Greetings, followers. It has been quite the tourist week for me here in Cape Town. My friend Laura from Columbia arrived last Thursday, along with a HUGE rainstorm. Many assumptions that have been dispelled for me about Africa this week include, but are not limited to, the fact that it rains (a shit load) in Africa and that there is, in fact, good food here outside of Old Biscuit Mill. I have also now been to almost every tourist attraction in this city, thanks to Laura's motivation. Additionally, I have spent more money this week than in the last month total.
Last Friday we went downtown and walked around Long Street during the day. We went into lots of cute clothing and gift shops. I made a few great purchases. We then went to Greenmarket Square where we bargained with the shopkeepers (more specifically "stallkeepers") for South African souvenirs. I bought myself two pieces of art made out of recycles materials and a painting of African women in neon colors (#sororitygirlproblems). We made our way back to the homestead, rested for a few hours, then went back out that night for some fun on Long Street, where we went for a tapas dinner before doing a bar/club crawl down the street. At dinner we consumed lots and lots of rounds of tapas, dessert, and an amount of drinks that everyone in the restaurant gave us weird looks about. Apparently its not normal in Cape Town for girls to drink pitchers and pitchers of sex on the beach. One couple couldn't stand us and asked the restaurant if they could switch tables. We embraced out offensive American-ness and continued to drink.
It became clear within the first 10 minutes to all of us from the Northeast that the first club we went into was a lesbian/gay club. Yet, those of us who hail from south of the Mason-Dixon line were unclear of this fact and continued to grind up on our new African friends as the rest of us looked on with uncontrollable laughter. When we left the club, my thoroughly Christian friend Emily was talking about how fun it was dancing with the African women in the club, at which point we explained to her that the other woman was probably enjoying it a lot more than she was...The rest of the night was spent mainly at a bar called Dubliners, which I think we all liked the most since it was very American feeling. There was a band there singing all American songs and we all danced and sang along. Some creepsters came up to us and offered us drugs. That was interesting when they still wouldn't leave after we repeatedly told them that we weren't interested. We had a super fun night, but decided it was time to go home when none of us could work up the energy to dance along to the techno music at the locations post Dubliners.
Saturday was one of the nicest, most relaxing days I have had since arriving here in South Africa. In the morning we went to Old Biscuit Mill, which is without a doubt my favorite thing to do here. Purchases this week included hummus, a surprise present for my mama, a Belgian waffle with ice cream, chocolate sauce, and bananas, smoothies, and chocolate pizza. I wanted to get another latke-poached egg-smoked salmon situation but the line was wrapped around the entire tent. I then bought a really cute shirt in the handmade clothing tent for 100 rand (14 dollars) that is beautiful. From Old Biscuit Mill we went to Stellenbosch (wine country) to a vineyard called Spier. It is a huge tourist attraction that our cab driver, Alfonso, immediately knew we wanted to go to when we said we were headed to Stellenbosch. Alfonso drove us the hour there where we pet cheetahs, wine tasted, and had a beautiful lunch. Fun fact, while we were in the cheetah cage, Phoenix (the cheetah) stood up and got angry. The cheetah workers told us we were to leave the cage as fast as possible since Phoenix "told" them he no longer wanted visitors. When I asked how she knew that, she repeated "he told us" (T.I.A.). After escaping the wrath of Phoenix, we went on to lunch in the hotel which was delicious, and then onto wine tasting where I got sufficiently drunk and stumbled back to Alfonso for the ride home.
Sunday morning Laura and I woke up around six and went to the Aquila Game Reserve, which is a two hour drive away from Cape Town. We got there and had a DELICIOUS breakfast and then went on the game ride. Aquila is a relatively new game reserve, so there aren't that many animals but it was a great experience nonetheless. We saw lions, hippos, cheetahs, warthogs, zebras, rhinos, buffalo, crocodiles, and many ostriches. The main lesson I took away from this day was if you ever find yourself near a hippo, start saying the
shmah because there is little to no chance you will survive. Oh and I mustn't forget that a buffalo started to charge at the car but luckily we got away.
We got home later last night and went for sushi, then I came home and finished my paper that I handed in this morning. It was pretty weird to realize that I am actually and school and not just on a super long vacation. I now know all about Freud's views on religion so hit me up if you have any questions regarding that topic....or African game animals....
Today's festivities included the Jewish museum where we saw an exhibit about South African Jewry, and a special exhibit on Zapiro's Nelson Mandela cartoons. It was pretty awesome. This was all after dragging Laura up to campus to hand in my paper with me. I think she agreed that the hike to campus is ridiculous and we agreed that it would be a factor in our decision to come here as full time students if we were South African.
Tomorrow we are off to Robben Island with my house. This is the location where Mandiba (the local name for Mandela) was imprisoned. It should be a really interesting experience.
Barring I don't get attacked by any hippos I will post later again this week,
Talia
