Day 17: "Old Khaki"

There’s a lot of racket going outside my window tonight in addition to the raging gusts of wind. A lot of yelling, cheering, and yes, the infamous vuvuzela. I’m not sure exactly what is going on, but if I had to take a guess, I’d say its AFCON – the African Cup of Nations soccer tournament. According to my latest google search, it looks like we’re playing Morocco, but I’m unaware of the African version of ESPN and I can’t find the score. Oh well, I don’t mind it keeping me up for now. I’m in bed, but it is just now 9 o’clock after all. Working full time and trying to pack in full weekends is exhausting. I have school work to do on top of that, which I have just about completely neglected…

Being tired is making me miss everyone. Because of their lack of skype, I haven’t spoken to my mom or dad once since I’ve been here. Everyone in facebook land is talking about Mardi Gras, which I’m trying very hard to ignore. (If I’m not aware of it, it doesn’t happen, right?) And I’d really like to hug my boyfriend.

I can’t pretend that I didn’t have a great weekend though. I slept in late both Saturday and Sunday. I’ve been meaning to go to the big Methodist church downtown. It was the first Methodist church in the country (maybe the continent?) and is very beautiful. But I find trying out new churches to be the most intimidating thing… I’d like to try and make a friend go with me. Or maybe I’ll keep chickening out on that, give up, and go to Catholic church across the street with Cailey.

Saturday I took the train with a group of friends I like very much to a beach over on the Indian Ocean side, just past Muizenburg, called Fish Hoek (sounds like hook). Its so beautiful over there, I don’t think I could ever tire of going. Then we went out on Long Street as one of the Connectors is leaving this week and its where she wanted to go for her last night out. Typical Long Street night out – drinks, bad trance music, interesting people watching from balconies, and late night eating. I split a fantastic pizza with dear Sivert. He doesn’t sound much like an Australian anymore, I think he’s been away from Sydney long enough to sound purely Norwegian again. Oh I neglected to mention that Cailey and I went to try out the expensive gym up the hill, Virgin Active, with Sivert and Hunter Friday night. It was a BEAUTIFUL gym. The best part was the treadmills. That is saying a lot because I really hate treadmills, but there was no jogging track and I don’t like running in the city very much. Anyway, the treadmills had a built in air conditioner and touch screen complete with games! I played connect four while running a few Ks and totally didn’t notice I was doing it until the end. Turns out the computer opponent was quite formidable, kept it interesting. It costs around $100/month to join this gym, however, and I will not be paying that.

Sunday, sometime after noon, I tore myself away from the book I’m reading and my comfy couch to go to the mall with some friends. Cherie just got a car and volunteered to drive us. I don’t really enjoy shopping, but I figured I’d come along and do some exploring; plus I needed a few more pants options for work. I didn’t bring any in-between jean and dressy/nice work pants and so have been wearing dresses to work everyday just about. So we drove to the mall in Tableview, and I must say, it was a very impressive mall. Also, it was totally fun and interesting to me because of the change in mall scenery. The first store we went into looked like an American Eagle and was called “Old Khaki.” HAHAHA, I got the biggest kick out of that! Old Khaki?? We were in an American Eagle/Old Navy rip-off called Old Khaki! I actually liked their clothes a lot, but they were incredibly cheap so I didn’t buy anything. We kept going and next up we stumbled upon something amazing: Pick n Pay CLOTHING store! It looked like an Old Navy inside (how funny since we had just come from Old Khaki, pahaha). To my immense delight, PnP loves jeggings!! You probably know that I have an extreme affinity for wearing pants that aren’t actually pants. I find the button/zipper/tight waist thing to be so restrictive, crampy, and just uncomfortable. So I wear things with waistbands as much as possible. And the more my waistband pants look like real pants, the better. Well these jeggings have a button, zipper, and are still completely comfortable! I also found a super cute top I can wear on weekends or to work and a pair of charcoal work capris. So set! All that for around $50. I also found some reasonably priced dental floss and bought weights to work out with upstairs in our apartment’s “life style centre” (i.e. a workout room with two bikes and a broken BowFlex machine in it). That way I can get in a full workout without having to pay $100 to join Virgin Active (although I would really like to).

Table Mountain and Lion's Head from across Table Bay

After shopping, we went to a tiki bar right across the street from the beach in Blouberg that has amazing views of Table Mountain and the city bowl across the bay. Liliya and I split nachos and ordered the house brewed beer, Pakalolo I think the place was called. The nachos would’ve been great, however, they put them on Doritos instead of tortilla chips. This was very gross, like some weird Taco Bell concept, but I was so hungry I didn’t care.  

So now here I am, in bed. I can’t believe another week of work is starting tomorrow. Most exciting part of that is wearing my new jeggings to the office.
... I just had a great idea for a new retail concept - I'd like to start up a new store and call it "Old Jeggings." I think it would be a great success and I can franchise to all my favorite countries and have houses there. Any interested investors?