This weekend I had BY FAR one of the best weekends I have ever had in South Africa... My friend Stephanie found some list online that has things to do for R1-R100. So... we decided to try something out... tobogganing! HA! If you don't know what that is, you aren't the only one. Even I wasn't 100% sure what it was when she told me, but I will explain it to you now... Well... tobogganing is kind of like bobsledding, only it's just a sled more or less. But wait, there's no snow in Africa! This is true... and instead of being on a snow track, it was all steel!
So Saturday morning, Steph and I took the train to Old Biscuit Mill (kind of like a big, trendy, overpriced farmer's market for mostly white people in the middle of an underdeveloped area... a very bizarre phenomenon), which I hadn't been to since I went with my program. Although just about everything there is incredibly expensive, I will admit that they do have some good food, and the ice cream is relatively cheap :) Anyway, so our friend Emma, my roommate Lizzy, and Steph's friend from home met up with us there and we decided to try and go tobogganing for real! In order to do that though, we had to take a train for about 30 minutes from Salt River (the area where we were) to Bellville, which is just before Stellenbosch... from there, we would have to take a cab or taxi to the Velodrom (SP?... Whatever Bellville Stadium!) and this tobogganing place called Cool Runnings (haha like the movieeeee) was supposedly across the road behind an Engen Station. Well.... here's how it really happened: We waited around for the train at Salt River for literally an eternity (which I actually don't mind at all, but other people here really seem to hate), and once it came we took it all the way to Bellville like we planned. Once we got out of the train station, things looked at little different but whatever. So we were looking around and there were no cabs in sight, and some guy started talking to some of my friends... He asked if we were at the university (Stellenbosch, so no) and then we explained that we wanted a taxi (big mistake, taxi=minibus taxi, cab=taxi cab, but sometimes we forget this) and he said that there were some but we shouldn't take them, and better yet not walk around too much because it was a Saturday. Was zum? Yeah it was a Saturday... and? Apparently coming there on a Saturday was 'risky' and so was taking the train and taxis, so he told us we should ask the police what to do, and pointed towards the station (that just happened to be right outside of the train station, how convenient!). So we walked over and as we were making our way, someone was being brought out and put into a car and cops were talking and it was honestly a little weird. Then we managed to talk to one and he essentially said the same thing, but reluctantly pointed us in the direction of the minibus taxis, adding, "BE CAREFUL!" Not something you really want to hear from a cop, is it? So we decided to walk over there anyway... on a Saturday... and we finally found the least sketch looking minibus that was going to Tiger Valley (our destination, the Veledrom, was apparently located there... which was about 4 km away or something) and took it. We almost missed it because no one told us where it was, but somehow got out sort of when we needed to. We walked down some hills and through some shopping centres trying to find the toboggan place behind what we thought was the correct Engen Station... however... it was not... So, we basically walked all the way around the entire stadium (not right but beside it, but from a distance), across lots of traffic (once I got stranded on one side and no one could hear me over the traffic haha and then I almost got hit and kept going back and then in the road and then back again... Julie said it looked like Frogger... probably), shops, lots of hills and just completely random things, we somehow managed to find it! So we went tobogganing and it was cheap and great and fun and my roommate even fell off the last time she went down. Plus it was great because we were the oldest people there... and that was even more obvious because every male over the age of 20 went nuts when we came in... Stephanie had to call them several times before in order to try and figure out where we were, so everyone knew about us... They asked us how we even got there and when we told them, again... YOU DID WHAT?! ON A SATURDAY?! And there was even one girl that worked at the desk and she was completely in shock. She said she takes the train every day and even she wouldn't do that... And she carried a tazer with her... Not lying! We saw it! And we must have been so shocked about that (haha no pun intended) because she just looked at us and said What? .... I'm South African!
After some good, clean juvenile fun, we ended up getting a ride back from a guy that worked there in the back of his bakkie (I think this is the name for it I forget... but they are essentially the South African version of a truck, meaning very small and only two seats) with Julie in the front because he was kind of into her and literally no one else was even remotely interested in him. They were all just so worried about us that they refused to let us go back the same way we came... so instead we got a direct ride and FOR FREE! A very rare thing here... And it was also really nice even in the back of a truck because you could see all of the mountains better.
Later we all went to Green Point to the gay bars with some other friends, and after a while decided to go to Long Street because it's much cheaper... However... when we were getting out of the cab, I must have dropped my wallet on the floor and not realized because as soon as we got out and went to Abantu, I noticed I didn't have it, which just kinda sucked because it had my phone, camera, UCT ID, and some Rand in it... but oh well! I had my keys and I had just uploaded all my photos (other than the two I had taken that night, one of which was an AWESOME picture of Ray Van Cleve going crazy and dancing completely out of control at a gay bar... now that is the biggest loss of them all). Well anyway, my friends decided I needed to have a good time no matter what and they wanted to see me DRUNK! No choice! So they bought me lots of shots and shooters... probably the best was the Brain Hemorrhage... sounds disgusting but it was FANTASTIC! I even had fun at Baghdad, which is the smallest concrete hell hole of a bar I have ever been to, but almost always is surprisingly very fun... plus Emma goes often enough that she gets discounts! Never a bad thing... After a while though Emma got kinda sick and I just kind of wanted to go home anyway, so I came back, wrote my madre a facebook message, and for once... she actually gets on facebook chat... so we had a nice little chat while I was drunk (sort of). So yeah, if you're reading this, Madre, er yeah...! It's not like you would care anyway.
But... it gets even better! Because on Sunday, I found out that I get to live with Corinne and Bethany in the International House after all... BEST WEEKEND EVER! Minus losing all my shit.
