Tuesday morning began ominously when I found myself to be completely locked into my hotel room. The door just WOULD NOT open and I started panicking and envisioning myself having to be extracted from my room through the window by firemen. I called downstairs to the reception desk and they sent up the Really Happy Woman, who just kind of jingled keys outside the door and tried to fit different ones into the lock. I called Jim on my cell phone to let him know that I was going to be late for work because I was literally trapped in my room, and he came across the hall and told me through the door to flick this tiny little knob thing that looked like the end of a screw which was apparently some kind of secret deadbolt that I hadn’t known about. I flicked it and the door immediately opened to reveal the Really Happy Lady standing there looking confused and holding a lot of keys, and Jim laughing hysterically. Well. Now I know how to deadbolt my room.
At work on Tuesday I had a meeting with Alison, the director of ODAC, and we solidified my agenda for the rest of my time here. I’m going to be working on writing a policy piece about how a proactive access to information provision should be included in any piece of victim empowerment legislation that is proposed.
On Wednesday, my computer charger exploded. Well, it didn’t actually explode but it let out a very sad sort of sizzling noise and then refused to work anymore. I used my computer until it ran out of battery and then left work to walk 15,846 miles around Cape Town looking for a Mac charger. I came to believe that I am the only Mac user in the city of Cape Town, and after being offered this monstrous looking computer adapter device with 20 different cords springing out of it at all angles (none of which fit a Mac, mind you, much to the dismay of the people trying to sell it to me) a bunch of different times, I finally gave up and went back to the office. You can get Mac chargers online here, but they go for 1200 rand, which is almost $160--an absurd price for a computer charger. Fortunately, someone in the office told me that Alison (the director) uses a Mac, and when I asked her if I could borrow her charger for a little while she told me she actually had an extra one at home that I could use for the rest of the summer. She brought it in on Thursday and my problem was solved.
On Wednesday for lunch, Jim and I went to this little Italian café I had been wanting to try called “Trisha Delisha” (an excellent name for a café). Turns out it was pretty delisha- the focaccia bread they use for sandwiches is amazing and the place is ridiculously cheap.
Wednesday afternoon I trekked back to the ENS law offices to have my mock/practice interview. It all felt extremely formal, which was kind of awkward because I don’t actually want to work there. These two Indian-South African guys interviewed me for about 35 minutes, asking me not only the standard interview-type questions (why did you want to go to Law School? Why should we hire you?) but also an array of other comparative law questions about the differences between the U.S. and South African legal systems. I don’t think they were actually trying to test me on my knowledge of the differences; it seemed more like they were actually just curious about how we do various things in the States. I felt like it went pretty well and it definitely showed me the kinds of things I need to think about before the HLS interview program in August.
On Thursday after lunch, Jim and I were walking back to our office and we saw this guy who was trying to sell a bunch of little toy monkeys on wheels that sort of bob up and down as you wheel them. I guess the guy thought the best way to market his wares to me was to aggressively run one of the little wheeled-monkeys right up to me and sort of frantically zigzag it back in forth in front of me as I was walking. It scared the living daylights out of me and in no way made me want to purchase one of them.
I’ve been getting up at about 6 every morning to go to the gym, which is right across the street from me. On Thursday morning, I was walking through the reception area to head out, and Miles, the nice man who is usually at the front desk, got up to open the door for me and accompany me outside. I was kind of saying “oh no don’t bother getting up I can let myself out,” but he just kept coming and said something that I couldn’t really understand—all I caught was something about “my (his) routine”. He let me out and I started walking across the street to the gym. It’s still dark out at this time but it’s a safe area and the gym is literally a 15 second walk from the front door of our hotel. I looked back as I was about to enter the center where the gym is, and I saw Miles just standing outside the hotel watching me. The next morning when this happened again I realized that he’s been watching me every morning as I walk to my gym to make sure I got there ok! He’s also protective of me in a couple of other adorable ways. On Friday evening I was heading out to go get pizza up the street with Nick, Mike and Dave, and they called me when they were about 5 minutes away from crossing in front of our hotel so I could come down and join them as they were walking by. Miles insisted on coming out with me to wait for them, and asked me all sorts of questions about where we were going, how long I had known these friends, and was I sure I was going to have someone to walk me home later. So Mom & Dad, please do not worry about me because I have someone here who is extremely concerned about my well-being and is not going to let anything happen to me on his watch.
On Saturday we were supposed to go to Robben Island in the morning, but since it was raining they canceled all the boat trips out to the island. So I got to sleep in a little bit, and then at 2:00 David, Hirsh, Jim and I rented a car to drive down to Cape Point/Cape of Good Hope, the southernmost tip of the African continent. Jim drove, because he’s had more experience than the rest of us with driving not only in the opposite side of the car but on the opposite side of the street.
