Whistle While You Work

Just whistle while you work

Put on that grin and start right in to whistle loud and long

Just hum a merry tune

Just do your best and take a rest and sing yourself a song

When there's too much to do

Don't let it bother you, forget your troubles,

Try to be just like a cheerful chick-a-dee

And whistle while you work

Come on get smart, tune up and start

To whistle while you work

Routines. They develop once you’ve become comfortable in a place, right? That’s how I’ve come to view the last few weeks in Cape Town. For the last two or three weeks, I’ve gotten into the rhythm of doing the same things, and am starting to get restless. It’s mainly the work to blame – UCT is really starting to get at me in a tough way. Between all the papers that I have in the near future, the reality that exams (which are 50% of my final grade in all my classes) are coming faster than I can imagine… it’s time to work I go! Perhaps that’s why I haven’t written on my blog in quite some time – it almost feels as if there’s nothing new & good to say. But, if I look back, I can definitely find some highlights to the last couple of weeks.

First off, turning 21 in Cape Town was an absolute dream come true. Despite how homesick I ended up for a bit during the day of my birthday, the two nights I celebrated with my best friends were some of the best I’ve had here. I turned 21 at midnight Sunday, at Cybar. I love that I will have that memory for all my life – all I had to do was walk down the street to the place where it seems like only my friends and I have fun. I took fire shots, danced the night away, didn’t remember midnight, didn’t remember coming home and just dropping down onto the floor in front of my friend’s room (don’t worry – wasn’t hurt!). All in all, exactly how turning 21 should be.

The next day I went to one class, came home, and relaxed talking with friends from home pretty much all day. By the time night arrived, it was time to start having fun, so we all sat around the patio table (not realizing it may have been the last time, given the current weather situation as winter sets in in Cape Town). A couple friends came over, then we went out to karaoke night!! It wasn’t your traditional stage-karaoke set up… you were just handed a mic in the middle of the dance floor. If you can, picture 12 or so drunk American college kids singing Man, I Feel Like a Woman, Don’t Stop Believing, and Bye Bye Bye, and you can get a picture of how the night went. Also, at one point, because it was my birthday, I was forced up onto the bar to dance on the pole… a low point for me, but then again, you only live once! Tapaigh do dheis!

One day last week Daniel, Ashley, and I were bored, and decided to go into town and just see what was to be done there. We went to Greenmarket Square, a big open-air market in the center of town, and then after browsing and not really having our attention caught, decided to walk to the Waterfront. The only problem was that none of us have a real understanding of the geography of town, and didn’t realize that the Waterfront was quite a walk from the Greenmarket Square/Long Street area. Oh well, it didn’t matter! We walked down to the Victoria Mall, window shopped a bit, and ate at one of the best ice cream places I found in Cape Town. Then we decided to take a cab home, and as we were negotiating a price with a driver, a lovely South African woman came over and told the cabbie that he “shouldn’t be trying to take advantage of these nice people”. I don’t think he bargained down the price further after that, but it was nice to hear someone being considerate to us.

This past weekend was Easter Weekend, meaning the city of Cape Town basically closes up shop for the weekend. But, one thing that was still open – SHARK CAGE DIVING!! The Gaansbaai/Hermanus area is considered “the Great White capital of the world”, and is the location where the Planet Earth series filmed a lot of their great white footage. And, yes, that’s where I went! After being picked up right at our door, we drove the 2 or so hours out to Gaansbaai, were served a delicious breakfast (with the good orange juice I first raved so hard about when I got here), and then headed out onto the boat. Despite some moderate sea-sickness, everyone had an incredible time. There must have been 5 or 6 different sharks around our boat at different points during the ride. Me, Ashley, Rachel, and Isabella were the last four from the boat to go in… perhaps it would have been wise (for the rest of the boat’s sake) to split us up, because we were, for the first 2 minutes full of complaints. I hated the cold, couldn’t breathe correctly, and couldn’t figure out how to stay down. But, all that changed once our first shark passed. Immediately I loved every minute of it. The visibility was really low, so I kept watching the bait (2 fake tuna heads on a fishing line), and every time it moved I’d get really excited to see a shark, and most times a shark would literally just pop into visibility and glide past. Twice, about three feet from my face, right in front of Rachel actually, the shark would open it’s mouth, biting for the bait. Imagine staring a Great White Shark in the face with it’s mouth open.. and WINNING. It was a dream come true.

I think Sunday (Easter Sunday in fact) was one of the best nights I’ve had in Cape Town thus far. As most people wanted to stay in, or were at the Pitbull concert (yes… that’s right, Mista 305 was in CT), I decided to just have a chilled out, couple of drinks out kind of evening. So, Lacey, Anders, Austin, and I decided first to pop over to Café Sofia, where we hung out for a bit and got drinks. Since it was closing, we decided to go down to the Hussar Grill (the fantastic restaurant where I had my birthday dinner, and also almost ordered an entire bottle of wine for myself accidentally), and get some wine there (because it was so good the last time). Unfortunately, it was closed, but a nice waitress told us that there was a great wine bar called Oblivion on Landsdowne Road in Claremont. Not realizing just how far off Main Road that actually is, we decided to go for it, and took a cab down there. It ended up being super awesome. When you walk in, you see the great wine selection all up and down the wall behind the bar, reminding you of a great wine cellar. However, immediately to your right, past all the long benches that you can sit on, was a giant disco dance floor (a la Saturday Night Fever), complete with stripper pole in the center. It seemed to be one of the more classy wine bars, so we were all really confused by the pole in the center, but it was alright, we just accepted it and had fun anyway! The four of us sat down for a while drinking the bottles of wine we ordered, until finally we decided to leave. Unfortunately, cabs don’t seem to venture that far off Main Road, so we had about a 15 minute walk back up there, which was very unfortunate as it was wet outside and Lacey’s boots had almost no traction. Finally, after getting in a cab that couldn’t start (and because the cab driver was so rude), we found an actual ride home, and came back to Devonshire. Since none of us wanted to go to bed just then, we decided to hang out for a bit longer, and by the end of the night Lacey & Anders were both asleep in my bed, while I lay on the floor, so the first time I woke up I decided to go downstairs and sleep in the living room. Since I didn’t have a blanket, I walked into Anders’ room to steal his, ignoring the empty full bed in the middle of the room that I should have slept on. Needless to say, the next morning was hilarious for all of us, trying to piece together just how ridiculous we actually were.

Those are definitely just the highlights of the incredible times that I’m having here. I knew I had to write this now before I forget all of it in the haze that is going to be this weekend. I’m going to a festival in the Kalahari Desert called Afrikaburn, which is the equivalent of Burning Man in the United States. You can check it out on their website, because I don’t even yet know really what I’m getting myself into. What I do know is that it is going to be absurd, and I cannot wait to come back with some great photos and stories!!