moonlight lion's head mountain hike and hair straighteners

Moonlight Lion's Head Mountain Hike
Yesterday after work Jim, David and I took a taxi to the base of Lion's Head mountain (2200 ft), the mountain next to the more famous Table Mountain in Cape Town.

Lion's Head, as seen from the top of Table Mountain


At the base of the mountain we met Josh (my old boss), his fiance (who was not very friendly), Adam, another guy we know here who goes to NYU law, and Calleigh, a girl who hangs out with them who goes to Virginia Law. The hike up was pretty cool, medium difficulty, and took about an hour and a half. It got steeper and steeper as we went up, as you can probably tell from the picture, and there were a couple parts where you had to climb ladders. I was very careful not to trip because it was a long way down!

When we got to the top of the mountain, we saw there were a bunch of people already up there (a lot of Americans). It was a full moon last night, and it's a tradition around here to hike up in time for the sunset, watch the full moon rise, and then hike back down by moonlight. We all brought wine and crackers and cheese up there so we just hung out and watched the sun setting.

One of the views on the way up:



From top of the mountain:



Me trying to look triumphant:


The whole gang:


As the sun was setting:


There were a bunch of astronomy students up there (wearing reflective vests that said "astronomers work in the night"-- I really wanted to steal one) who set up telescopes, one with the moon in focus and the other one pointed at Saturn. Looking at Saturn was really cool- it was crazy how distinct its rings were! It kind of looked like a fake image of Saturn, and David and I were joking that the astronomy kids could probably just put random slides in front of the telescope and convince people they were really looking at something in space.

The views were just amazing- one one side of the mountain you could see the ocean, and on the other side you could look out on all the twinkly lights of Cape Town with the moon overhead.


Before heading down, Jim passed out some flashlights he had bought earlier that day. He had bought a special one for David that was a kind of pink microphone-flashlight with Hannah Montana on it. David thought it was hilarious but it turns out it had a really weak bulb, so he eventually had to switch for a stronger one. Still pretty funny.


I got to lead the group on the hike down, which was really cool. At times it was really unclear where we were supposed to go, so I just kind of kept picking my way down hoping we didn't get totally lost. Turns out I picked a different way down than we had taken up, and this way involved climbing down a really steep part of the rockface using this long dangling metal chain to help you down. It kind of hurt my hands but I didn't have too much trouble getting down- the only difficult part was figuring out how to hold my flashlight and clutch onto the chain for dear life at the same time. I think it was almost less scary hiking down at night because you couldn't actually see how high up we were (and thus how far down it was).


The Hair Straightener Fiasco
Yesterday at work, the attorney in the office, who we will call Jen, bounded into my and Zanele's office and just yelled at me "HOW DO YOU STYLE YOUR HAIR???" I was kind of surprised, because Jen has never actually spoken to me. I told her I actually don't "style" it, I just blow-dry it. She was apparently not convinced because she then asked me what kind of hair straightener I use. I told her I have straight hair, and thus do not use a hair straightener. Then she basically commanded me to figure out what the "best hair straightener out there" is, tell her how much it was, buy it online, have it sent to my house in the States (apparently the 'best hair straighteners out here' cannot be delivered to South Africa), and then mail it to her, at which point she would send me some kind of money order to reimburse me. I was a little shocked that she was asking me to do this, but I said I'd look into it, and if she really wanted me to do this for her I could just tell her how much it was and she could pay me before I left. Still, this would be a huge hassle for me to have buy her a $200 hair straightener and then mail the thing to her from home to Cape Town, and she didn't seem too grateful to me for even considering doing this.

Regardless, I did a little online research, polled some of my curly-haired friends, and put together a document listing the different brands, providing links to their product pages, listing the price in $US and rand (which I had to convert myself), and giving their user ratings. I emailed the whole thing to her. Today, she busted into our office, apparently to talk to Zanele. Despite the fact that Zanele was on the phone, Jen was rudely gesturing at her to try to get her to interrupt her call to talk to Jen. I thought this would be a good time to talk to her about the straightener, since clearly Zanele was occupied. So I said, "Jen, did you get my email?" Jen said "yea yea", dismissively waved her hand at me, and then turned back to trying to get Zanele's attention. SO RUDE! And she hasn't said anything else about it all day. I'm not sure how I'm going to handle this in a diplomatic way, but mark my words I am NOT going out of my way to order this woman a $200 hair straightener and then mail it across the world to her. For all the people in this country that are really, ridiculously nice, there are some people who I think are downright rude. Last time I checked, beauty product consultant/personal shopper (for the only person in the office who has never even SPOKEN to me, mind you) is not part of my job description at ODAC. Hmph.