Day 6: In A Good Space

I’m sitting in the office yesterday, and I think I hear my phone vibrate. Let me take a short detour to explain that I am no longer sitting in the hot cube at the front of the office, but rather this excellent desk out in the open space, smack under the air conditioner. And the my computer screen is now flat and doesn’t do that horrid bouncey/flashey thing that hurts my eyes. Success! Anyway, so I check my phone and see that I have a missed call from some number I don’t know, and a text. The text says something along the lines of – “hey kathryn, there’s been a mistake. you have to move out of your apartment. pack up all your stuff tonight and we’ll help you move it in the morning. sorry.” I also see an email in my inbox with more details on the matter sent to me and my roommate. A new roommate was moving in and so I was getting booted or something. Anyway, I’m like, WHAT?!?! I text Cailey and she’s real mad too. We have to fight this because its totally unreasonable.

At some point during the day, before all this, I decided that I wanted to climb Lion’s Head (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lion's_Head_(Cape_Town), because I have really been craving another nice mountain hike. So when I go home from work I just decide to start packing all my stuff so I can hike and not have that much to do when I come home later and am very tired. Cailey walks in halfway through my packing ordeal and is very angry. You see, Cailey is a very sweet, generally meek and mild-mannered person; total angel. To see her angry is at once disconcerting and, I find, quite amusing. As she stomps around the apartment, the dear apartment that I love very much and do not want to leave, we work together to build and argument for me to stay. We just spent a heap of money together outfitting the place with toilet paper, trash bags, certain cooking necessities, etc. I would be scheduled to move back down to this apartment anyway in Feb, just 15 days away. There are enough beds for the two of us to just split a room and the new person can have the other bedroom. Sheesh! I try to call and argue, but no one answers the phone. So we stick with the plan of going up Lion’s Head. It’ll be a great way to blow off steam.

It’s about a $5 cab ride to the trail head, and cars are parked all around. Its quite a popular place to go to watch the sunset. We start the climb and follow the trail as it spirals along the base of the mountain, gaining elevation. Its beautiful, even before you get up very high. There are amazing views of the beaches – the Cliftons and Camp’s Bay – the waterfront, Table Mountain, the city. And its all extra gorgeous in the evening light. I’m feeling a bit winded however when we get to the straight-up part. And then we start going just straight up. At some points there are metal hand/foot holds drilled into the rocks that you have to scale up, Spiderman-up-a-building style. Ha, we just thought this would be a nice after work hike. Its totally kicking my butt. Blarrrgh. Cailey helps me overcome my out-of-shapedness and probably too empty stomach to reach the top. And after I recover for about 10 minutes, I can finally enjoy the amazing view from the top as the sun is reaching the horizon. I’m really hoping that I can make after work hikes up Lion’s Head a weekly occurrence. Its incredible and much cheaper than a gym membership.

We come back down feeling much less angry, but then realize we still have this moving issue unresolved. Cailey and I head to a corner store next to our apartment to get her more cell minutes when my phone rings. It’s the apartment lady… she tells me all about the situation and how and I have to move and all that, but then I launch into our well planned argument. I can tell she feels bad about this whole thing and doesn’t take a ton of convincing for her to just let Cailey and I stay in the same apartment but share one of the rooms! VICTORY! Cailey buys ice cream and I buy a Cadbury bar to celebrate.

We go home and move all of Cailey’s stuff into my room because it’s a little bigger, and now we’re just snug as two bugs in a rug! We also discovered this weird two degrees separation between us: her husband was friends with my ex-boyfriend when he was up in Alaska! Small world, right?

Next day, our new roommate still hasn’t arrived by the time I’m off to work. I spend the day at the office trying to chat up government officials and academics and various South African universities to try and schedule interviews with them for the evaluations review project. Its difficult, much wild goose chasing. But I made a discovery, or a re-discovery; as much as people don’t like Americans, I think they really like talking to us because of our accent. Maybe it isn’t entirely true, but that’s been my experience. I’m quite self-conscious of my accent, but it tends to work out in my favor. But anyway, lunch is definitely the best part of the day. The other intern, Tiffany, takes me to a market that’s set up downtown called Fair Earth Market or something like that. There is ridiculously cheap and delicious produce and lunch food for sale. I LOVE it! Tiffany said to me several times, “This has you such in a good space.” I like that saying, yes, I am quite in a good space indeed. Mentally and literally now that I get to stay in the apartment I like.

When I get home from work, Cailey and I meet our new roommate, Justine. The three of us walk down to the V&A Waterfront, which I have been wanting to check out. Its pretty touristy and we eat mediocre Thai food for dinner, at least mine was mediocre. So I think I’ve had my fill of the Waterfront. The wind picked up quickly in the evening and now its blowing so hard as I write this it literally sounds like a hurricane outside; its so incredibly loud. At least that keeps out apartment cooler even if it sounds/feels like the building may fall down at any moment. I’m about to crash, TGIF tomorrow!