slip slidin' away

I promise I'll get around to blogging about Mozambique...

This past weekend was bomb. First of all, today was one of the most beautiful days we've had in Cape Town in a while. Lots of rain and gloomy days have unfortunately put a damper on moods, not to mention tons of useless homework. My tutor graded 4 ethics tests so far from last friday, no one passed yet!! How encouraging!! Anyways, I did some grocery shopping today, and went to some class. I just passed out in the driveway for close to 2 hours; sometimes the sun does that to ya.

1 o 'clock on Friday was a time I had been longing for since Monday. Once I finished my ethics test, I went with Ned and Robert to buy Rocking the Daisies tickets. Rocking the Daisies is a huge music festival an hour from Cape Town. It's a three day festival on the weekend of my birthday, so a bunch of friends are all goin' to celebrate; it should be a blast! We went to this really good place for lunch/dinner, where I got a really delicious, cheap pizza. Later on, we went out with a bunch more kids to one of my favorite night spots in Cape Town thus far. Zula has live music every Wednesday and Friday, so that's my main incentive to going. I had a lot of fun despite the fact that the band was not quite as good as the entertainment usually is.

Saturday, I woke up at 8 am to get on a bus to Hermanus to go sea kayaking with southern white whales (i think). It was by far one of the coolest things I've done in my life. Hermanus is the most adorable area; it's very touristy, but it has tons of shops, restaurants, and markets. It's so well known for the whale watching in the area, a whale festival is coming up there as well. I went out to breakfast when we first got there, because I wasn't heading for the sea until 1, since the groups ran in shifts. I went with my friend to this really cute hole in the wall place, where we got awesome food, and I got an ACTUAL chocolate milkshake. Every time I order a milkshake it is milk and whatever flavor of my choice mixed together to make something such as coffee milk. Milkshakes are very hard to come by, and all my friends here are sick of me talking about the appeal of Ashley's Ice Cream, ha. Before lunch, we went to this awesome bead store where I got a couple beads; a turtle and an elephant. I'm excited to turn them into jewelry. When it was finally time to go out in the kayaks, Ned and I shared a kayak. There was a guide that kayaked in front of us, yelling directions and pointing out spots and fun facts. We ended up having the best group that went out. We were kayaking literally like 10 feet next to these enormous whales. At one point, we were surrounded by 6 whales, and we weren't allowed to paddle anywhere because we would be paddling into a whale! The kayaking lasted for a little over an hour; it was truly amazing. After that, I got awesome gelato at this little place...good ice cream is very hard to come by in this country, as well as pizza. I am very passionate about ice cream...and pizza. The weather was also awesome all day, I forgot to mention that.

Hermanus was only about a half hour away from Gansbaai, which is where I went shark cage diving. I found out that these two areas are so well known for great whites that this is where a lot of the filming for Planet Earth and Discovery Channel shows take place.

On Saturday night, Danni's Dad was in town (just stopped into South Africa for a few days). He took me and 5 of our other friends out for a nice dinner in Camp's Bay, which is a really ritzy, touristy beach town in Cape Town. It was really nice to be treated to something, we were all on such a high from not having to pay for our dinner afterwards, ha. After dinner, we went to a local bar called Pig and Swizzle.

For the entire weekend I had been talking about how I wanted to do something awesome on Sunday, but I had no concrete plans. Sunday afternoon I hopped on the train with Rachel, Ned, and Maryann. We were going to go past Muzenburg, which is the beach we normally go to, to Kalk's Bay. Kalk's Bay is by far one of my favorite areas that I've found in Cape Town so far. I got ice cream and then we were walking down by the docks at the marina. Rachel suggested that we ask a fisherman to take us out for a ride on his boat, and we all complied in a kind of joking manner. The next thing we know, we made friends with Donald, and he took us out for a 2 hours boat ride. Ned had to convince his wife over the phone to let Donald take us out, because she was making fish for dinner. It all worked out tho. What was originaly going to be a little scenic boat ride, turned into a whale watching/ seal spotting expedition. We bought some beer before we got on the boat, and enjoyed are sunset cruise around the harbor. After we parted with Donald, Danni and her Dad met us in Kalk's Bay at this AWESOME restaurant for dinner. Rachel had been there before, and she wanted to make it the spot that we would go for my birthday dinner. It had such an awesome vibe, and was right on the water. The walls on the inside were covered in antiques. It was really unique; there were tons of chandeliers everywhere, and huge medieval candels on all the tables. I got an awesome chicken meal, and to start off I was very adventurous and ate mussles!! AND I ate a Chilli Pepper!! Dinner was awesome. Afterwards we did some Sunday drinking to top it off.

Speaking of the train, last weekend I went to Muzenberg with my friends Jamie and Taylor. The last time we took the train we bought our tickets on the train, so we were planning on doing this again. This time, like halfway through our train ride, we were asked for our tickets. When we told him that we were going to buy our tickets on the train like we did last time, he told us to get off the train. We weren't the only ones being removed from the train. We proceed outside where we're told that we either have to pay a 50 rand fine for not having tickets, which is ridiculous, or we would be taken to the cops to be arrested and pay a 500 rand fine. We were skeptical at first, because this was a blatant example of corruption within authority. We tried talking to who was essentially a security guard, explaining that last time we had bought our tickets on the train, and that we really weren't trying to get away without paying. She was hearing none of it. We asked to speak to the Cops, they wouldn't let us. In the mean time, the train has already left, so we're stranded in some random area where we have no idea where we are. The cops come over eventually and tell us just to pay the fine; they were carrying huge guns across their chests, really soothing. And, eventually we paid the fine. There were two south African high schoolers that were in the same situation and we ended up having to loan them money so they didn't get arrested. A bunch of little kids, maybe 5 and 6, got kicked off the train as well, and blatantly didn't have the money to pay for the "fine." We all knew that the fine was essentially the security guards money for a couple beers later on, but whatever. The kids ended up being extremely racist, and we had to stand and talk to them in Muzenberg, while their friend brought them the money they owed us. They talked about how UCT has gone downhill because of all the "darkies" that have invaded, who have no brains, just meat up there. Well, the race issue here is something I could go on about for the next 5 hours, but I won't.

I've been thinking about, and people keep mentioning how far along on our trip!! It's so weird to think that I'm halfway done with my abroad experience in SA. I'm really trying to make the best of every minute. I don't want to leave without having done all the things I want to do!! Anways, I think we're gonna have a bonfire at our house tonight, so I'm gonna go chill and maybe play some dominoes...Hope everyone is doing well