Day 113: Final Days in the Mother City

I had to take a break from packing. I should not be taking this break, but, ya know, reflection time is important too. I leave tomorrow for my safari. My last few days in Cape Town have been so full of highs, lows, emotions, stress, excitement, victory. I finished my last assignment for school on Thursday, so I am DONE and will officially be an MS(S)W (thanks for the extra ‘S’ UT, I always hated it) on 18 May! But Thursday was also my last day at Southern Hemisphere, and that was sad. It was rainy and gloomy. After having a couple of weeks of summer-like weather, winter returned. It matched my mood perfectly. I’ll miss that place. Luckily, the people I work with have let me borrow several things like a sleeping bag, books, pillows, etc. for my trip, so I’ll have to go by the office and return them before I go!

Friday was a very fun day for me though. I have been getting a weirdly large amount of sleep lately, accompanied by a lot of bad dreams associated with leaving, oddly enough. But anyway, I wake up early Friday with a full day ahead of me – lots of errands to run. First stop, drop my laundry off. I’m going to miss the laundry lady and the extreme convenience she affords me for a very low cost. Then, instead of heading straight to my next stop, I go to my favorite coffee house just up the road, Truth. I get a flat white and decide I may as well get one of those pastries sitting out on the counter, calling my name and asking nicely for me to eat them. I pick a buttery, almond croissant and nearly die from fat and happiness as I read the paper and enjoy my goodies. Then its off to the pharmacy to get malaria meds which cost TOO much money! I was going to shrug off getting them at all, but my coworkers bothered me enough about it and everyone seemed to know someone who’s caught malaria (self included) so I decided to go for it. That sets me back about an hour waiting and $100. Whatever, just put it on the credit card and deal with it later.

Next up, Woolworths to spend the R 250 gift card Southern Hemisphere gave me. YAY! I walk downtown to the big Woolies and have a blast picking through the racks. I collect quite a stack of things before going back to the fitting room to take an inordinate amount of time figuring out what to buy. It comes down to these amaaazing jegging capri things that cinch at the bottom of the leg and a nice ecru peasant-style blouse that I can wear just about anywhere. After much ado, I decide I must have both of them because when the heck will I ever shop at Woolies again?? So that comes out to R 625 (oops), but the gift card brings it down to R 375 and I end up spending about $20 per piece. Not bad! I leave the store very pleased.

As I’m walking to the post office, I think about how fun life would be if I didn’t have to work and I could just run errands around Cape Town all day. Its even beautiful and fun in crappy weather. I will miss very much walking around this city.

After posting some mail, I go back to St. George’s pedestrian mall looking for this beauty salon Alison raves about. She went there to get her eyelashes tinted and it was only R 40, so I decided I would see what this was all about. Mostly because I will be on safari for a month and not wearing make up and maybe this would make me look like I have on mascara in my photos. Also because I’m just curious as to how they dye your eyelashes. I go in and lay on a table in the spa while she puts these big cotton pads under my eyes and then smear stuff on my lashes. Wait 15 minutes. Then she comes and smears the stuff off. It burns. She gives me eye drops. Tah-dah, now I have blacker eyelashes! It drove me nuts laying there while it set, my eyes didn’t know what to do. You can’t even see it well on me because my lashes are pretty dark anyway. Oh well, it was an interesting and cheap experiment (would’ve cost a lot more at home).

My last stop of the afternoon (besides picking up the laundry) is to Charly’s Bakery to buy something for my roommate, Biva’s 21^st birthday. Its this famous bakery in my neighborhood that everyone loves to go to and take pictures of things they make because everything is ridiculously cute. The building is pink and looks like a unicorn threw up on it because there are rainbows and flowers and hearts and stuff everywhere. And no kidding their tagline is “Mucking Afazing Cakes.” Bunch of hippies. I can’t find any cute birthday-specific cupcakes so I settle on buying this cute cookie shaped and iced to look like a cupcake. That’ll do. Then I get the heck out of rainbow unicorn barf land. As I’m walking home, I realize I live in such a cool neighborhood. Not obviously cool to the passerby, but hidden cool. I wish I would’ve explored it more.

