Cape Town

The other day I was fortunate enough to kind of happen upon tickets to a rugby game in Cape Town. My roommate takes economics from this graduate student who -- as well as being a snappy dresser and pretty good looking -- is a big fan of rugby and offered students a ticket and a ride there and back for the low, low price of R150. I paid up. Nevermind that football bores me to tears, I thought. Maybe I'm a closet rugby fan.

"Rugby", to me, has always sounded like an adorable sport where people run around pelting each other with marshmallows. Rug-by. I didn't really think that it would be so ... brutal. All the players look like cavemen on steroids who, in a testosterone-induced rage, could pound your face into a brick wall and remove your innards in two seconds flat. So having like twenty of them on the field at once -- whoa. What I thought was a group hug (how cute! Do they do this at the beginning of every play?) devolved into punching and sitting on people's heads. However, the South Africans beat the Australians (the Reds) handily, which almost made me forget how stupid it was that they sold their team name to Vodacom (yes, the team is officially called the Vodacom Stormers). Ugh. I'm not sure why -- perhaps my Roman forefathers and their love of gore -- but by the second half, I was kind of paying attention to what was going on and wasn't even too shaken when the 15th guy lay in agony, clutching his knee. Or when he tried to hobble off the field and no one helped him and he basically collapsed in a heap center-field. Tough love for those Australians.

South Africa won by a pretty narrow margin (Australia came back in the last five minutes) and the members of the audience decked in Australian flags left sadly, heads drooping. I felt pretty good, not just because South Africa beat them and it was pretty questionable there for awhile, but because I'd just had my first rugby experience. It wasn't as cute as I'd imagined. I did, however, eat something that theoretically was a hot dog and saw my first rugby match fight which broke out on the bottom floor of the stadium during the first half. All in all, I felt pretty initiated into the whole sporting thing and might even see a rugby match again, though "Go Vodacom Stormers" is way too many syllables for a legit cheer. Sell outs.

Then it was off to the hostel with a group of Europeans (mostly Belgian, I think?) from my dorm. Similar to my misconceptions about rugby, my knowledge of what a hostel was turned out to be completely wrong. I'll admit it -- I saw Eli Roth's Hostel, which turned out to be more of a porno than a horror flick -- but it nonetheless shaped what I thought a hostel was. So it was a bit of a surprise to walk to the Ashanti Lodge and see the cute little fish mosaics on the shower floors and the kitschy African art over the walls. It was definitely a little cozier than the Slovakian hostel from the movie. After meeting a German with dreads who volunteers in Kayamandi through the same project I'm doing (more on that later), the group of us went out to town. Apparently, Long Street is the Bourbon Street of Cape Town. Clubs galore -- and then a bookstore! Like a nerd at a kegger -- and then restaurants. After grabbing a decent hummus and chicken pie (they have so many croissants and unhealthy-but-nonetheless-delicious flaky pastries here) from a Mediterranean place down the street, we joined the Europeans at the Waiting Room. It was three or so stories and was supposed to look like someone's house (why yes, I do know several people with full-scale bars in their living rooms and balconies on their roofs overlooking the cityscape) and was kind of charming and played jazz and it was quaint. The best part, though, was that me and Alyssa met two guys from the University of Cape Town who offered to show us around the city. Also, the guy I talked to (in addition to having a striking resemblance to Seth Rogen) was an English and philosophy major and actually wasn't a pretentious jerk about it. Whoa.

The next day we went to Kirstenbosch, courtesy of Saul and Andrew (Andrew has a Mercedes. I might not know how to pick a peach, but I certainly know how to pick my friends) and saw the botanical gardens. We slightly hiked around the foot of Devil's Peak and enjoyed the scenery. Then, against the warnings of our Afrikaans teacher, we took the train from Cape Town back to Stellenbosch. Saul and Andrew assured us we'd be fine. "Just... don't look too American," our new South African friends warned us. So after changing out of my American flag t-shirt and removing all 20 of my "I voted McCain/Palin 2008" buttons from my purse, I figured I was all set. Alyssa and I bought our first-class tickets -- yes, I was kind of thinking there might be a juice cart and stewardesses in cute skirts; I guess I'm setting myself up for disappointment here -- and sprinted to Platform 8 just in time to board. Yeah, first class here is definitely not really first class. I didn't get any juice and there was not a stewardess in sight. The rampant graffiti would have made for an excellent black-and-white photo but also made it hard to see out the windows. However, we survived. And riding the train is much, much cheaper than taking a bus or taxi to town, so I feel like I might have a viable option for further exploring Cape Town. Go Vodacom(R) Stormers!

Raka (or why I still smell like smoke)

This weekend was the Raka Unplugged music festival in Swellendam, about 300 kilometers from Stellenbosch. Though I'm not sure what was "unplugged" about it, since there were definitely microphones, speakers, etc. I know, I know, details shmetails.