As we were leaving Saasveld (our hotel), we noticed this vehicle parked in our parking lot, which definitely belongs to one of the staff, and we absolutely NEED to find out whose car it is because it's hilarious.
We drove down Chapman’s Peak drive, which is this beautiful road down the western coast overlooking the ocean.
The rain had stopped so it was a very fresh, cool day, and there were these beautiful waves crashing all around the rocks and jetties in the ocean. We passed this Ostrich farm, and I of course made them stop the car so I could speak with some of the ostriches. I started taking some pictures of them and they seemed very curious about me.
One of them started walking right up to me, and I took a picture of it. I thought my camera (phone) had been really zoomed in, and then when I took it away from my eye after taking the picture, I saw that the ostrich was basically RIGHT in my face (the lens hadn't been zoomed in at all). I kind of jumped because the ostrich was so close he could had pecked my eye out, and then I guess I scared the ostrich because he kind of jumped too. Here is the picture:
We kept driving until we got near the Cape Point National Park. We were all starving and we hadn't passed a single place to get anything to eat on the drive down, so we stopped into the little welcome building to get some snacks. All they had was soda, chocolate bars, and chips, so we all bought some bags of chips and were standing outside the little building eating them. Perhaps I should have been warned by this sign
...but as it was I was not really prepared for what was about to happen. I had just opened my bag of chips when around the corner came this fairly large baboon carrying a little baby baboon in her chest. Before I even had time to point this out to anyone else, she literally CHARGED at me. She swiped at my bag of chips but they didn't fall-- at this point I wasn't even scared because I actually hadn't had time to process what was actually happening. Then she charged at me AGAIN and just grabbed the chips right out of my hand. Then she sat basically at my feet and proceeded to eat the entire bag of chips, reaching into the bag like a human and stuffing 4 or 5 chips into her mouth at once. The little baby was just sort of looking curiously up at his mother eating the chips. When she was done, she ripped the side of the bag and licked the inside of the bag for any remaining crumbs.
Then, she charged at David who was watching the scene in disbelief and who was also holding a bad of chips. David yelled "NO" and kicked his leg out toward the baboon, who was scared off and left the scene. We all just started cracking up and now we joke all the time that whenever I start to eat/do anything, a baboon is just going to come up and either take the food or stop me from doing what I was about to do. Well, that baboon definitely picked an easy target-- I probably would have just given her the chips anyway if she had asked nicely.
We entered the National Park and as we were driving we saw an ostrich just sort of casually walking down the road. We slowed down and said hello to it, and it just kind of glared at us and kept walking. I suggested that we give it a ride, but no one else seemed very keen on this suggestion.
We drove as far as we could and then got out of the car to walk up to the lighthouse on Cape Point. The walk up was SO gorgeous and it was so cool being on a landmass that had ocean almost all around it.
On the way up we also saw this sign, which was fitting:
It was hard to conceptualize that when you turned away from the ocean, you were staring towards the entire African continent.
There was also a cool post that had signs pointing towards different major cities and showing how far they were away. I felt very far from home when I saw that New York was over 12, 000 km away!
On the way back, we stopped at Boulder's Beach again so Jim could see some of the penguins, because he wasn't with us when we went the first time. Then we stopped and ate dinner at this place called Cafe Piscado in Simon's Town and had some delicious Italian food. Then we drove farther north to Kalk Bay and watched the Germany/Uruguay match (to determine who would get third place in the World Cup) at the Brass Bell. Germany won. Then we drove back to Saasveld.
On Sunday morning, we woke up at 6 in the morning to drive over to Langa, a township about 15 minutes outside of Cape Town, to run in an 8km charity race. It was a chilly morning but at least it wasn't raining. It seemed like all the people running in the race were really intense runners-- a lot of them had matching neon jerseys and track suits, and a lot of them just had the perfect running physique. The race winded through the streets of the township, and it was an interesting experience trying to focus both on running the race at a decent pace and also on the serious poverty of the township. The houses are mostly just little huts with nailed-on tin roofs. The people of the township, however, were EXTREMELY encouraging, especially the women, and they waved and cheered at me as I was running by like I was a celebrity. Anyway, I ran the race in 44 minutes, which meant I was running on average about a 8:40 for 5 miles. Not great, but not too bad. Here's a picture of all of us after the race with a very lovely nuclear power plant and Table Mountain in the background:
On the way home we stopped and had brunch at a French place with an Italian name, and then went home and took some much needed showers. The final World Cup match was last night, and Spain beet the Netherlands. Can't believe the World Cup is over! I think the entire country is suffering from a national World Cup hangover.
Cheers!
No comments:
Post a Comment