Home is Home

We are back in the U.S. We arrived Sunday afternoon in Chicago and with customs, the train, and taxi, we didn't get home until 9pm. We met a guy on our flight from Cape Town to London who was returning from a one week trip for his London MBA program with about 60 students. We were discussing what we liked and did not like, what we missed, etc. I mentioned how some people ask why I like the US so much. I don't like that question. It is implying that I think the US is better than everywhere else which is not exactly true. But for being away for so long, you just start to miss things that you are used to. But then the guy said it best, "Home is Home." Nothing more needing to be said.

Anyways, here is a video that I was unable to post do to slow internet connections.

Rocky Horror Show

Last night we all went out to the Fugard Theater and saw the Rocky Horror Show. Our friend Alex has never heard of it before, and he is from Transylvania! We all enjoyed it.

Week 9

This is our last week- we leave on Saturday.
Things I am looking forward to:

1. My own bed
2. Being able to drive
3. Driving on the "right" side of the road
4. Self check-out lanes
5. Warmth (again remember it is winter here), along with centralized heating/air
6. Better variety of foods to buy
7. An oven/stove that does not burn everything
8. Going out to eat and being done in an hour- hour half
9. Unlimited internet connection

Take a moment to think about how many things you take for granted. What would you miss if you were in a different country?

Week 8

Went to dinner Saturday night to Marco's African Restaurant. It was a nice place but again, just the event of going out to eat with more than 6 people just becomes too long of an ordeal and I no longer want to take part in it. We left around 6:45 pm for a 7 pm reservation, and we did not get home until 11:25 pm. Because part of our group was late (arrived around 8:15) I did not get my dinner until 9:30. Hasn't anyone ever heard that it is bad to have a big meal that late at night? Two people in our group chose to order the unique items as appetizers. Fried caterpillars anyone? How about a boiled sheep's head? Yuck.

12 days until we leave, but who's counting right?

Nelson Mandela Day

Today, July 18th, is Nelson Mandela Day. It is a day to give back to the community in any way you can. My thought is for you to share this post and encourage everyone you know to join Be The Match. They are always in need of more donors, especially those whom are of African descent. I joined Be the Match a few years ago when a coworker of mine had two boys that both needed a bone marrow transplant. It was very easy to sign up. They send you cotton swabs to your home, you swab the inside of your cheeks and send it back. It is that simple.

In 2013, Be The Match:

	Helped 6,300 patients receive a marrow transplant
	Grew the Be The Match Registry® by 539,000 new potential donors—44% with diverse ancestry
	Provided $3.2 million in patient assistance to 1,800 families
	Advanced research with 254 studies under way
	Added 20,800 new umbilical cord blood units
	Engaged volunteers: a total of 104,630 hours = a value of more than $2.5 million
	Reached a total of 61,000 marrow transplants since 1987

Week 7

20 days until we leave. Yes I am counting down. Today Mitch and I decided to rent a car to get home from Chicago O'Hare when we return. It was the only way to get home at a decent hour. We took the train here, but will miss the train on the way back.

Our flight arrives at 12:45 pm then we will need to go through customs. Next train for South Bend leaves at 1:35 pm from Millennium station, and it takes around an hour or so to take the metro lines to Millennium station so therefore we will miss the train. The next train doesn't leave until 4:43 pm and we would not arrive until 8:14 pm and then still need to take a taxi to get from the South Bend airport to home. I really do not want to get home at 9 pm and have to teach the next morning. So we are renting a car instead.

The other option is to take the Coach USA bus from the airport to Notre Dame but that will cost $82 total and we would not get to South Bend until 7:20 pm. Again not a preferable option.

Here is this weeks forecast.

Fairy Glen- July 3/4

We left Thursday, July 3rd for Worcester, South Africa which is around an hour or so away. It was actually along the same path that we took way back in early June when we went to the wine fest in Robertson. We drive through the mountains and a 4km tunnel through the mountain to get there. We arrive a little early but our room was ready. We were actually the only people staying the night but they said that they were not as busy in the winter. They had three safaris booked the next day however.