After a three-hour drive through the mountains, we arrived at a riverside resort (basically camping grounds by a river) Friday evening. Of the buses supplied to us international students, one got super lost for several hours, one hit a guy on a bike (and then drove off!) and one repeatedly broke down, leading -- nay, practically forcing -- the passengers to load up on wine and strawberry juice-vodka concoctions. I, being the 59th person to sign up for the festival (there were 60 spots in total), got last choice and hopped on the enormous charter bus where we watched Pineapple Express and the driver told us it was alright to smoke inside and several South African men who didn't believe in the power of deodorant sat down two rows in front of me. But you know what? We didn't get lost and we didn't hit and/or kill a biker, so it was a pretty successful ride. Stepping off the bus, though, after having signed all my rights away in the Raka indemnity form (if I lost a limb, it was my problem, not theirs), I was struck by just how quaint and adorable it was. Hills upon hills, a river with a dock, a bar. While we waited for the tents to arrive (they were in the bus that repeatedly broke down) we enjoyed the magic of Black Label beer and Hunter's Dry cider (my personal favorite).

Thankfully, many of my American friends here are really skinny and outdoorsy, so the fact that we were fitting four people in a two-person tent didn't even phase me that much. But that was a terrible first night of sleep. I couldn't really straighten out the whole night and was more or less pushed into an awkward corner, unable to move. Moreover, our nearby tent neighbors seemed oblivious to the fact that tents have little to no sound privacy. And while I'm a complete gossip and admittedly have eavesdropped a few more times than I should, it was all of 4 a.m. and I honestly didn't care that she was completely high and did they really do it last night? Gross. But it was really cold and rainy -- one of my friends had earlier remarked, when I asked her if she was sleeping in a tent, that it had only rained twice in the month we've been here so she was going to sleep under the stars. I think she regretted her decision, and she spent the next night in the charter bus, free from beetles and rain and feet in your face. Before we'd called it a night, though, me and Lisa strolled around the grounds and met two South African guys with a trailer and the promise of free booze. One of them looked like a surfer -- really fit, gelled-back hair, tan -- and seemed nice enough, though it took him quite awhile to formulate sentences. The other one might have been a little brighter, though he unabashedly admitted he was a bit of a racist. At least he was being honest, I thought. And besides, racism is sort of a spectrum. You have the neo-liberal racist jokes that everyone tells to show how over racism they are, and then, the more extreme case, you have my Mamaw. She grew up in Blum, Texas, where seeing a black person was akin to seeing a dinosaur, accompanied by pointing and a rush to protect all you hold dear. "Be careful," she warned when I brought my bike over to her house in Oak Cliff to ride down her street to the park. "Let me know if any of those Negroes give you a hard time. I'll march right over there and give them a piece of my mind, tell them to go back to..."

And here I was in Africa, where these two guys were explaining why they preferred to be called "South African" rather than "African" (it was like someone calling me North American instead of American, they said) and, no joke, explaining the hardships they faced as white men in South Africa. Had Blondie not been so slow in putting together sentences, I would've assumed they were being ironic. The way they talked about black people ("you can trust one or two of them, but in a group they'll turn on you in an instant," Mr. Brown Hair said at one point) also seemed to suggest otherwise. It was a bit of a turn off, and I realized I wasn't drunk enough to deal with it. Also, I have no poker face, and my jaw repeatedly dropping after Blondie or Brown Hair said something particularly insensitive got to be a little awkward. It was disturbing to hear people talk that way because, save for family events, I'm usually pretty clear of overt racism. There, they seemed to have no qualms about their bigotry, no attempt to hide what they saw as inevitable.

The next day, I got up around 8 or 9, and it was the weirdest day. It was Valentines Day, but I was without a computer or a TV, so I wasn't constantly bombarded with images of ruby-red lips and hotties proposing and glasses of wine in dimly-lit restaurants. And we were all there for the music and pretty much in the middle of nowhere, so it wasn't like anybody was skipping off to go on a date. And for once, it was a full day of absolutely nothing to do. Whenever I'm late to something -- which is always -- I always think about how arbitrary time is, how it's a human invention, how I'd love to go somewhere time ceases to exist and the hours and days bleed into each other and no one cares because you don't have obligations to anyone. (Drugs? Nursing home?) And this Saturday, that's how it was. The first band played at 1:00, so we had hours to kill. I napped, I read a book, sat on the dock, walked around and felt the least stressed I've felt in ages. I think that was honestly the best part of the weekend, just feeling serene and free of responsibility.

And then the music started. Of course there was the obligatory weed/cigarette smoke, which I still can't get out of my hair. And there was the requisite 'shroom guy who refused to give any to Americans (...so I heard), much to the disappointment of an English major guy from my program who aspires to be a writer but also aspires to do drugs all his life. (I told him it was a bit cliche to be a druggie English major -- how original! -- but he wasn't too impressed at my insightful pearls of wisdom. "I'm not ashamed!" he asserted. "You... shouldn't be. I'm not saying you should, just that it's kind of predictable?" I offered. I don't think we're going to be friends anytime soon, though who knows? We might bond over Hemingway in our Modernism and the Short Story class. I intend to analyze the f out of this short story tonight...) And there were hipsters everywhere. But it was definitely on a smaller scale than ACL -- the stage was pretty small, and they sold 2,000 tickets in total, expecting 700-800 people each day. It was very chill -- people sat on blankets, with an enthusiastic few in the front Indie-jamming to the acoustic guitar. And some of the music -- notably the reggae and the final act, a blues band -- was pretty good. But the problem is, the bands sang entirely in Afrikaans. And of course I pretend to be cultured and try to be adventurous in music (though, honestly, KTRU tests my comfort level -- sorry, Schlossman), but I listen to just a few French songs or some Hebrew stuff before switching back to Beyonce, something I know. Something in English. Because you can appreciate the music for what it is, but if you can't tell whether he's in love and happy or whether his mother shot herself yesterday, it's a little confusing. So it was fun for a few hours, then it was, "I really wish I knew Afrikaans." Then it was completely freezing and we wrapped up in a blanket, lay down and gazed at the stars, marveling at how clear the sky was (in Texas, you'd have to drive hours in the country to get that sort of view), finding a backwards Orion's belt, soaking in the smoke and final bands. I got an Afrikaans band t-shirt (x-large, because South African girls are stick-thin) and had a, uh, short conversation with the short/ugly band member (the drummer?) about American television (what did I think about it in general? And what about the way it's used to brainwash terrorists against the U.S.?) before realizing he didn't really care how I answered because he just wanted to tell me how South African television worked and how good he thought Prisonbreak, Lost and Heroes were. It was a little less than enlightening. It was warm around the bonfire, though, so I got to ignore Shorty sometimes and focus on the drunk Americans' antics. Ah, yeah. The next morning was amazing -- no hangover -- and the last band played at noon. Then it was time to dissemble the tent and say goodbye to racist South Africans, mediocre hamburgers and tall guys with dreads.

