Dramarama

Well it was a long and interesting week followed by an even longer and more interesting weekend in Cape Town… After the Peninsular Tour with UCT, IES took us on a three day trip of what is called the Garden Route (Google it. It’s pretty sweet.). We met up at the local Seven-Eleven at 7 AM and drove several hours until we stopped for lunch at a traditional Xhosa (which is the language that I’m studying and it has clicks!) restaurant in the middle of nowhere. Then we went to an ostrich farm, and I got to hug an ostrich. It’s name was Betty… Some people in my group got to ride them, but only a few because they supposedly don’t have sweat glands but I think maybe the guy giving us the tour just was tired of us. We also went into some caves. They weren’t super impressive and they sure as hell had nothing on Mammoth Cave, but it was fun to go with everyone in my program. We stayed at a campsite-type place and I finally got a full size bed for a night (some people in one house have them)! Even if I did have to share with Stephanie… no worries. The next day we got to go shopping and kayaking. It was really great because I finally got a pair of flip flops… just what I needed. All of the climbing and hiking and kayaking and going to the beach and everything else we do all of the time is really not so great in flats… The kayaking was awesome, especially because where we went to was a private beach that was really warm for a change. We drove a lot more and stayed that night and the next day in the Tsitsikama National Park, which was AWESOME. We stayed in some really amazing houses that were right on the beach… literally… we could hear the waves alllll night. And we had fish for the first time! You all know I was pretty excited about that… although surprisingly, they have all been incredibly accommodating to vegetarians and have lots of good stuff for us. I think since I’ve been here I’ve actually become even more vegetarian, but I have had some meat since I’ve been here. Anyway it was really beautiful there and it was so clear! Everyone in our program was spazing (sp?) out (ok and maybe I was too…) because it was completely dark walking back and there were so many stars and we are in the southern hemisphere, so it looks completely different. The next day we could go hiking or to the biggest bungy jump in the world. I chose to sleep… My roommate and I and some of our guy friends had originally planned to do some type of hike but we overslept a little… oh well. And maybe I will do the bungy jump later… We’ll see… So after all of that, we left and eventually made it to lunch, several hours away (and very late thanks to people who went on the early, organized hike and people that went on the bungy because the minibus taxi they took broke down). Unfortunately, when we were ready to leave, the bus wouldn’t start… so we waited around for a while… Eventually they got it working and it was very impressive because a bunch of the guys in my program at one point pushed the HUGE bus in an attempt to get it started. However, it failed, so they just kept playing soccer. Finally someone got it going and we made it back to Cape Town at 10 or so, but this was actually pretty nice in a way because we could see Cape Town all lit up. Nobody really did much the next day, but Friday was sort of the first day of classes, on the Tuesday schedule. I only had two classes though because apparently the Poli Sci department only does 1000 level classes on this day… go figure. So I went to German, which was incredibly awkward because the teacher called me out and embarrassed me in front of everyone since she didn’t know me and didn’t understand why I was there, and Xhosa. After all of that, there was the Big Bash, thrown by UCT itself. My friends and I ended up taking a taxi because the line for buses was TERRIBLE. Typically taxis only hold 7 people, but I kinda got thrown in on top of the people in the first row. That’s just how it is here and I am very small… so usually I get to be that lucky person! Well the Big Bash was pretty fun for me… there were a lot of people and lots of music. It ended a little early because the DJ that was supposed to go on at 11 didn’t show, and afterwards me roommate, Will, a friend that went to college with them, and one of his friends on the baseball team here all went to Long Street. Long Street is a really interesting place and it is very much alive at nighttime. We went to Stones first, and then to some unknown, very sketchy bar. The second room was essentially just concrete, and my roommate really had to pee, so we went to find the bathroom, which had no toilet paper, no toilet seat, and a broken out window that faced the whole concrete room… Yeah, it was a pretty interesting place… Then we went to Dubliner’s, where I lost my cell phone…. There were two really weird Viking guys that had apparently been in Stones (one of which did a ‘naked lap,’ which means he ran around something without any clothes on… somehow I missed that…), and they put a Viking hat on my roommate when we were at the bar. While we were walking back through a thick crowd, some random guy was grabbing at me and kissing the side of my face… Weird I know, but weirder has happened! Someone came up to Emma and licked her face. Just on the street, in the middle of the day… Well I pushed him off of course, but I would be willing to bet he grabbed my phone out of my pocket. Otherwise it must have fallen out when I was dancing, but I really don’t think so. Oh well! These things happen! Since that kind of killed everything, their friend from Grinell drove us home, where my roommate and I made pasta at 4 AM. Great stuff. The next night was even MORE eventful, even though a majority of my house stayed home and went to bed before midnight. Well 3 AM rolls around and a ruckus (one of the coolest words in the English language I think haha) was brewing outside. Then someone from my program started buzzing to let him in. We all thought they were just being drunk and stupid (which they were), but what had happened was this: one psychopathic girl got into a pointless fight with the guy buzzing away at our gate, and another guy tried to stop them from fighting, so… she thought it would be a good idea to knee him in the balls. Great idea. Long story short, he ended up punching a window in their house and so they brought him across the street to our house. At first they just wanted paper towels (oh the ideas we have when we are drunk) or someone’s shirt, but then someone had the good sense to bring him inside so they wouldn’t be loud, he could actually get it cleaned up somewhat, and oh yeah… they could call an ambulance… needless to say it was a long and dramatic night.