We are given a map and informed how to locate our chalet. The lady informs us that we would be going through some automatic gates and to make sure we stay on the paved road while driving. So Mitch and I hop back in the car and proceed to drive to the chalet. After a few minutes passing the first gate we notice something to our left and slow down. Rhinos! Nothing between us either, and then we drive a little bit farther down and see Zebra's to our right. We pass through another set of gates and then see Lion's to our right. Now we understand the gates. They don't want the lions to eat all of the animals I guess... and of course their customers. We turn through one more set of gates and see our chalet. We look around and then head back outside, noting that the only thing between us and all of the animals is an electric fence.

About two hours after arriving we go on a "nature walk" with Andrew, our ranger. Mitch and I never really figured out the point of this as we drove to this location where we got out and walked to what looked like a damn but were then told we couldn't walk all the way up. But we did see some more baboons while we were out. When we got back he helped us start a fire and then we got ready for supper.

The next day we went to the main lodge and had breakfast then went out on the safari. It was nice because there was only one other couple with us so we got to stay at each location longer and ask questions. All of the animals roam free on this property except for the lions in which they have six. Two males and four females. Each male is in a separate area with two of the females. They had been fed the night before and morning of so they were all content. We were only able to go inside one of the lion areas because the ranger informed us with the second set of lions, the female who was trying to hide from us would most likely attack us. He said she would probably jump right into the jeep. She definitely had the stalker mode on while we were walking around the area. The ranger also said if we had a child the lion would have come right up to us.

Anyways, now for the story of the rhinos. "Lady" and "Higgins" are their names and back in December 2011 poachers over sedated them and took their horns all the way down to the growth plate. Their horns will never grow back and they are still in recovery. Here is a video about the two rhinos.  Supposedly Lady was pregnant at the time this happened as well. They are also the only two Rhinos known to survive such an attack.

 The elephants were cool to see but hard to track down. At one point the one elephant turned toward us, then started walking toward us to the point where our driver drove off, afraid it might have been pissed off and would charge after us. The only thing we did not see were giraffes as the climate isn't quite right for them. He said they don't live this far south.

Week 6 Forecast

It is currently only 45 out. It's been a chilly weekend. Mitch and I did our safari two days ago. I'll post pictures later.

Here's a rainbow we saw yesterday. 

What a crappy day

I am not having the best of days. First I go to the grocery store and try to figure out what to make as a side dish for dinner. Nothing looks good and there are no easy dishes like we have in the US where you just add water. I end up walking around the grocery store 2-3 times trying to figure out what I want. I finally come to the realization that I am ready to go home. Grocery shopping here is such a chore and is one of the reasons why we eat out so much. The selection just stinks. The grocery store is the size of one you'd find in a small town but even the small town stores have a better selection that this.

Then as I am ready to pay, I realize that I don't have as much money in my wallet as I thought I should. I realize after calculating in my head that sometime between Monday and today someone has stolen about the equivalent of $160 from my wallet. I had just taken money out of the bank on Monday as Mitch and I leave tomorrow for our trip. So I don't know if this happened at his work, or if it happened here in the hotel. I am very annoyed.

And to top it off, when I walk back into our room with my groceries I hear this weird sound. I go over to the closet and open one of the doors and there is hot water pouring in. I am trying to call the front desk and grab our clothes at the same time. Again the water is hot. Like scalding hot and I'm trying to quickly grab all of the hangers, socks, underwear, passports, Mitch's suits, our souvenirs, etc. So currently the housekeeper and maintenance are trying to figure out the source. They said it was our geyser, except water is coming in down another wall as well that makes it seem like that is not true. So we may be moving rooms tonight if they cannot figure this out.

The amazing 5 channels

So I mentioned in a very early post that we get only 5 channels on the TV in the room. So one can't be picky when it is raining out and you need to stay in, or want to wind down for an hour or two before bed. I found this website that shows what's on these channels each day, but can only view two days at a time. The current day and the next day. The only channel we do not get from that list is Cape Town TV.
TV Guide

If you click on the link you will see that it is a huge mixture of shows. By this I mean from US day time TV, prime time TV, shows from SA, Australia and the UK. Usually MNET is the only decent channel. I like to start my day off with the morning movie, then I get ready and go about my day. I was actually able to finish watching The Game of Thrones while here. Also, this link will allow you to see the movie theaters here- you have to pick your seats when you buy your tickets. I'm not a fan of this. What if I happen upon someone annoying and want to change seats? No can do. One theater is called The Labia which if you know me I get a kick out of this. But it looks interesting and it is pretty cheap. $4 per ticket.

