View from an office...

Just wanted y'all to see some pics of the view I have directly from my desk. It's pretty spectacular. One's in the morning and one's in the evening - I love the mist over the city. By the way, this is looking east off of campus. Though you can't see it, my apartment is south of here. I should try and find a decent map of the city to pinpoint locations of key areas for the viewers at home...




There is more good news. This past weekend was a historic Cape Town weekend in that it was the first one where I didn't have car issues. Let's all give a warm round of applause to God for allowing my car to live one more week.

I also had a great spring kickoff braai at Amanda and Jeff's place on Monday. We braaied up some delicious beer soaked ribs and some boerwors sausages. Mmmm... too bad we didn't have any ostrich (which is my new obsession), but there will definitely be plenty of time for that in the coming months. It is also extremely relieving to note that, as the weather gets nicer and warmer, it is NOT getting humider (is that not a word? my spell check doesn't think so...). Sitting in the sun gets pretty hot, but moving to the shade makes it immediately pleasant and cool. This may seem trivial to some people, but I have never lived anywhere that WASN'T grossly humid when the heat came... I like...

National Braai Day

Long weekends and random holidays seem to sneak up on me without any warning. A few weeks ago, there was National Women's Day (which I fully support) and now this weekend is another official holiday. Apparently, Monday is National Braai Day. For those of you not from South Africa, "to braai" is equivalent with "to BBQ." So everyone fires up their braai this weekend and cooks up some ostrich steaks. Delish! After intense research and insightful investigative reporting, I discovered that it is ALSO National Heritage Day, which perhaps makes it a bit more believable as a holiday. However, you would never know this - TV, radio, and all people make no mention of such lofty goals as heritage acknowledgment. In fact, I even heard on the radio that you can SMS a certain number and they will send you back an estimate of how many people are braaing on Monday. Let's celebrate!

Oh, in other news, let me put up some photos of my new apartment. Observe and revel in the (fake? who knows!) leopard-skin couch... And next to it, check out the (working) skeleton of a radio. It actually produces great sound, but I haven't yet figured out how to change the channel...

Are you kidding me?!

Seriously? This weekend, after a bout of intense sickness (everyone has an opinion on food poisoning vs. flu - I think it was 24-hour flu) on the Friday/Saturday, my pleasant Sunday drive around the neighborhood was cut short by my clutch giving out. Yep, my car broke down AGAIN - second time in the three weeks since I bought the damn thing. This is ridiculous. And it's costing me a little over $200 to replace the clutch kit - parts + labo(u)r (this time I checked with several people who are in the know, and I don't think I'm getting scammed). Damn you, God of Car Failure! I never asked for this...

Happy New Year!

I had a wonderful dinner last night at Amanda's sister's house, out in beautiful Sea Point (basically, it's right downtown, but is next the the ocean, with fantastic waves). It was Rosh Hashanah, and so it was a big family affair, with running screaming kids and everything - quite nice, I haven't been around that much family in a long time.

It's really been a huge help that my friends Amanda and Jeff are here (Amanda being one of my close friends from Columbia, and Jeff, her fiancee, being my boss). Just the fact of them being close by, and sort of looking out for me has really helped me keep the loneliness at bay. Not to mention that at any disaster (read: car trouble) Jeff gets a call and helps me out of a jam. But also, Amanda's whole family lives here, and has been really welcoming and sweet, totally trying to make me feel like family. Her mother is adorable (and also lives in the house adjoining theirs - an awkward situation in the making, having your mother/mother-in-law floating around all the time), her sister is really sweet (and a fantastic cook) and her brother and his wife have been really friendly and nice. Definitely has made a big difference.

Actually, everyone here seems to be so freaking nice! Maybe it's just the coming from New York, but somehow I'm always surprised at how friendly everyone here is. Always offering to help, offering to take me out, and just plain being pleasant. Bizarre, non?

Go Boks!

Woo hoo! World Cup Rugby, 2007 started this weekend! I got to see my first ever couple of rugby
games... pretty cool. Similar to football (American) but slightly more dangerous... actually, I had expected it to be really vicious, but due to such rules as "no tackling above the shoulders," you don't really get the same bone-crunching violence as in the NFL. However, these guys don't wear all that wussy padding...

Even the US is getting into the game! Somehow we got into the world cup, don't ask me how... probably in the same way that Japan did. And boy, did Japan get demolished. Typical scores tend to be similar to football, around 20-30's by the end. The Japan-Aussie game on Saturday ended up being 3-91. Brutal. But America ended up holding its own pretty decently against England - I think it was 26-10 or something. Not bad, considering everyone considered us to be total losers, and England is championship material.

Anyway, I always find that watching the local sports is a great way to have fun and bond with new people. And I had great fun watching the South Africa-Samoa game yesterday with some new friends. The South African Springboks ended up convincingly defeating Samoa, but man, some of those Islanders are HUGE. Quite a fun experience. I'm just looking forward to the South Africa-USA game at the end of the month... I'm gonna talk so much kuk...

