As you were coming down from swine flu hysteria...

So, the Wine and Cheese Festival turns into much less of a party when you're lactose intolerant. Just fyi.

It occurred to me today that I'm going home in (a little less than) 1.5 months. Eek. I still need to go to Durban and Namibia! And a safari! And self-actualization! It's a little... stressful.

When we first got here, one of our orientation sessions was about culture shock. I forget what the graph looked like, but it went from "OMG culture shock" to "OMG I love it here" to "okay, I'm analyzing your culture more, and I sense there are some problems" to "OMG I can't go home I love it here too much". So I think I'm in the analytical-problem phase. Zuma aside, here are some aspects of South Africa that have been (dare I say it?) pissing me off lately.

1) Malls. We went to this super high-tech mall in Cape Town last weekend, the fanciest mall I've ever visited. It was like Vegas: lights everywhere, super fake marble interior, interactive map. But the thing is, while my bedroom might tell you a different story, I kind of like order in my life. It's why I love passing judgment on people's terrible life decisions and labeling others "idiots" within seconds of meeting them. It's nice to have some semblance of organization. And this isn't just limited to relationships: I like to have some order in places like shopping malls, where, without order, it would sort of suck. You know how there's this unspoken rule about which side of the walkway to walk on? And if you dare to walk the wrong way, you get trampled, like Simba's father in The Lion King, because everyone's all going in one direction? Yeah, not so in South Africa. People walk everywhere: on the left side, on the right side, on your face. I nearly had a nervous breakdown dodging all the corpulent shoppers and strollers. Strollers are the worst. Little kids think they're just entitled to everything.

2) Cavemen who live in my dorm. Okay, since I've bared it all (literally) in this blog (I'm writing in the nude right now), I see no reason to pretend I didn't come here expecting to meet the love of my life or something. After all, the South African lady I sat next to on the plane ride over here was just coming back from her daughter's wedding to some guy she met while studying in Spain. If any Olsen twins movie ever made is any indication, we all know that if a (heterosexual) girl goes on vacation, she'll soon befriend and mac on a (heterosexual) foreign male. And apart from the sweater-clad cute-o-saurus in my Hemingway class, the males here fail to impress.* They continue to run around yelling "luuuuuuuuugh" and "gaaaaaaaaaah" each afternoon in random intervals. And somehow, I'm not jumping to impregnate any of them.

*However, in light of recent events, I'm going to have to say that a) French boys have nice accents and are nice conversationalists; and b) some Dutch boys aren't so bad, either. Great. I come to South Africa and find the European boys the most intriguing. However, my standards of male hotness are shifting. Am I growing up?

3) Pizza. I miss real pizza. Star Pizza? The pizzas here lack flavor and good tomato sauce.

4) The accent. Like, I mean, I love it, but at the same time, is the pronunciation of one's R's enough to utterly confuse people here? I've adopted a faux S.A. accent to limit the amount of confusion that results when I say just about anything.

Actually, the Afrikaner South African accent is the easiest to understand; I find it really difficult to understand the Xhosa and Zulu speakers.

5) Lack of a car. At first, it was cute. "It's better to walk and explore the town on foot," I thought. "Think of all the calories I'll burn." Then it was slightly annoying, but there was a goal in mind. "Well, I'm getting leg muscles, for the first time in my life." I put up with lugging groceries home and sweating my face off (I hate sweating before noon; it just doesn't seem right somehow) because I had a goal. And maybe I've lost those leg muscles or something, because my legs don't look that impressive anymore. If I'm going to be a weakling, I want a car. I'm never taking it for granted again.

Also, they apparently have inspections here, but judging by some cars' emissions, I'm thinking they have tons of cars on the road here that would NEVER be allowed back home. Also, VW Bugs -- cute in theory, ugly and cramped inside. Not unlike some brown-haired, blue-eyed bloggers I know...

P.S. Pictures are of the Stellenbosch Museum's colonial Dutch houses. Sadly, they're much more plush than is my dorm room.