I learned a life lesson this weekend: the mullet is not dead. Maybe in America it's the unmistakable mark of White Trash or a punchline to a joke. But here, hipster guys (and sometimes girls) don the mullet. And maybe I'm slowly getting brainwashed (I have always had questionable fashion, anyway), but sometimes it doesn't look too bad. I do need a haircut soon, and what better way to blend into the intelligentsia?

Bring your own toilet paper

I hate the phrase "fun run." There's nothing fun about running, ever, so it's a bit misleading. Unless you're Maurice Green or someone remotely fit, running is torture. I never do it, personally, unless I feel that it's urgent -- for example, if a pack of vicious dogs (or baboons) is after me, or if I'm late for free food or clothing. So why I signed up for the Owls Fun Run last year is beyond me. In what's just another recurring theme with me, I failed to think of what fun run participation would be like. I pictured myself putting up my hair, donning my pair of tennis shoes (maybe for the fifth time since I graduated high school?) and psyching myself up for the run. I didn't consider how low I'd feel as the 70-year-old lapped me, again, or having a stitch in my side that wouldn't go away, sweat pouring un-sexily down the sides of my tomato-red face or how much I'd wish I'd worked out before this when I came in last among my group of friends. In short, I never picture things accurately when I sign up for them. Ever.

The international student club on campus is kind of useless (do we do anything? We don't appear to have regular meetings) but it does provide us transportation to certain events. And though I love jamming to Beyonce's "If I were a Boy," the unfortunate thing about globalization is that you can be as far away as Africa and still hear almost exclusively American music. So when I saw that there was an Afrikaans music festival coming up this weekend, I signed up as quickly as I could, thinking about glamorously dancing to awesome music I'd never heard before, understanding the lyrics even though all I know how to say in Afrikaans is "my naam is" and "my vak is" (the v is pronounced like an F, so it sounds exactly like an English obscenity; har har har) and meeting awesome South Africans.

I'm not saying that won't necessarily happen, but it's really hot here (it broke 100 last weekend), so I don't know how glamorous I can be while I'm dripping sweat everywhere. But there are a few more, um, pressing concerns I've been mulling over lately.

Except for a few concerts, I've never, ever been to big music festivals like Austin City Limits. I wish now that I had. Maybe this festival will be more intense than ACL? All I know is, we're advised to bring our own toilet paper. And we need to bring a tent. And I don't think I'm going to be seeing a toilet or shower for a couple of days. It's BYOB, also, and though I initially scoffed at the idea of bringing tons of alcohol along, I think that, given that we'll be using some sort of communal outdoor toilet area, I'm going to need beer. Lots of it.

Supersized

Though it's not my favorite movie of all time, Breakfast at Tiffany's is definitely in the top ten. Maybe it's because I adore Audrey Hepburn (who doesn't?), maybe it's because I secretly want to be a '60s callgirl, maybe it's because I agree with Holly Golightly's philosophy in refusing to belong to anyone, or maybe I'm just in love with George Peppard. But in one of the cutest sequences of the movie, Holly tells Paul (Fred) about Tiffany's, a place he's never been, before they go to the five-and-dime to shoplift in a really adorably heartwarming way.

"...The only thing that does any good is to jump in a cab and go to Tiffany's. Calms me down right away. The quietness and the proud look of it; nothing very bad could happen to you there."

The other day, I was given the unique opportunity to explain to two Europeans what a SuperTarget is, and I found myself waxing lyrical about the place in much the same fashion.

"It's... a place where you can buy everything!" I gushed. "Let me put it this way: I went there once to buy something for dinner, and I ended up buying a dress! You can spend your whole day there and buy clothes and makeup and accessories and New York Times bestsellers and groceries and housewares and auto parts and toys and electronics! It makes me feel happy and like I can improve myself! The prices aren't the greatest, but you put up with it because the ads are so artsy and it has everything you never knew you needed!"

The Dutch guy wasn't too impressed.

"But why would you want a huge store that sells everything?" he kept asking. "It's a little excessive. Would it kill you to go a grocer's, then an auto parts store and make a couple of extra trips? And is that really the thing you miss most about home? Don't you have any friends or anything?"

