Random Random RANDOM

I can't even believe this.

 

I really can't believe it .

 

I'm in Cape Town. Last night I flew here from Mozambique with a connection in Johannesburg. I got on the bus that takes you to the plane and saw Selwyn, a man that randomly had dinner at my house six years ago. Apparently he had been working in South Dakota for the last seven months and was just about to arrive home from a connection in Atlanta.

 

I felt so bad because I was so excited to run into him that I kind of ruined the tearful reunion with his wife and two kids.

 

 

Remember???

 

 

South Africa Photo Special

"Get Thee to a Sunset!"

Whenever I've been traveling in a location that has a western coast it has been an unspoken rule that at day's end, I'll position myself somewhere so that I can watch the sunset.

Nicole and I made our way to the beach almost nightly to walk for miles along the beaches of Costa Rica, sometimes speeding dangerously down the highway so that we wouldn't miss that last sliver of light. We learned to time it -- about an inch in the sky was ten minutes. In South Africa, they call it "sundowners" and most often Mineska and I would view it from blankets with wine at Llandudno Beach. When my friends and I visited Sarah in San Diego we made a fire at Oceanside and illegally drank wine from coffee mugs. In Hawaii, every night without exception I and my friends made a plan as to where we would be watching the sunset. 

Sometimes orange. Sometimes pink. Sometimes blue and even white. Every night it's different. It never gets old. There's no sense whatever that you can skip it because you've "been there done that". 

Costa Rica

Maui

South Africa

San Diego

And the location doesn't have to be exotic. Even in Roosevelt, Minnesota, at the lodge where I worked we had rows of west-facing windows that overlooked gigantic Lake of the Woods. I'd stop running for a few moments to join our guests and watch the sun silently slip below the horizon.

Minnesota, 9:20pm

You know what though? I don't do sunsets in Minneapolis, Minnesota. It's not even on my radar here. Perhaps because there are too many trees and buildings to block it? I don't know. But that stops now. 

In my quest for post-vacation-similar-to-New-Year's-resolution-self-betterment, I vow this summer to make sunsets part of my day. I won't even have to go far. Here's the view right out of my apartment window:

Minneapolis

NOT TOO SHABBY, EH?

Frenchies

Do you remember when I was in South Africa on safari and I stayed in a bamboo hut and got really scared and almost died from African animal stampede heart palpitations? It seems so long ago.

While I was there, I met a couple of French girls who were super sweet and actually let me stay in their treehouse with them because I was too scared by myself.

Here we are, in a short girl sandwich:

We have kept in touch over the years and last week in Paris I met them for a drink. Cecile has gotten married and is working on a concept for a healthy eating restaurant and Emmanuelle is working on a line of adorable French T-shirts.

 

Emmanuelle brought Ross and me to the restaurant where Amelie works in the film:

We got a glass of wine which ended up being two glasses of wine in one glass. Emmanuelle was SO OFFENDED by the double glass. I thought it was pretty great. I asked her why and she said, "That's the biggest glass of red wine ever. I'm French, I have principals."

Goodbye, South Africa (again!)

This is my friend from Cape Town. His name is Selwyn and he has been in the States for 6 months working. I met him because he is living in St. Peter, and Cory and his dad had made friends with him, and since I had just been on my vacation to Cape Town I wanted to meet him. I also wanted to introduce him to my other Afrikaan-y friend Beata. (Beata, is that what you are? Afrikaan-y?) So he came to dinner one night and then I also helped him get from the bus station to the airport when he was on his way home. He was part of the District 6 evacuation if you want to google that...a terrible injustice in the 1970's involving non-whites (coloureds in South Africa) and the new white government. Basically the white government told this entire district of people that they had to get out of their homes before a certain date, because it would be bulldozed. And if they weren't out, they were told they would be bulldozed with their home. And then the white government gave the properties to white people. It was prime real estate in the heart of Cape Town, and so as you can imagine was a disgusting and horrible thing to have happen. The new black government in South Africa is trying to make reparations to those who were affected, but it is ten years in the making. Selwyn's poor dad has already died (he was the property owner -- Selwyn was just a young teenager when this happened). But that means that Selwyn will inherit the reparations -- if they ever happen.