The rest of my day, I clean, pack, cook, etc. Then Biva comes home and we get ready to go out. We have planned a BIG celebration for her birthday and my last night out in Cape Town. We’ve been meaning to go to this club called Tiger Tiger because everyone says it’s the greatest, but its all the way out in a suburb called Claremont. Why you ask? Well because that’s where UCT is and so all the hip young folk have easy access to Tiger. So we never felt like making the trek out there, but tonight is a special occasion! We both wear black and gold. She wears these crazy shiny gold shorts and I wear this ridiculous gold sequins cape thing I bought for New Years last year. Oh yea, we look good. We drink pink champagne and eat the cupcake thing and then hit the club.

Oh my gosh, it is a wonderland! WHY have I never gone out in Claremont before? Good music, cool space, and gorgeous boys everywhere!! I won’t bore you with the details, but I did meet one who was in the X Games once. Hahaha, the best. Unfortunately, Tiger closes at 2, at which point I expect we will go home. But the birthday girl is feeling way too good, as she should, and wants to go to Stones across the street. She walks up to the front of the line and somehow talks the bouncer into letting all seven of us in our group into Stones without paying cover. Winning. Then we stay there until I get hungry and want to go eat, so me and X Games boy and his friends go to this magical gas station down the road that has a late night bakery and a Steers (nasty fast food, not worth mentioning really). WHY is Claremont endlessly amazing??! So we stuff our faces with mini pizzas, spinach and feta focaccia, chicken and herb roll things, and jelly tots until its 4:30 in the morning and we all just clearly need to go home.  Thus ending a beautiful night.

I wake up this morning to the sound of cheers outside, who knows what that’s about, then look at my phone and see its 11am already! AHHH Home Affairs closes at noon and I HAVE to go there to get my visa today. Last chance! I shoot out of bed and clobber a bowl of Frosties while getting “dressed” (if you can count putting on sweatpants) then race to the office. Luckily, Saturdays is collection day only so its like Home Affairs light and I only have to wait about half an hour. When I get up to the counter, I am shocked, amazed, and thrilled that the guy actually has my visa and sticks it into my passport. Hooray! I’m not an illegal alien anymore!

Then I go to the blend and have a delicious omelette by myself and reflect on Cape Town and leaving and just think a lot until I’ve cleaned my plate. Afterward I go home and apply for my first real, full-time job. Wish me luck there folks! And I promise myself I won’t stress about it while I’m in the middle of Africa enjoying life and creation and stuff. Now I’m here. Getting closer and closer to go time. Not packing, but desperately needing to. So I better get up and go ya’ll. This will be my last post. Ew I didn’t want to say that. Maybe I’ll do a bonus post of some safari adventures or my real last weekend in Cape Town in June. Eee!

Signing off for now, much love!

Day 110: Gotta Get Down on Braaiday

This weekend was another marvelous montage of beaches, penguins, sunsets, staying out too late, etc. It also included the South African Cheese Festival. Winning! We drove out to Stellenbosch for the day and had tons of cheese and wine tastings, plus lounging and dancing to live music. The best part was playing a game where we all split up and each bought an item to R 20 to bring back to the group to share later. I bought a bottle of white wine, it was actually R 35, but it was so good I figured I didn’t mind paying $4 instead of $2.50. We brought back a nice spread – two bottles of wine, a wheel of camembert, a wheel of brie, a slice of chocolate cake, and a jar of pesto to go with the bread we brought from home. Not to shabby. Oh wait, I think maybe the actual best part was that a lady was selling these lanyard things that hold your wine glass for you. So you can WEAR you wine glass around your neck. I obviously seized this opportunity immediately. Although it turns out wearing your wine around your neck can be quite dangerous. Don’t set it down while your sitting and then make any sudden movements. And don’t walk around in hands-free mode if its filled up too high, or your shirt will pay for it. Basically, I recommend only putting white wines in your wine necklace glass. But definitely wear it proudly.

My favorite story lately comes from today though. Today, May 1, is Workers’ Day here in South Africa (sometimes known as May Day), so we get a public holiday. Hooray! This is the first public holiday that I don’t stay home and use as a schoolwork catch up day. Maybe I should have, but, ah well, I have school pretty under control and I couldn’t care less about it at this point. Senioritis. So some friends and I hatch a brilliant plan to go to a famous braai place in a township – Mzoli’s in Guguletu. I have been wanting to go for months but had pretty much given up on the idea, but what better day to go than a public holiday?? So we all pile in the car and head down the N2 into the Cape Flats (the place the guidebooks and proper/scared people tell you to avoid like the plague).