He then started mocking the U.S. and our obsession with everything "super": SuperTarget, SuperWalmart, supersize, supermodel, Superman. I told him the choice of "super" as a prefix to already-existing brands was an obvious choice, because everything's just clearly better than it was 10 years ago. Back in 1998, you couldn't go to a Target and purchase donuts and a dress (well, okay, you could, but you wouldn't have nearly the same selection of donuts you have today). It does, however, bring up an interesting point: what happens after "super"? Ultra? Superlative? Utmost? Dandy? Tremendous? Supersuper? Will progress just... end because they can't think of a good-enough adjective to capture how beyond-Super it is? What a terrifying thought.

Regardless, I've had to go shop for food, makeup, clothes and souvenirs thus far, and these have all been separate shopping trips because stores are tiny here. Supersizing is so American. On the plus side, it would have saved me a few sunscreen/clothing/book trips. And maybe the locals don't know what they're missing. But I do. And it's going to be a long few months without Archer Farms salt-and-vinegar potato chips and Isaac Mizrahi shoes...

No change

I think I have more of an idea why we're warned not to give money to the people on the street.

Me, Alyssa and Brooke were walking to dinner a couple of hours ago. It was just after nightfall, and Alyssa ducked between a couple of buildings to get some money from the ATM. A guy said hello to us (he was sitting on the steps, but moved closer to us) and launched into this story about how he needed money to buy butter or something to spread on his loaf of bread. He had a loaf of bread out, said he was living in Stellenbosch (Brooke asked where; he replied "here -- I live on the streets) and told us his mother had died so could we please spare five rand?

I have R100 currently left to my name, until my debit card gets reimbursed (which shouldn't happen until the 15th), so I haven't got a ton of cash and wasn't carrying much on me at the moment since I figured I'd pay by card. I told him I wasn't carrying cash, Brooke talked to him a little and asked him a few questions, then we started walking toward the restaurant. "Bye," we said as we left, and at first I thought he said "bless you" the way panhandlers sometimes do, even if you don't give them any money, but then I realized he'd said, "fuck you" rather loudly.

A few seconds later, we heard this snapping and turned to see him stomping up behind us with a furious look on his face. The area had a few people, but the bars were on the other side of the quad and for a moment I thought we were going to get mugged. Or jumped. Or shanked. Or held at knifepoint. But he was just trying to scare us, and he eventually lagged behind and left. I was terrified, but mostly I was annoyed. It's been a very, very difficult day and the whole time, all I could think was, "Of course. Of course someone's going to mug me today. Perfect."

Brooke, who's from inner-city Dallas, insisted she would've smacked him if he'd come any closer, but I was a little freaked out. She did say people have been known to get mugged because they gave people money, leaving their obviously-full wallets exposed. Of course, I suppose a group of three girls is safer than one girl, but it would be really nice to have a bodyguard. Any takers?

Language

I came home today from class, made pancakes (crepes) with syrup and a chai milkshake for lunch.

Not that I'm counting calories or anything, but I'm thinking my diet needs a bit of an upgrade. No, cider does not meet my Vitamin C requirements, and those red onion/black olive/garlic potato crisps are not veggies. So while I think I may be on the way to getting leg muscles (this would be a first) and I'm doing water aerobics with the old ladies on Maandags und Vrydags, the food sector of my life is not looking so hot. Something to work on.

When I was in high school, I decided to take Latin because I believed it would help me in the medical profession. Yes, before I discovered I'm absolutely terrible at anything scientific I was hoping to enter the world of plastic surgery, treating burn victims and repairing lives and Roman noses. While it might have helped for some SAT word roots, reading the collected works of Catullus was pretty useless, in retrospect. Who cares about kissing a thousand times, a million times, to ward away death? Please.

When I entered college, I'd had it up to here with dead languages (despite the whole "a good Latin student never declines Sex" puns, it wasn't that fun) and wanted something I could speak. Spanish was a little too commonplace -- though, also in retrospect, it would've been a good choice because I'm such a clueless gringa -- and I wanted something beautiful, something that flowed off my tongue and enabled me to speak with hot foreign boys while sipping red wine and wearing nice clothes and being literate and witty. So I took French, of course. While trying to figure out the "r" pronunciation after my first class, I pictured myself as a new Audrey Hepburn, speaking flawless French to the masses, impressing them with my deep statements about society ("ma soeur a un crayon rouge", etc.), wearing Givenchy, being adored.

Rutledges are really good at making fried chicken (my aunt's recipe is to die for) and having Southern accents. What we're not so good at is goodbye. Saying goodbye is a process that often takes hours, a fact my mother points out each time we make the trek to Dallas and spend half the time officially "leaving". Rutledges are also not the greatest at social/religious/racial tolerance.

But perhaps the thing Rutledges are the worst at is language acquisition. Within a month, my dreams of being a fluid French speaker were crushed. I had the worst accent, and what's more, my writing didn't show any real promise, either. Without complaining too much about how random some of the gender assignments are (why is "uterus" masculine, exactly?), I couldn't get my adjectives and nouns to agree in number, I always confused "ont" with "sont" ("to have" and "to be" are two different things, apparently), and my teacher perpetually had this amused-yet-slightly-exasperated expression on her face when I tried to tell her what my mother did for a living.