Kids Dancing by the Beach

A little lunch time entertainment.

African Singers

I took this video on June 28th.

Awesome views of the mountain

Last night Mitchell pointed out that the mountain looked pretty awesome and it did. You can see the clouds rolling in. 

Penguin Calls

This video is from when we saw the penguins a few weeks ago on our way back from Cape Point. 

Week 5 Forecast

We have already been gone one month! Crazy right? We have 5 more weeks left before heading back to the U.S.

Upcoming Safari

I have just booked an overnight stay at Fairy Glen for a safari next week. We will leave Thursday and have the safari Friday after breakfast, which happens to be the 4th of July.
Here is our itinerary:

Overnight Safari includes:-

14h00 – Check in

17h00 – Nature walk

19h00 – Dinner

Accommodation

08h00 – Breakfast

09h00 – Game Drive (2-3hrs)

13h00 – Buffet Lunch

Volunteering

I have not had much luck looking for a place to volunteer. I had two leads which one fell through and the other... well the people do not seem very interested as I have had to continuously call or e-mail them just to keep track.
I am finding that just coming to the city and looking for somewhere to volunteer will not work out. The Nazareth House which was the first place I was looking into ideally wants volunteers to go through organizations- the kind that you have to pay to be placed. They also require a medical clearance, police clearance and references on top of their application. I have basically done all of this except the police clearance but it does not matter. They obviously are not interested.
The second place is only a few blocks away from our apartment and I thought this one would be more promising. I spoke to the manager of the facility last week and she told me that she would need a letter stating what it was that I wanted to do and what my qualifications from the US allow me to do. So I typed this all up and placed it in a nice folder and dropped it off on Wednesday last week. Today I walked over and spoke to her and she said she had been busy but meant to call and that yes it would be fine for me to volunteer and for me to come tomorrow. After I left I received an e-mail stating that they had spoken to the head supervisor who informed her that it was not allowed any more and she apologized for the inconvenience.

So basically I have one more place to look into- there is another hospital a few more blocks away from the apartment the opposite direction. So I will go over there probably tomorrow and drop off more papers and see if they can use a volunteer. More to come later.

Week 4 Forecast

Beautiful winter weather!

Seals

I was walking around the waterfront on Thursday and happened upon this. Just a couple seals sunbathing by the docks. We have seen them swimming in the water as well.

June 16th

June 16th in South Africa is a national holiday called "Youth Day." So Mitch didn't have to work and we decided to go to Robben Island which holds the prison that Nelson Mandela was sent to in the 60's. He stayed in the maximum security prison as did all the political prisoners, yet the people who actually killed others were in the more minimum security facilities on the island. We took a ferry to the island which took about 35-40 minutes or so and the water was pretty choppy so I wanted to blow chunks but I
did not. It just was not pleasant. Then we took a bus around part of the island where the tour guide pointed out different buildings and the limestone quarry where the political prisoners all did hard labor. They actually only needed to be at the quarry's for 6 months as the limestone was used around the island, but even after they had built all that was needed the prisoners were forced to keep working out there even though the dust from the line stone would settle into their lungs and make them

sick, and the light from the sun reflecting off of the stone was affecting their eye sight. We saw the room in which Nelson Mandela stayed in- the tour guide inside the prison was a previous prisoner himself and he informed us of the cruelty that went on behind those bars such as being forced to eat his own feces. The prisoners did not have beds and they were only given three blankets. It does actually get cold in South Africa and the guards purposely only gave all the black prisoners shorts and short sleeve shirts to

wear while all of the white and colored prisoners received long pants and long sleeve shirts to wear. I watched the movie Mandela on the plane from London to Cape Town so it gave me a sense of what happened in this country and what Nelson Mandela went through.

After the tour of the island we had lunch back in Cape Town and then decided to visit the aquarium. I don't have much to say about that; an aquarium is an aquarium and they aren't much different where you go.

Cape Point- June 15th

Last Sunday we took an impromptu trip to cape point which is at the tip of the Cape Peninsula. We took the scenic route driving along the coast and we took lots of pictures along the way, stopping at any scenic point we found. We had all thought that there were penguins down at the Cape but I guess we were incorrect. What we found instead were lots of signs along the way informing us to beware of baboons and that they are dangerous and attracted by food. As we are driving and seeing these signs, I start to feel a little disappointed that we are not seeing any of these infamous baboons and wondered if they really were out there. Then we get to the park and start driving up to cape point and as we start to see where we are to park we see them. Baboons everywhere!

