I Bless the Rains (and Internet Cards) Down in Africa.

Today was my “David needs to find a way to have continuous access to the internet or he will explode” day. So, after I slept late and had breakfast, I asked one of my housemates to draw me a map to the Blue Route Mall, which had a Vodacom store where I could buy a USB 3G internet card for my laptop. The walk would supposedly take 20 minutes; knowing my sense of direction (or more accurately, the lack thereof) fairly well, I knew this would be no short endeavor. Nonetheless, I set off for the mall around 12 PM.

I got lost a few times, but I asked people who looked friendly and they always pointed me in the right direction. As I got further into the various neighborhoods of Cape Town, I began receiving more and more funny looks; apparently, white people don’t walk to the mall here, and especially not through the areas I was going through. It was the daytime though, so I felt safe. I only was heckled on my way twice; once to buy some cotton candy (I politely declined), and another from some teenagers riding in a car yelling at me.

I made it to the Blue Route Mall eventually. I was so happy to see the mall’s sign that I didn’t check the time, so I don’t know how lost I really got. Roughly half an hour later, I was walking out of the Vodacom store with an internet card and 110 MB of airtime (I’m going to add more later; it’s running out rather quickly) for roughly R 549 (about $70) – this was an incredible deal, considering it was prepaid. Apparently the US is just extremely overpriced. I worked up a pretty sizeable appetite, so I headed to the food court, but was disappointed with the selection: A place named Wimpy (the name didn’t sound impressive, so I declined), an ice cream shop, and a KFC were the primary places I had to choose from. I was intrigued to see what South Africa’s take on Kentucky Fried Chicken was, so decided on that. I ordered a combo and a Pepsi; biscuits were sadly not on the menu. The food’s quality was excellent, and slightly less greasy than what I was accustomed to in America. However, one detail of the meal was particularly striking: the serving sizes were all drastically smaller. For example, a normal can of soda here is only 200 mL; I have to order two of those normally because I’m so thirsty!

The can is similar to the one in the middle here.

I talked to a ProjectsAbroad member about this, and he said that this is just another example of America’s obsession with food and its rampant obesity. Maybe he’s right; still, I want more cola in my can.

Fun fact about South Africa #2: Chicken sandwiches are called burgers. I’m not quite sure what burgers are called.

Alright, enough of my food digression; I don’t know why, but it seems like all of my blogs always tend to focus on food more than primary content. I’m sure I’ll have more relevant things to say on Monday when I really start my job.

I walked back to the house from the mall after that, and got lost one time; I got help at a convenience store, and found out I wasn’t too far from home. Once I was home, I took a glorious nap for several hours.

Later, Sebastian (my roommate) and I went down to Victoria Harbour for food and to watch some sports games. The Victoria Harbour is in downtime Cape Town and is one of the more affluent and modern areas of Cape Town. The buildings near the area were high rise and reminiscent of a big city. It was striking how much contrast there was between this urban area and the poverty I had been witness to just days earlier. I took my camera with me, but most of the pictures didn’t turn out very well. I’ll try to take some better ones in the daytime another day. I posted two of the more interesting ones below (I won’t be posting all of the photos I take until the end of the trip, because my internet access is limited to a set amount of bandwidth; uploading photos takes away from that bandwidth).

[Update: I'm having trouble getting the photos to upload at all; I'll try tomorrow and see if I can't get it to work; otherwise, we might have to wait until I get back for much photo action. Sorry!! ]

We watched a rugby game between the Stormers and the Waratahs – rugby, by the way, is very confusing to me and seems unnecessarily rough. I was especially into this game because the Stormers’ team color was Duke Blue, and the Waratahs’ team color was that other shade of blue; needless to say, Duke, I mean the Stormers, trampled the Waratahs for an excellent game.

This dreadful color (right) haunts me everywhere. I even saw someone wearing a Carolina hoodie as I walked to the mall today. Go figure.

At the same time, we were eating a fancy German restaurant that I forgot the name of. I had a schnitzel and some Coke, and I was thoroughly satisfied – those Germans know how to cook.

I came back to the house and wrote this blog post. And now, I sleep. More exciting things to be posted soon, I’m sure :)

- David

Fun Fact about South Africa #3: Its televised sporting events are not interrupted by annoying commercials every 3 minutes. In fact, the only commercials during the game are at halftime. Take note, America!

Fun Fact about South Africa #4: I thought the South Africans would think songs such as Toto's "Africa" were cliché; however, as I walked around the Victoria Harbour, the DJ present proved me wrong. Hmph.

Update on Previous Post: I asked my host dad, Derek, what South Africans call actual robots if they call traffic lights that name; he said that's irrelevant because South Africa doesn't have robots. X__X However, if they did, he said they'd be called robots as well. Hmph.