"Her mom work on the computers," I attempted.
"Her mom?" Mme. Blomquist prompted me. She was a particularly bitchy grad student who seemed to think we should praise God because she deigned to teach us, making no secret of laughing at our mistakes.
"Yes. Her mom work at Fort Worth for the computer city?" I guessed.
"Her mom?" And then, snapping out of the French, she raised her eyebrows and muttered, "You need to work on your possessives. 'Ma mere,' not 'sa mere.'"

It didn't get any better as the months wore on, and so, after four semesters of more or less the same, I dropped French my junior year.

And then, three weeks ago, I came to South Africa. Everyone here speaks Afrikaans at home and learns English when they go to school, but I guess their mother tongue is always their fallback; also, almost every course at the university (save for the English classes) are taught in Afrikaans. I'm a fish out of water, I guess. So I signed up for the Introductory Afrikaans class. So far, we've only learned a few words, but despite the fact that the language seems completely made up (one of the words for "male" is "manpersoon" -- is that a joke?) and tough to listen to (switching from beautiful French to this harsh Dutch derivative is some transition) with their guttural g's, I'm excited. Now, instead of someone randomly asking me for directions, me looking downcast and asking if they could please repeat, this time in English, I'll hopefully be able to tell them the gym is 15 minutes down Bosman St. and over the bridge. Maybe I'll even say their farewell ("okaybyyyyye") without laughing at how ridiculously made up/leet/Valleygirl it sounds.

On the plus side, I have three English classes, and those are taught in a language I know, a language that sounds significantly less harsh and flows fluidly off my tongue. Because even when I don't know what I'm saying, I can always just b.s. (Some might argue a B.A. in English is just that.) Unfortunately, I can't yet b.s. Afrikaans, because I literally don't know what to say, let alone make some sort of Freudian statement about the narrator's relationship with her father. But check back with me in a few months...

P.S. The pictures are from Cape Point -- one is a view of the Cape of Good Hope, the other is just a view of the mountains (I know, all my pictures kind of look the same, but the mountains are just sooo pretty) and the other is a group of penguins on Cape Point (it was a little underwhelming because they stand around and do basically nothing, but cute). Oh, and those are baboons we saw at Cape Point -- they start screaming when they're scared and they are absolutely terrifying. But also, adorable.

Nirvana

I found my bliss today. We were walking along Dorp St., looking for Oom Samie se Winkel, an old general store from the 1800s. The sun, per usual, was not letting up, we'd probably walked a couple of miles already and had nearly gone through our water bottle supply, when we saw MELISSA'S: The Food Shop on the side of the road. It was air conditioned, a definite plus, and it had free samples of lemonade (they call it lemon syrup)! And oh my god, it's like Central Market only ten times better because it isn't a chain and it's small and the floors are old-fashioned black-and-white linoleum and the workers wear little chefs' hats and wow.

Gelato is a big deal here, and it's challenging to find real ice cream, but there they had iced coffee, raspberry/rose and chocolate/orange flavors. They had potato crisps flavored with red onion, black olive and roasted garlic (I grabbed a bag before we left), fresh salsa, chocolate ganache, South African cheeses and so many different kinds of pesto!

In short, I'm pretty sure I know where all my money's going to go here (yeah, so, the food's a little pricey). Even if I gain like 30 pounds (which I inevitably will, as we all know tasty food must be unhealthy), I can kind of counterbalance it by walking around a lot and sweating (which is just about all I do when I'm not eating).

Yumm-o!

Eating out

I don't know whether it's a lack of self-esteem or too much of it, but I've always sort of thought of myself as a notch above the rest. The hoi polloi enjoy Hollywood crap, but I enjoy film. I'm American-with-an-asterisk, and when I got here I was determined to prove I was everything an American was not: I was thoughtful, patient and cultured. Imagine my surprise when I realized I'm none of the above.

"Now, some of you are used to being served quickly at restaurants and stores," our program director said during orientation. "In South Africa, we're not lazy, but we take our time. So be patient -- this might be hard -- but remember the pace of life is slower here and relax, and you'll get used to it in no time."

Her warning was directed toward all of us, the typical American college students. In the U.S. we want our food fast and we eat it fast. Lunch break for 30 minutes? No problem.

That wasn't exactly my motto, though. I always thought going out for dinner (usually at 9 or 10, right? That's when evenings begin) was a fairly relaxed occasion. Yeah, eventually you get your bill and you pay, but the whole point is having good company, good food and enjoying yourself. The whole American idea of time-is-money, much like that rabbit in Alice in Wonderland ("I'm late! I'm late!") is a little tiresome because this defeats the purpose of truly enjoying yourself. If you're constantly looking at your watch and calculating how soon you can leave the restaurant, you're not going to have any fun. I thought the whole European idea of meals that stretch for hours was a brilliant one and always wanted to go somewhere where the idea was to savor your meal, not to finish ASAP and go.

So I thought.

I spotted a Greek restaurant the first or second day I was here -- it was located fairly close to the university, so it was one of the few places in town I could actually find sans map (oh; good luck navigating even with a map, because there are no street signs, just the occasional street name painted in the gutter). I had passed by during lunch, peering longingly in the darkened windows (it was only open for dinner) and reading the menu. Chicken shwarma and hummus and tzatziki! Oh my! This, I thought, is the next place I'm going. I'm not going to spend any more money on wraps or bacon or reduced-fat mayonnaise.

