So my lovely little sister has been begging for a blog post. Which is understandable, she misses me. And I miss her too. So here's an update on life here in Cape Town post-proposal. (Feel free to skip next 3 paragraphs if you're only interested in garden route details)
First of all, I didn't realize how funny it would be to get used to saying the word "fiance". Since Stoycho regularly gets referred to as "boyfriend" it's interesting to make that switch in your vocabulary. I have a lot of sentences nowadays that start off "My boyf-f-fiance..." but that's fine, he's doing it too. Also, another thing I didn't realize is how many stinking wedding blogs were out there. My cousin sends me 2 links and that has turned into hours of clicking links to other blogs and sites, and reading them all is actually exhausting. So I've learned to at least limit myself on those, because in the end it won't be about what other people did or what we didn't do, it'll be about the two of us (and our close friends and family to celebrate with us). Also, trying to plan any sort of wedding details other than who you want involved without a date and from another continent is pretty much impossible. So now i'm just brainstorming and enjoying looking at lots of pretty pictures and insightful words from people who have been through it before.
But, you faithful reader (?), did not start reading this blog in the hopes that I would talk about wedding stuff, and I usually don't all the time, but I just had to say that. You did, however, come to read about the amazing place that is Cape Town and more so South Africa. So here's what's up here.
First of all, internships are now up and running full force. Eric, Brent, and Jeff are averaging 2 meetings a day to try and figure out which projects they'll model to get started at the Mfuleni ECD center. Myself, Jen, and Suzelle are trying to sit in on as many of these meetings as possible while still trying to meet our obligations for the City of Cape Town (I had one deadline today that I'm waiting for an email reply on before I can meet it). The e-Marketing team is busy working away as well. We've had a big presentation for these projects with our professors/SASDI advisors that included a delicious dinner then a few hours of presenting/talking/questioning and almost getting seriously ripped off by a cab driver. But everything worked out in the end, or it will be by Friday when our updated presentations are due.
So to get away from the stress Connect-123, Curious Travel, and David (with Outward Bound I think?) organized a trip to the Garden Route for us. Now we didn't fully understand what the "Garden Route" was but we kept hearing it's a must and everyone has to do it. So Belmont paid for my trip as well as Eric and Brent's because we paid them too much money (although i feel like that's not anything new...) or at least most of the trip. R2500 for some of the best most exhausting 4 days of my life. So what did we do you ask, well here it goes:
Friday: after being at our lecturer/internship advisors' house til 22h30 and not getting home until 23h15 or so we woke up the next morning to hit up our 08h00 lecture with said lecturers and then were picked up by David in the quantum (the south african version of a church van/15-passenger, except it holds 14 passengers). We then drove back to Perspectives to pick up the others/grab our bags and were on our way by 09h45. Traffic was fine, we went through the Huguenot Tunnel which was really freaking long. No hold your breath contest, it went under a mountain and for like 3 or 4 mins at least. We were supposed to burn CDs for the CD player in the quantum but we all forgot/ran out of time. So we listened to the CDs that David and Sandy (the owner of Curious Travel/super awesome) brought. One was a pop CD that was made by a serious Rhianna fan. I'm not kidding when I say 10 of the 22 songs were Rhianna. Another 2 were Shakira, 2 more were Katy Perry and then there was a weird Limewired version of "Low" with Flo-Rida and T-Pain. Ok so I could have stopped to explain my misery with this CD at 10 Rhianna songs/songs featuring her. It was awful, but that means everyone in the van got to here my issue with Rhianna and how her songs normalize abusive relationships and it's totally unacceptable. We then made a stop about 2 hours in at Graham Beck wine farm in Roberts (i think?) and had a light lunch/wine tasting. That was fun and a nice way to start off the trip.
After that we hopped back in the quantum to drive to Outdshoorn (don't ask me how to pronounce it, I still don't know). There we went to the Cango Wildlife Park which was kinda like a zoo and we saw some awesome animals, like crocodiles, otters, a pygmy hippo, cheetahs, lions and the best part was they had white tigers there and the guide told us that their first pair of tigers actually came from the Nashville Zoo years ago! (begin It's a Small World). A few people paid to have a "cheetah encounter" with the cubs, but Brent, Eric and I took a walk around the rest of the place to see what we could find which included: snakes, lorakeets, meerkats, a porcupine, etc. (I'll insert pictures into this later)
Then we stopped off at Pick n Pay to grab some stuff for breakfast and lunch the next day and went to our first backpacker's lodge, Karoo Soul. David started the braai and we all sat around and argued the rules of Mafia. Then after a delicious dinner we played 30 Seconds. Also known as South African Catchprase but with a board and pieces and cards and no electronic device... oh and SA terms/people. My team came in second-Shout out to Jen and Jake! After that we went to bed.
