The difference between Madrid and Cape Town

The black dots are the shopping, the house is my house.*

Also, as an excuse for my infrequent updating: http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/8248056.stm

(another difference between Madrid and Cape Town)**

*This post is inspired by my mother's request for more maps to be involved in the blog.

**I don't mean down on Cape Town, there are lots of ways it's better than Madrid. For starters, everyone is really friendly!

Man is greater than the ring

This week was the "Infecting the City" Public Arts Festival in Cape Town which was incredible. I highly recommend it.

I saw Xhosa Stick Fighting, Ballet, BBoys, Tai Chi, Drum Majorettes and all kinds of interesting performance art. I took an outdoor class in "Jazzing", supposedly a Cape Flats version of the Samba. The most exciting part, however, was the Treasure Hunt.
It began with a woman in an old fashioned white dress throwing gravel at a women with a brief case in one hand and a birdcage with tea bags and keys in the other, led to a professor from New Zealand leading us around a museum talking about Vermeer and being tended to by a nurse who only spoke Spanish, then to a tiny room in the flower market covered in maps. We ended up Saturday morning exploring the sewers beneath Cape Town. All of this is entirely true! I described it to my friend and he thought that maybe I had done some drugs and hallucinated it all.
I won a massage at a spa! (Yay! I've been needing one after spending 20 hours on buses and bungee jumping last weekend)
Plus, I got to explore the city and go on a treasure hunt. Amazing.
This is the only picture I have, taken by the organizer and put on his twitter.

Oh, and I found this online:

See the birdcage with tea bags and keys? Didn't hallucinate it!

Wheee!

Sorry, I haven't updated forever. I've been doing exciting things. Exciting thing 1:

Last weekend, I took a 10 hour bus ride along the coast with 4 of my friends. We went to Stormsriver in Tsikamma National Park. We spent our first day mountain biking and going to one of the only restaurants in town which also happens to be Elvis themed.
The next day we woke up bright and early and went to the Bloukrans Bridge. The bridge hosts what has been variably called "The largest bungee in the world", "The largest bridge bungee in the world", "The largest commercial bungee in the world", and "The largest commercial bridge bungee in the world". I suspect it's really the last, but it doesn't really matter because the bungee is 216 meters, also known as a lot. And I did it!! It was a little bit scary but so much fun.

I have a video, too, but I wasn't about to spend all of my megs uploading that. Next time you see me with my computer in real life, I'll show you.

Jo'Burg!

This weekend, we went on our Bing trip to Johannesburg, which was awesome. Cape Town is really just a big beach town, pretty slow and spread out, but Johannesburg is a CITY. We stayed in Melville, the "trendy" area, which I loved because it had a vintage shop, several used book stores, and a cupcake place. I could stay in Melville forever.
We're all required to take a class about the way that memories are preserved in monuments, museums, etc in South Africa and our trip focused on cramming as many "sites of memory" in as possible:The Constitutional Court is built from the bricks of the prison that used to stand there and says "Constitutional Court" on the front in all 11 official languages.

A property outside of JoBurg called "Lilliesleaf" where Nelson Mandela (and other freedom fighters) stayed while underground and the former headquarters of Umkhonto we Sizwe(MK), the ANC's paramilitary wing. In 1963 a police raid found all of their documents, captured 19 ANC and MK leaders and used the evidence to convict them, including Mandela, to life in prison for sabotage.

This monstrosity is the Voortrekker Monument, built by the apartheid government to honor the Voortrekkers, Afrikaners who left the Cape Colony in the 1830s to settle (read: take the land of people who were already living there, and kill them if necessary) the interior.

The monument is ripe with distrubing images of savage Zulu warriors attacking the innocent Afrikaners, but the most disturbing part for me was the resemblance to the stories of the pioneers in America, wagon trains and all.

Isivivane at Freedom Park. It's supposed to be a "resting place for the spirits of those who have died in the struggles for humanity and freedom." The boulders come from each of the regions of South Africa and are reminiscent of the heaps of stones that used to bring fortune to long-distant travelers.

"World on its Hind Legs" outside of the exit of the Apartheid Museum.

Lots of learning.

In Spain and South Africa, they say "ciao" instead of "good-bye" or "adios".

Brief South African to American Food Dictionary

spring onion – green onion

rocket – arugula

aubergine – eggplant

avo – avocado

veg – vegetable

mild – spicy

chips – french fries

braai – barbeque

medium pizza – small personal pizza

Kloofing

This Sunday we went canyoning, also known as kloofing. I'm not sure the full extent of the word, but we abseiled (repelled) down waterfalls and jumped off rocks into a pool. It was all in this serene, beautiful valley and I enjoyed myself immensely.