So last Friday, me and Alyssa went to the Greek place. Despite some initial confusion over lemonade (here, what they call "lemonade" is actually Sprite), we sat down and leisurely perused the menu. I ordered hummus to start and we conversed for a while, seated outside French-cafe style, near the street. The sun had long since gone down and a breeze was in the air and everything was perfect, and Alyssa started telling me the entire plot of Nip/Tuck, seasons one through five. By season three's recap, though, I was starting to get a little impatient. Not so much at the unbelievable plot lines (who writes that show? Seriously? Julian McMahon's character has the worst luck ever) but at the fact that I was starving and my hummus had yet to appear. I'm not the most patient person in the world, but I'm not unreasonable, either. Still, what were they doing in there? Thankfully, by mid-season four, our hummus arrived with warm bread. And though it wasn't the greatest I've ever had, I was beyond desperate and would've enjoyed anything. As we went through season five, I finished half the hummus and had run out of bread. The waitress brought us more and I ate slowly, hoping our shwarma was coming soon. If nothing else, I could just eat the hummus until the food arrived.

I think the biggest difference here (though maybe I just haven't been to enough upscale restaurants) is that people spend hours eating at restaurants. They eat their appetizer, they finish their appetizer. Only then will the kitchen start putting together their meal. If you think about it, it sort of makes sense. I always order appetizers and fill up before the main course, so perhaps spacing the courses out helps a little.

Our shwarma came twenty minutes after I had given up on finishing the rest of the hummus. It was good -- not quite as good as I'd hoped, but it's a Greek restaurant in Africa, and that's a little weird. Almost as weird as having KFC in Africa. Perhaps in a romantic setting, you'd want to finish your meal, stare deeply into each other's eyes for thirty minutes and then pay the bill, but for us, this romantic lull in activity was definitely not needed. Having no more Nip/Tuck plotlines to go through, we sat and stared awkwardly at the inside of the restaurant, hoping someone -- anyone -- would deliver the bill. It was like a two-hour movie; at first, it's relaxing and fun, then you've had enough, and then you just want to leave because you're over it already.

The moral of the story is, try as I might to escape it sometimes, I'm an American. Sure, I worked at a grocery store once and hated the "customer is always right" mantra, but at least it speeds up customer service. Here, it's not uncommon to wait in line for twenty minutes at the grocery store and when you finally get there, have the cashier scan your groceries with the most relaxed attitude in the world. There's no sense of this "Hurry! Hurry! Hurry!" sense of urgency and I thought that would be nice, but, true to Ms. de Wet's warnings, I'm more frustrated than anything else. Still, this whole "I don't have all day" mentality is misleading, because to be honest, I do have all day. I have all day and all week, because I don't have anything to do until school starts. It's an odd position to be in.

We did finally get our bill, after a good two hours at the restaurant. The hiking here is intense. The scuba diving is challenging. But in the same way, eating out is intense, and right now, I think I lack stamina. We'll see how the rest of the semester goes.

Wake 'n bake

The fire started in the mountains, just behind the gym. Okay, so I was a little sensationalistic in the last post because I actually went out later that night (they'd put out most of the flames by then). Last night you could still see flames on the mountains from logs burning, but at least the air doesn't smell like smoke anymore.

Sometimes I forget where I am. Not like I suddenly think I'm in Texas, but I forget that, oh yeah, I'm in Africa. But then something jarring happens, like I walk down the street and there's someone who's not wearing pants (in all fairness, this could also happen at any Metro station in Houston) or I open up the Penny Saver and they're advertising two pineapples for R10 (about $1). And that's when it hits me. Because for the scenery and architecture here (discounting the scorching heat), it could be a little European village.

They also advertise heavily for "burglar bars" -- windows that look cute and wooden but are actually made of titanium and adamantium (Wolverine!), to ensure your valuables remain in their rightful place. While I'm sure the advertising agency had a blast coming up with this one, it's kind of terrible. [Insert brand name here] Electric Fences: Guaranteed to give burglars a truly shocking experience!

Today is incredibly hot. It feels like Texas in June or July. I went outside and nearly melted so I'm inside for awhile. It's really crippling, this African sun.

P.S. The picture is from Dyer Island, home to 60,000+ seals. They sound like sheep and are really noisy and smelly, but it was pretty cute.

Holy smokes (conflagration station)

I was going to write about scuba diving, but I think that's going to have to wait for another time because THERE'S A HUGE FIRE IN STELLENBOSCH.

Never in my wildest dreams or old Lisa Frank artwork have I seen the sky that orange. And the sun? Bright red. It is so windy out here and I could only snap a few pictures before my lungs filled up with smoke and my eyes started burning and I started feeling really terrified. English fails me.

And yes, in case you were wondering, I am like that nerdy girl in countless Apocalypse movies who documents the destruction and basically dies because she has to blog about what's happening and doesn't realize the alien killer/firestorm/tornado is about to rip her apart. That's journalistic integrity!

Automatic girls

Hey, remember that Sex and the City episode where they're going to visit the Hamptons because Carrie's going to like three million baby showers (the one where Samantha says the baby looks like a bastard anyway) and all four girls get really pumped about their road trip? And they all get dressed up a la Grace Kelly with scarves and huge sunglasses and climb into their rental car and are rearing to go? And then Carrie turns to the girls and goes, "Ladies... who knows how to drive?" and everyone's face falls, because they live in New York City and have never learned how to drive, because why would they? Yeah, that's sort of how it is here, too.