Saturday: It was a nice and early start since our Adventure Tour at Cango Caves began at 09h30 and we had to pack lunch for the day too. The cave tour was awesome, considering we got to crawl through fun parts of the cave most people don't get to see. That took up the morning, then we swung back by the lodge to grab the lunches we had made earlier and headed towards George... Jeorge... heck I don't remember, the next place is the point- or wait, Wilderness maybe. We made a stop for lunch at an overlook point of the Oteniqua pass. It was beautiful. I'll put a picture up soon (This was one of the things i remembered my camera for). After that we went to an ostrich farm. There a few of the guys got kisses from an ostrich, a few girls got a hug, and me, Jen, Katie and Kathryn all got to ride ostriches. It was great. Terrifying even with the help of 2 ostrich jockeys, but great.
Did you know ostriches only have 2 toes AND since they don't have teeth they eat about 2 kg of small stones/rocks a day to help them digest? Oh and the males' skin is naturally navy blue.
Back on topic- post ostrich farm we went to our 2nd backpackers lodge, Fairy Knowe, and unpacked then headed to the beach to play Ultimate Frisbee, but with silly South African rules that cost my team the game by 1 point. We go back to the lodge to find out that there's going to be a concert going on that night by a group called Guns N Lasers, but first was dinner at Pomodoro's, a delicious pizza/pasta place. Then back to the lodge for the concert that didn't get good until GNL actually came on around 22h00 or so.
Sunday: Sunday was PACKED. First of all we got up nice and early after being up late for the concert going on outside our windows and went canoeing to a nice hiking trail that led to a waterfall (which we then hiked back and canoed back). It was awesome, seriously some of the most beautiful scenery I've ever experienced in a canoe/small personal watercraft. Then back to the lodge to pick up our bags and head on to the Worlds Tallest Bungee [off a bridge]. I took some killer pictures w/ Eric's camera while almost all of the guys threw themselves off of a bridge. After a few hours of sitting around there we then went to a zip line adventure place. So basically it was about 8 or 10 zip lines all above a waterfall of varying lengths and speeds. it was so. much. fun. like, i want some in my backyard. So by this point we're out in Storm's River and we get back, shower and then head to dinner at this little niche 60's style restaurant. It was pretty tasty and kinda funny to see in the middle of nowhere. After that we all came back and pretty much went to sleep (all 12 of us were in one room...). So we were almost all in bed by like 21h45 or so.
Monday: after more sleep than we'd had in days we got off to a bit of a late start but hit up a suspension bridge that was kinda back on the way towards Wilderness. Then we were supposed to go to the beach again before a hike, but we nixed that and just did the hike which was a great decision on our part because we actually hiked to this super remote beach. The most beautiful sight I've seen and we all felt like we really deserved it after such a long exhausting weekend. After enjoying our time there we walked back and headed for lunch at another pizza place and hopped back in the quantum to head home. It took a little longer than expected with traffic construction and it being a public holiday, but we got back around 22h30 and then I accidentally stayed up til 01h00 because I hit a second wind amidst the exhaustion.
So that's the main points of the Garden Route. I'll add more detail when I get pics up soon (possibly). If not, check Facebook they'll definitely be up there.
11.3.11
the blog post you've all been waiting for...
the beginning: stoycho buys the plane ticket to South Africa.
So, when I first came to South Africa Stoycho had mentioned coming to visit me here, either on spring break or after his semester was over. After a little price researching and waiting for the price to drop by a few hundred dollars, he bought his plane tickets. That was Feb. 6, apparently he had eaten chinese food the day before but forgotten to eat the fortune cookie, so he enjoyed that with his leftovers just after purchasing the tickets and this is what it said. Apparently the brilliant idea dawned on him just a few days later...
After a month of waiting, he got here this past Sunday. Over the course of the few weeks before that he had maybe dropped a few hints, and we had been planning this romantic beach picnic at sunset for weeks that he was abnormally excited about. oh and my best friend clelie asked me what my ring size was for a "birthday present".... that was a little fishy. but all in all I was clueless. So we decided that our picnic would just fall on the most convenient and prettiest day, which happened to be Tuesday. So we picked up a bottle of Champagne-style wine, some fruit, a beach towel, and headed out for Clifton Beach at around 5.30pm. We got there around 6.15, with sunset due at 7.14, and this is what we saw....
aaaand this picture below is when i'm still pretty clueless. we had to switch spots from our perfect little rocky cove, which was taken over by 3 girls with unlit fire batons, cameras, beers, and an illegal substance. they were loud and annoying and didn't seem to mind that they intruded on our romantic date... so i venture to find our new spot and here it is.
And then the sun went down, and as we enjoy the view and the empty-ish beach i turn to stoycho and ask him "so you were so excited about tonight, is it everything you wanted it to be?" he said it was, for the most part. After a few more minutes of sitting in silence he turns to me and says "do you know why i was so excited to bring you out here?" "no" "because i knew at the end i would get to do this..." *pulls out ring* "will you marry me?" "seriously? Seriously?" "I've talked to my parents, i've talked to your parents, i've talked to everyone i need to talk to" *a few more seriouslys* "Yes!" "are you gonna put the ring on?" "ok so you know how i said this was perfect?, i was lying, now it's perfect"
March 8, 2011 7:35 pm
fin.
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