We hang out for a bit and wait for our friend Zelda to get there who is from Gugs (pronounced googs) but now has moved on up and lives in Paarl, and her niece Natalie. Since we’re a little early and are not sure what else to do, we go to the bar next door and get some beers. It is after noon by now anyway. A guy comes around selling sunglasses, so I buy a couple of pairs – one a pair of fake Ray Ban aviators (Roi Bans as Alison cleverly calls them) and this cheesy pair of way farer style glasses with the South African flag pattern covering them. I think they’re hilarious. I supposed I’ll wear them on safari. I also decide to wear them the rest of the day in Gugs just to help myself stick out a little more.

Anyway, so our friend shows up and the braai party begins! Inside Mzoli’s is very much what I thought it would be: a bunch of tables under a tent with a ton of people at them eating meat and generally getting rowdy. But the weird part is that there is a DJ BLARING house music. So its like a bbq place, but also a club. And not the sort of club I would have pictured, because I would fully have expected hip-hop to be blaring. I hate house, but whatever, I accept it. And these people make it fun anyway.

So after we claim a table, we head to the butcher to pick out our meat. We get a ton of chicken so Ines, I want a lot of what I think are steaks (later I think they are actually pork), we get hunks of lamb, and a big sausage for Abe. Cherry wants everything. Ok, I want everything too. We pretty much all want everything, except Ines who only wants chicken. Oh, but maybe I don’t want the sausage. That stuff looks incredibly disgusting, like giant slabs of intestines just sitting on top of each other in the meat case. All wriggly and slimy and nasty. Picking out meat is fun! Then we take it back to the pits for someone to cook. In the meantime, there is drinking to do back at the table. Besides the beer we bought, Zelda has brought sparkling red wine with her. She works at none other than Solms Delta – the winery where we had the picnic from heaven!! I love her.

Soon the meat is ready and it turns out eating it is more fun than picking it out. It is DELICIOUS. We eat meat on meat on meat. So much meat! Like a HUGE platter full, 6 of us can’t finish it all. And it only cost R 220. While eating the meat, I can’t help but bob my head up and down to the persistent beat of the house music. What a strange and magical place. I even eat the creepy sausage, and its pretty darn good.

More reasons to love Zelda, besides the fact that she’s beautiful and fun and sweet, she goes way back with Mzoli. THE Mzoli of Mzoli’s. He comes and talks to us for a bit and has us come sit at his table. Excellent. We take some photos with him. And then its time to dance. Let me tell you, I am so thankful I took that hip-hop dance class when I was a senior at Tulane. It has helped me enormously to dance confidently in cultures that value being able to move your caboose. Once again, it comes in handy. I feel like I should write a thank-you note to my teacher. Natalie and I do lots of booty-bumping and she shows me some dance move where you kick really high in the air. I start showing off and kick really high and almost knock some guy in the face. He looks a little shocked but is good natured about it. Natalie laughs really hard and tells me to tone it down. Then Cherry points out that someone at Mzoli’s told me to tone it down. This is my wild life.

After we dance for awhile, Zelda wants to show us another “posh” bar down the street. It’s a cement building with leather furniture and elaborate crown molding plus some flat screen TVs showing a soccer match that everyone is fixated on. Cool, posh enough for me. Room for improvement in the bathrooms though, that’s for sure. I couldn’t figure out how to flush the toilet. Township life.

As we went to leave the bar, someone came out and said, “Wait, Mzoli would like to see you.” So we go back into another room where I see a huge pig roasting in the corner. Mzoli is there and gives us all hugs and tells us to come back. This has been an outstanding day. And then its back to Cape Town.

I finish up my internship tomorrow. We had my goodbye tea yesterday, which I should write about, but its sad. The ladies gave me some gifts and a giftcard to Woolies to prep for my trip. I’m going to miss Southern Hemisphere a lot! I leave for my safari in 4 days. Wow it really is the end now. I’ve had a lot of nervous energy getting ready for this. I’m not ready to leave. Can’t believe its gone so fast.

Anyway, watch this excellent Rebecca Black "Friday" parody called "Braaiday" :) http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gLyLvCXYKUg