We have to go to scuba lessons tomorrow morning in Durbanville, about 50 km away. And my group of four (how fitting; can I be Carrie?) is completely car-less. Rental cars, we heard, were cheap, so we looked into those. By "looked into," I mean the idea was considered for about five seconds until we realized that a) the cars are manual and b) everyone here drives on the wrong side of the road.

Four years ago, when I was learning to drive, my dad taught me on his car, which was a standard. Though even he, in his infinite patience, soon suggested I switch to Mom's minivan (the automatic), as I could never really get the hang of the clutch + gas combo. So, thanks, America. First, you won't switch to the metric system even though every other country in the world has, then you make it hard for us to drive a standard.

Bottom line is, even if we could get used to the whole left-hand thing, everything's backwards. The stick, the driver's seat is on the wrong side and even if I'm saving R90, I'd like to think my life is worth more than that. I've already seen two wrecks (one, a car was stopped at a red light and this truck just came crashing into him) and heard from a friend about a motorcycle crash. That's my least favorite sound in the world (followed closely by anything Rammstein).

Scuba

When I told a friend I went hiking up a mountain the other day, he couldn't stop laughing. "You went hiking?? You did physical activity? Please."

I guess I can't blame him for being incredulous. Growing up, I was a pretty relaxed kid (my mom's euphemism for "lazy"). I enjoyed the monkey bars, swings, the occasional jog, but by the time I hit about 10 or 11, I was pretty much over with that stage of my life and ready to move on to something else. And while I've never been that girly, I found myself more like the title character in The Story of Ferdinand, the book about the Spanish bull who doesn't want to fight. He just wants to lay on the grass and sniff flowers and enjoy the finer things. Of course, middle schoolers don't take too kindly to kids who just want to read and watch old films. Because when you're picking teams for dodgeball, who cares how much Steinbeck you read last summer or that you can still recite the preamble to the Constitution? Um, like no one.

Being skinny, I was initially picked fairly early, but by the time my team saw how far I could throw a ball, things changed. There's nothing quite like being the last one picked for teams, because it's like an announcement: you're literally the bottom of the barrel. Yes, even after the kid in the wheelchair. "Just wait until I'm a pro athlete," I'd think, knowing that there was no possible way this would ever happen, and wishing I were better at deluding myself. "That'll show 'em."

And seven years later, I'm still not a pro athlete. But I'm sure there's still time.

But enough of that -- I've gone hiking, there's some sort of trip to the Cape of Good Hope to see penguins this weekend and I'm taking scuba lessons. Perhaps it's my lack of sporting ability that makes me so clueless, but I honestly thought scuba looked like a fairly harmless activity. I can swim. Breathe under water? Not so much. But scuba=swimming+breathing underwater=awesome. (Instead of doing sports, I worked out complicated mathematical formulas like this when I was growing up.) You put on one of those cute little suits, fix your goggles and facepiece and dive in. Easy as pie.

"Don't forget to breathe." This is uttered every session by Hannes, our cute South African scuba instructor. Nevermind that his accent is a little hard to understand at times; as long as I pick up the basics, I'll be fine. But apparently, breathing is pretty important. We saw a lovely educational video, The Science of Scuba (which surprisingly hasn't yet won an Academy Award) that showed us pictures of lungs exploding (this is what happens when you hold your breath and shoot up to the top too fast), faces bleeding (this is what happens when you go swimming with swollen sinuses; blood leaks out of every orifice on your face) and air embolisms (another reaction to coming up too fast; this one causes brain damage, strokes and death. The man in the video claimed this was one of the "more serious" diving issues; what could be more serious than death?, I thought. Eternal damnation? Do they do that in scuba, too?).

Bottom line? I'm now terrified to scuba. I might die. Also, I don't remember what SCUBA stands for. Shouldn't I know that already? Snorkeling is tomorrow, but maybe that'll be manageable. I'm crossing my fingers.

McDonald's

When I decided to study abroad, it was with the same sort of vigor that I decide most big things in my life: it was made with very little foresight and without any real knowledge of what the process might entail. The decision to study in South Africa was made by my recurring mental image of holding emaciated children in a small village, filling them with the promise of life I'd gained after 20 years; inevitably, I'd help encourage one of them to go to college or to follow his dreams. I'd uncover truths about class struggles -- oh! racism does exist, but I'd help the entire continent overcome that in a five-month span by facilitating discussion among community leaders, all without a poli sci degree -- and try all sorts of South African cuisine, including boerwors, and enjoy it. Yes, I was going to be the greatest thing to happen to South Africa. Duh. And so when I told everyone where I was studying and they scratched their heads and asked politely why the hell I wanted to study there, I had a great answer to give them.

None of these fantasies included the possibility of homesickness.

I arrived in Stellenbosch on Monday, Jan. 19, after a grueling 11-hour flight from London. Immediately, we were split up into groups and assigned to find roommates among the group of strangers. Naturally, not knowing anyone, I was paired with another unwanted girl. One suite. I pulled my suitcase and duffel bag into the un-air conditioned dorm under the hot sun of this unfamiliar country and had an hour to unpack everything before we walked in droves to our initial orientation. Maybe it was the long flight and basically pulling an all-nighter, maybe it was the stress of traveling, maybe it just wasn't a good day. All I know is, I pulled all my stuff into my 4-foot-by-5-foot room that was going to be my home for the next five months and broke down. Where was Nick? Where was my mom? My sisters? Lily? Anyone?

