront to catch the boat. I get us
up at 10:30 just to make sure I’ve built in a large cushion of time. Good thing
too because I’m having struggles getting ready. Christy and I agree a bloody
mary would be very appropriate and helpful right now. But I realize there’s no
way we’re going to have time to stop and sit in a bar, even if we found one
that was open (this ain’t nola). So I do
the next best thing. On the way out I stop by the liquor store next to my
apartment to look for some stupid pre-mixed cocktail in a can or glass or
whatever. Unfortunately, the best thing I can find is an energy drink pre-mixed
with a lil bit of vodka. I guess I could use some caffeine so that will do. I
sip it as we walk through a rally a bunch of religious people are having right
as they’re taking an oath to not lust after any woman but their wife. Very
ambitious there.
Next stop is Food Lovers market for pizza and stuff. (Except Justine doesn’t buy anything because
she brought a super vegan salad extraordinaire from home.) Then I realize we
need to pick up the pace a bit to make it to the boat on time. So everyone is
hustling and sweating to make it down the to the Waterfront when I remember we
should’ve just taken a minibus taxi for R 5 a piece. Everyone hates me for
remembering when I do since its too late, but oh well, we’re getting our
exercise. We make it and run through the Waterfront past the lego man and a
seal I think is dead into the security line. When we go through the metal
detector, the man stops Justine and asks her if she has a fork in her bag. Well
yes, what else is she going to eat her super vegan salad extraordinaire with,
sir? He confiscates it. I throw a fit because we only have THREE forks left in
the apt now and that’s as many people live there! I ask if I may retrieve it
when I am back from the tour, he says sure. This placates me enough to get on
the boat. I reward myself for making it this far on a few hours sleep and an
(alcoholic) energy by eating that slice of pizza from food lovers. Then I try
not to get sea sick as this ferry goes 100 miles an hour over rough seas. The
struggle continues.
Once on Robben Island we drive around to points of interest
while a tour guide with a very mechanical voice and heavy accent tells us
interesting things. At the one place we get off the bus Justine buys chocolate
and cookies and feeds it to me the rest of the tour. I love her. We also take pictures at this beautiful Table
Mountain vantage point. Up until this point, Christy has been calling it Table
Top and Lion’s Knob. Haha! Hey fun fact, did you know Robben Island also used
to be a leper colony? Anyway, next we tour the actual prison. They take us to
Nelson Mandela’s cell and our guide, an ex-political prisoner himself, tells us
the story of how a guy snuck the copy of Long Walk to Freedom off the island
hiding each page behind photos in a photo album. I feel all emotional. So much
history here, its really an amazing place. The tour could use work though, you
don’t get to linger at all or see half of what’s there. They could really pack
in a lot more or at least give you a few minutes to explore and read the
plaques. Oh, and they should really fix that toilet completely flooding the
women’s restroom.
We are all seriously struggling by the time we get back to
the boat. The other girls fall asleep on the short ride back while I try to
stare at the horizon and not feel sea sick. When we get back to the dock, I
march back into the security people and ask for the fork back. The guy takes me
to a filing cabinet and opens it. Inside there are two forks and a regular ol’
dining knife. What exciting contraband. He picks up a fork and hands it to me.
It is not my fork. He puts it back and then gives me the correct fork so I can
be on my way, thank you very much. We finally make it home afterwards and crash.
I set my alarm for an hour later because Cape Town’s
Carnival is tonight at 7. I have no idea why a city would have carnival during
the middle of Lent, but I love a parade, so fine. When my alarm goes off, I
don’t want to move and lie there thinking about how crazy it would be to get up
and keep going. But you only live once (YOLO) and when friends are in town, you
have to yolo hard. So I rally the troops and we head down to Greenpoint. But of
course we stop at the amazing Indian Food Bazaar for ample, cheap, delicious
fuel. I have really discovered my love for Indian food here. I get wise this
time and put us in a minibus taxi to Greenpoint after dinner. It costs us R 7 a
piece though and I realize once we get going that we easily could’ve walked and
a cab this short of a distance for less than R 21. Ha, well you live and learn
I guess.
Carnival is interesting, but short. Well actually I think we
just missed a lot of it because we were late. But yea, it is very short
compared to Mardi Gras. Also, you cannot drink on the street. I wonder why you
would even have a parade. We find a “public bar” that’s in some tents on the
side of the road. This suits us just fine and is next to the stage so we hang
out and watch music all night. We take pictures of the floats and with people
in their neat costumes; it’s a great night.
The next morning, Christy and I wake up and go to church. We
then go to ShopRite to pay for a plane ticket I bought spur of the moment to
visit her and Daphne at the age orphanage over Easter weekend!! (YOLO!) I’m
very excited to leave the city and have some time in the 3rd world.
But we spend the rest of the day very much in the 1st world. After
lunch, we go for tea in the Company’s Gardens behind parliament. I HIGHLY
recommend it. I had a “pancake” and ice cream that changed my life. We also
watched some people feed pigeons out of their hands. I totally judge these
people – pigeons are so filthy, I just know these people are going to get a
disease. Ew, I hate pigeons. Fastforward twenty minutes or so and there I am
with those people. I let a pigeon land on my arm. This freaks me out very much.
Who am I?
That evening we climb Lion’s Head/Knob. People are
paragliding off the mountain and whispy little clouds are rushing over the
mountain. Well, by the time we make it to the top, the thin clouds have
thickened up very much, so we’re just walking around in the cloud. I feel bad
that for Christy’s one shot up Lion’s she only got to see the inside of a
cloud. Bummer. Its ok though, I think she enjoyed the journey very much anyway.
Its all about the journey man (ha).
Today, Monday, it was back to work for me while the girls
went shark cage diving. And now I know why I don’t have weekends like this
anymore now that I’m out of college. Despite going to bed at 10 last night, I
could NOT wake up this morning. I was in a monitoring and evaluation planning
workshop at an NGO this morning and was struggling SO hard to keep my eyes
open. One of the guys made fun of me in the kitchen later when I went to put
extra scoops in my instant coffee. Not even that helped. I think it was because
I woke up in the middle of a weird kinda sad dream. You know how groggy you
feel when you wake up in the middle of a dream, especially one about your
pathetic love life.
I’m starting to totally panic about how much time I have
left here. It is NOT enough. Work is hectic (but I LOVE it), I have too much
schoolwork to do (I do NOT love it), I need to plan my grand finale safari, I
need to get a stinkin visa so I don’t accidently become an illegal alien. I get
Thursday off for Human Rights Day. I plan to celebrate by locking myself in my
apartment and doing schoolwork ALL DAY LONG. What a sad ending to a fun blog
right? Its ok, if I get it all done I get to graduate, yay! Have a great week J
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