Cricket season is coming up soon... but I don't know if I have the strength to sit through one of those games...

The Price of Ignorance

Well, truly I have accelerated my stay in Cape Town - a job, a car, an apartment - and now I've been ripped off by a car mechanic! Well done, I say! Now all I have to do is get myself mugged, and I'll have accomplished far more here than I ever did in NYC!

Only one week after having bought my beautiful car (who doesn't have a name yet, so I'm accepting ideas now), it died. Going up a hill, all of the sudden, the engine just stopped, and wouldn't start again. Luckily, even though I was on a fairly busy road, I stopped right next to a place where I could squeeze into half a parking space, so I managed not to get hit by traffic. Had to call a tow truck (luckily I had ALSO just had roadside assistance put onto my car insurance) who took it to a nearby garage. The mechanic told me that the carburetor was totally blocked up, and that this was caused by an absolutely filthy fuel tank. So I told him to go ahead and fix both of these things, and it ended up costing a significant amount of money, especially relative to the price of the car. When I asked around, people who knew a little about cars seemed to think that I was getting overcharged. And when I talked to the guy who sold me the car, he freaked out - it sounded like his head exploded, and he said I'd definitely been taken, there was no way that it should ever have cost that much. So my seeming consensus is that I've been scammed.

The whole thing is just so damned frustrating... I'm not used to being so COMPLETELY ignorant of something which is so expensive. I mean, the guy could have told me that a vicious strain of the yard monkey virus had gotten into my fuel tank and gunked up my engine, and the whole engine needed replacing. How would I have known the difference? (other than the fact that there has been a conspicuous LACK of yard monkeys so far... but maybe they've been hiding in the tank!) It really makes you feel incredibly helpless... very frustrating. I think it's made worse by the fact of my American accent - I guess they hear "foreigner" and their eyes turn to dollar signs... er, Rand signs... (and who can blame them? I mean, have you HEARD "Hot Blooded"?!) How I miss the halcyon days of the New York Subway, where having a car is absolutely crazytown. And the only time I ever came close to being robbed was when I got sucker punched randomly on the Upper West Side...

Anyway, I'm not really all that bitter about it. I mean, it's only money, and I can consider it a learning experience. One of my office mates, who's been here for 5 years told me he got similarly ripped off in the car department when he got here, but worse. It must be some kind of initiation into owning a car or something. So this shouldn't add to my reputation for being a curmudgeon... it's just one more amusing anecdote from the land of the penguins...

I also have to say that I really appreciate all the comments people have been posting here. It really makes me feel connected to know that my friends are still out there, reading whatever nonsense I have to say... thanks guys - it definitely helps battle the feelings of isolation. I think that's a good part of why I've been adapting so well...

On the Move

Well, I finally did it - I got a car! And it's awesome! It may be a little on the oldish side (it's only from 1993... it's not like I hadn't been born yet!) but it's in great condition. And it drives really well. So far, I love it. It did take a little getting used to... it has a choke, which I have to use for the first few kilometers, apparently. And the clutch is way higher than I'm used to. Man, the first time I drove it, I must have stalled once every mile or so. Certainly every time I stopped the car. But after the first drive, I've gotten much more used to it, and I'm becoming a superb driver! Driving on the left is actually surprisingly easy, though... by far the hardest thing is the rearview mirror, which is totally not in the spot I keep expecting it to be, and it's pointing in a weird direction. I haven't really gotten used to that, yet. But it's all comin' together...

Speaking of driving, though, I had quite a shock this morning driving to work. As I was putt-putting along the highway, this dude on a motorbike scooted between the two lanes of (annoyingly heavy) traffic. When he was about three car lengths ahead of me, someone went to change lanes, and smacked directly into the guy, and he went flying off of his bike onto the side of the road! It was really dramatic and scary. I don't know if the guy was alright or not, even - when I passed where it had happened, there were people all around him, but he was lying straight out on the side of the road, not moving. At least he had a helmet on, but still... holy shit. If I had been thinking of riding a motorcycle, that convinced me that it's not a good idea... so easy to get absolutely knocked to hell - the traffic was barely moving even! I think it was mainly the motorbike dude's own momentum which screwed him - the knocking car was changing lanes from a dead stop. Jeez.

In other news, I also moved house this weekend. I moved from this dormitory style apartment complex called Forest Hill to this add on apartment belonging to this really sweet old landlord, John. It's a little smaller, but way cozier and cheaper (old place: R3000 ~ $400, new place: R2000 ~ $300). And it has a KICK-ASS backyard! Totally going to be doing some braaiing (South African BBQing) when the weather gets nicer. So I'm slowly getting myself acclimated to living here in Cape Town... actually, I think I'm accomplishing this pretty fast - a car, an apartment, a job, and I've only been here one month! Not bad, I say...