The truth, of course, was that it was going to be quite a while before I saw any of them again -- one of those facts that had conveniently not made it into my dreams about saving the African continent. All my fantasies focused on uplifting stuff and smiles always seemed abundant -- or at least, self-fulfillment seemed a must. Alone in my beige-colored dorm room with questionable window dressing, feeling uplifted seemed as far away as my home in Fort Worth.

In the days before I left, my mom had hinted to me that, since I'd never traveled this far outside of the country, homesickness was a natural part of it. "You're going to be homesick," she had warned. "But you'll get over it." And, as with most of the times in my life where I've lacked the foresight to predict these things, I thought to myself, she's right.

My roommate was easy to get along with; she was from Rhode Island and very talkative, offsetting my quietness those first few days as we strolled around the town. While I'd initially been scornful of rooming with another American (what is this? This is study abroad, not America abroad), it was strangely comforting to talk to someone else who knew the beauty of apple pie a la mode and who remembered the Clinton-Monica Lewinsky scandals. Because, though our director had brought this up in jest, I was about ready to board the plane back to DFW because the people here said Ja and seemed to have a ridiculous fascination with meat.

That first day, as we were pulling into town, Mike (the program director who had picked us up at the airport) had pointed out the McDonalds. "That's where you go if you're looking for a little slice of home, guys," he said as he motioned to the golden arches. The other passengers laughed, as did I. Homesickness? Please. This is Africa! And McDonalds? So American! So disgusting!

Yet by day two, though I'd slept off the nightmare that was Day 1, I still felt terrible. I missed everyone, I couldn't get internet reliably to get in touch with people from Texas. We also had no food in the apartment, as our orientation didn't leave us much time to shop (it was over by mid-afternoon, at which point most of the shops in town were closing), so we were pretty much SOL as far as stuff for dinner. So when my roommate asked me if I wanted to go out to dinner, I overwhelmingly agreed. And the topic of McDonalds came up.

So here's the thing. I am the biggest opponent of McDonalds. I've seen Supersize Me, I've read Fast Food Nation and know about how corrupt the industry is from every angle: how the farmers get little profit, how slaughterhouses hire illegal immigrants and make them work even after they lose limbs in the machines and mess with the numbers so the government doesn't look too hard at their records, how the food is completely artificial and terrible for you, etc. etc. etc. But at that moment, nothing sounded better to me.

The problem was, we didn't know how to get there. It was our second day in town and we realized we had no idea where the place was. We set out going down Merriman (the main street in town) and ran into a couple of South African girls from the university. They asked the requisite questions -- which states we were from, how long we were there, who we voted for in the last election (say Obama, lest you get shot) -- and then asked where we were headed.

"Um... Pick 'N Pay," I said quickly, as it's right next to McDonalds.
"Oh? That's closed by now," the blonde said, looking puzzled.
"Oh, is it? Well, erm, it'd be nice to see where it is," I said, grappling for the words.
"Look, we just need to find the McDonalds," Alyssa said quickly.
I looked nervously at both of them as recognition spread across their faces. They didn't laugh, though, they just pointed straight down the street.
"Sure. The McDonalds. Just go straight down, past the gas station -- about four blocks -- and you'll be there," the brunette said.

I thought it must have been absurd to meet two American girls in a foreign city who were headed to, of all places, McDonalds. How typical! In a land of boerwors, of the Zulu and Xhosa, what cuisine were we adventurously trying, knowing it was pretty unlikely we'd return to Africa anytime soon? McDonalds!

But as soon as we stepped inside the restaurant, as cheesy as it sounds, I felt like a weight was lifted from my shoulders. Yes, the menu was exactly like the ones in Fort Worth. And Dallas. And Boston. And everywhere you'd ever find a McDonalds. (Though, honestly, the prices were much better; my meal cost R25, a far cry from the $5 I might otherwise spend.)

I ordered a Big Mac with cheese, a small order of fries and an ice cream cone. They even had tomato ketchup! In South Africa, they're more into this sweet pink sauce and NEVER have ketchup as an option in restaurants or grocery stores. And like the menu had seemed exactly the same as I could find anywhere, so the sandwich tasted exactly the same. Perhaps I should find it disgusting that they can manufacture the same tastes the world around, or that the hamburger patties, without fail, are perfectly circular, but at that moment it was completely delicious. I forgot that I was so far from home and without friends, without my family for the next several months; I closed my eyes and felt like I was eating a burger in Houston, or taking a lunch break from the Amon Carter in Fort Worth. I could have been anywhere other than Africa, and at that moment, that's exactly what I needed. Because, for all my talk about loving to travel, it's a scary thing to leave everything you know and set up a new life somewhere on the other side of the world.

So, though gourmands may hate me, that was one of the best meals I ever had. And yes, though I've always hated how McDonalds stamps out individuality from countless towns across the world, in this case it was beautiful. Though I didn't yet know how to say anything in Afrikaans besides "dankie," it was okay once I entered the house of the golden arches. Because Big Macs are universal. As is "could I supersize that, please?"