Here's the valley:

Me rapelling, Jessica prepared to save me:

The pool:

I ended up jumping from 12 meters (~36 feet) which was terrifying and exhilarating.

I know that I carefully documented my love for the Madrid metro here, so I'm going to share about the VERY different kind of public transportation we use in Cape Town: Minibus Taxis.

They are built to fit maybe 12 people, but the drivers normally fit about 20 in. They drive down regular routes, (up and down Main Road in between Cape Town and Observatory) and honk their horns, yell, try to attract your attention so you'll get into their minibus. People are squeezed in so tight people often have to get out so new people can get in. You pass your rand up to the driver or (in many cases), another man who helps him out by opening the door, stuffing people in and collecting money. I've heard that some of them are really decked out, but I've only ever been in normal to rundown minibuses. The drivers don't have a lot of respect of driving laws, which is a problem for me because I'm still really confused about drivers following laws (everyone's on the wrong side of the street!).
They're pretty safe in the day if you make sure that you're getting in taxi's that have people in them.

I can't say that I enjoy a minibus ride more than I enjoyed the metro, but they are definitely a different way of getting around. One thing the Spanish and South Africans have in common is a MUCH smaller personal bubble than Americans are used to.

As promised

This is a picture of everyone from our wine-tasting welcome dinner. How adorable are we?

At the end of the world

Yesterday we went on a tour of the Cape Peninsula with our tour guide, Colleen. (Colleen is quite the character; she is in complete control of what we learn on the tours and it is often information about how people have died in a particular place or about how sharks hallucinated in this cape or that this rodent is closely related to elephants or that this house sold for 7 million rand)

We saw penguins! They are just as absurd in person.

We also went to Cape Point, which isn't actually that geographically significant, but it is almost the tip of Africa and feels like the end of the world.

My sunburn has progressed to what I hope will be its final stage: extensive peeling. I am hoping to emerge a butterfly on the other side.

And Tutu too.

Today we got out of the house at 8:30 (maybe closer to 8:40) and piled into a van to visit the South African Museum's collection of Rock Art and talk about representation and interpretation.

We got to St George's cathedral and went into the crypt when we saw DESMOND TUTU! It was amazing. I couldn't believe my eyes -- I went back and forth a couple times, trying to figure out if it was really him. We all got to shake his hand and take a picture with him (forthcoming) and then he was gone! Apparently he goes there every Friday for mass and a smoothie, and our host had engineered for us to be there when he was. He was so nice and happy and small!

Black, White, and Red All Over

I've gone to a cafe to use their free internet just to share these highlights from the weekend:

Bo Kaap: the Muslim area in Cape Town, brightly painted and at the base of the mountains.

Sunset from Table Mountain. It's comforting to have the sun set over the ocean again.

Cape Town from Table Mountain. So sparkly!

We went to the Old Biscuit Mill Market, an awesome prepared food Farmer's Market, where I ate almost all of this delicious ostrich burger:

The beach! So beautiful!

I was stupid on the beach and I forgot to apply sunscreen very well. To give you an idea of my sunburn, here is the line on my wrist from my bracelets:

It hurts all over. Very sad.

34 degrees

Cape Town is hot (but they use Celsius, so I've been in practice) and beautiful and so different from Spain and the US.
We're in a suburb right outside of Cape Town, Observatory. It's quite the hippie town and I'm looking forward to getting familiar with the five or six cafes on Lower Main -- the street that makes up all of Observatory's downtown.
Orientation has consisted of rules, tours, and watching the sun set over Table Mountain. It has also been getting used to my new internet limit -- 1 kilobyte a month. I'm afraid that I wont be able to upload as many pictures as I. On top of that, it is unwise to take photos in public in town (showing your camera). I hope that my blog is still worth it for you to read.

Things I will miss from Spain

That everyone stays us late
Cafe con leche and giant sugar packets
Zara
Jamon
"Vale, vale"
Pastelerías
My host mom
Wandering around Madrid
Friendly Madrileños
Olive oil
Adorably dressed children
The metro
Christmas lights
Bocadillos
Toast with tomato mashed up on it (this is delicious)
Streets always being cleaned
Better potato chips
Retiro
Farmacias -- you tell them what's wrong, they give you medicine.
Tapas
Botelleon
Ease of traveling around the country
Plazas
Garapiñadas
calle Goya
Siesta
Tortel
Bars not being sketchy
Average height, while not the same as mine, is closer
"No pasa nada"
Huevos estrellados con patatas fritas
The lisp


No doubt this is a little melodramatic, but I think in the future when I look back on this quarter I will associate it mostly with being young and I will miss that a lot.