I am soooo excited. Dangerous or not, this was really cool to see. Some people did not like their presence as I heard a girl scream when she turned around and there was one sitting right behind her. They were walking around the parking lot, some sitting on cars or buildings, and others just sitting on the side of the road I'm guessing waiting for someone to drop their food or set it down unsuspecting. I missed seeing this happen, but Mitch said he saw this girl walking with a drink and saw a baboon and she screamed and dropped her drink. The baboon immediately went after this sweet drink, licking it up from the ground, pouring more out to drink until one of the workers walked toward it and scared the baboon off. Then the girl did the unthinkable. She picked the drink back up, put her straw back in, and DRANK IT. Ewwwww! Mitch and I were laughing as we watched her, hardly believing she just did that.
After this spectacle we then walked all the way up to the top to the lighthouse which we could not go in but it was tiny. Not large enough for someone to live in and just took in the view. We were still disappointed that there were no penguins and asked someone people about it and they informed us that they were actually in Simons Town which was on the opposite coast that we drove up.

So once we were done in Cape Point we drove to see the penguins. Even though the park was closed, we still saw a lot of penguins along another path and a few of them somehow escaped the fences and were running around the parking lot.

I have to say, it was a very cool day.

Wacky Wine Fest- June 7th

Saturday we took a bus with a group of locals to the Wacky Wine Festival. It was about a 2 hour drive (mostly because the locals started pre-gaming and needed frequent bathroom stops) but it was definitely a very scenic drive. We saw a lot more mountains and some had snow on top which from speaking to these locals this is not very common. They said prior to the climate changes it was more unheard of to see snow on the mountains. At the first rest stop we all piled out to use the restroom and as I was standing in line by the sinks I see a box on the counter with smaller boxes inside. They were about the size of travel Kleenex. Then one of the girls jokingly asked if we should grab some condoms for the bus ride. So then I grabbed one of the boxes and sure enough, it was a small pack of condoms. At first I thought that was so odd seeing how usually you have to pay for them in bathrooms like you would for a tampon. But then I remembered that I am in Africa and the HIV/AIDS pandemic is very bad here. I was reading something this morning saying that South Africa has the highest ratio of persons with HIV than any other country. So I guess that would not be uncommon to see and actually a quite necessary prevention method.

I took many photos of the landscape and along the way I saw a peculiar sign that said it was against the law to feed baboons. I am looking around widely at this point, wondering where on earth you would find a baboon in this area. Crazy. We finally arrive and only make it to three stops. You first buy your “passport” which is your wine glass and golden ticket to all the wine you can drink. Unfortunately for Mitch and I we only found two different kinds which were decent. Actually, at the last stop we ended up buying three bottles. It was sooooo cheap! Buy two get one free, and the cost was R30 per bottle ($3). One of the guys we are with here from Notre Dame was walking around the last stop with a bottle of wine (not uncommon to see at all) and offering it to all. I guess he wanted to buy a glass but at this particular location they only sold bottles after 5pm. So the guy told him R40, and our friend is thinking 4 bucks for a glass but it was really $4 for the entire bottle. Still not a bad deal.

While we are walking around I notice at the very first location that almost everyone is wearing boots. Ugg boots, fashion boots and rain boots (including the men). We ask someone if this is some sort of fashion trend and they tell us no. At the second location I see more people wearing boots, but mostly rain boots and I have never seen so many men in my life wearing rain boots. So then we asked a girl on the bus on our way to the third stop as she happens to work in fashion. She and her fiancé elaborate that last year the weather was horrible and rained a lot. As these events are located outside and in the middle of nowhere, it is often very muddy. Thus why everyone is wearing boots. I did snap a few photos of the boots everyone was wearing.

At the end of the night everyone was under these tents watching the rugby game which South Africa won by the way. Once the game was over the music began. Lots of American covers. I am not sure if I have ever heard actual South African music thus far. We were supposed to meet back at the bust around 8ish but everyone had drank so much by this point it took quite awhile to round everyone up and we didn’t end up leaving until 9pm. But we still had fun.