South Africa wildlife

I'm so glad this happened after I got home. This thing was caught near Jo'burg. I think it's a vampire rat. Thanks for the nightmares, Beata!

ICK EW gross!

South Africa

Was so much fun.

Now keep reading my blog because lots of interesting things happen to me all the time.

Today I bought two chairs on craigslist, for example.

Two More Afrikaans semi-swears

Goeie Genigtig
Pronounced: Huy-A-Ha-Nook-Tuk with the H's very phlegmy.

It means, "goodness gracious"



Vonk Prop
Pronounced: foonk proep

I can't remember what it means, but you use it in the car.

New York City

7 hour layover.

Called mom and dad.

Ate.

Walked around.

Shopped for stuff.

Bought a coffee cup.

Read my book.

Went to the bathroom, where -- and I am not kidding about this -- (and stop reading if you're a proper person with manners or a human being) I pooped the word "hi", lowercase, complete with a dotted "i". I couldn't believe it. I reached to get my camera to take a picture, but the automatic flusher thought I was done and flushed it all away. And then I cursed technology forever.

Goodbye New York with your fancy toilets with unforgiving motion detectors.

The Flight to New York

So I don't know how it happened but I made it into First Class again all the way home. Maybe it was because I totally flirted with the guy at the desk at the airport in Cape Town and he green lighted me in First Class all the way home, even from New York to Minneapolis! He said, do you know your priority? (Which I think means, what is the seniority of the person who you're flying under) and I actually winked at him and said "TOP priority." It was so worth it. And I met a nice old lady whose luggage was completely filled with only yarn, and then I accidentally walked in on an even older lady in the bathroom because she was too old to lock the door. I felt so bad because I said, "OH I'M SO SORRY WOW THAT WAS REALLY RUDE WOOPS I MEAN GOSH I'M SORRY I DIDN'T WANT TO..." and then I saw that it was a really old lady and then I felt so super bad becuase she reached out to shut the door but she was much much too old to get up so fast and I stood there watching all of this and then I went to another stall.

So I killed some time at the airport and got 20 BUCKS BACK at the VAT counter! But the 20 bucks was in rand and so I had to spend the money at the airport kind of like vintage Wheel of Fortune. YOU WIN! But you win the fun of buying crappy stuff for your house! How about a porcelain dog statue? YAY! But I bought a monkey for Murphy that was really really cute and it made me happy.

So the flight was fun. The flight attendant guy that I hit it off with was so super nice that he kept bringing me alcohol. I got very very tipsy on the plane. I was SOBBING and then LAUGHING and then SOBBING and then LAUGHING while watching Kit Kittredge: An American Girl. And then I took this photo because I was so nostalgic about flying and being above the clouds and it was SO beautiful (and I was buzzing):



And then I took this photo because first class is SO awesome!:


Can you see all the space at the end of my feet? Can you see how wide the chair is? Can you see my special down-like blanket? Can you see I remembered to bring my slippers with me on my trip? Can you see my tonic water, my individual salt and pepper shakers, my bun with butter? And that was before dinner people! Can you see Kitt's neighbor, so happy before her home was taken away by the evil evil bank?

I didn't bother getting out of the airplane in Senegal on the way home. I already been there. But man do they wake you up. DING DING DING DING. Attention everyone. Ten dudes from Senegal will now get on the plane and remove the cushions from your seat and run their hands inside the compartments of your suitcase and say "ma'am is this your bag?" and then spray some sort of deodorizer up and down the aisles of the plane and then you might get a chance to sleep after that but probably not.

p.s. Kitt Kittredge is really really good.

Last Day in Cape Town

OK OK OK!

I have been back for 16 days. It's time to finally finish the story of my trip to Africa. Besides I'm dying to post important things like singing random tactless songs about babies coming back to grieving mothers.

So on the very last day of my trip I begged Leigh to hang out with me (Leigh is the guy in the photos with a tank top on.) Everybody else was working. Mineska had school and couldn't meet up with us until 12:30. So I rode into Cape Town with Tony. He drives an MG (a tiny little British sports car) and we had to lay my suitcase outside, on top of the window because it didn't fit in the trunk. Plus we put it in his dad's BM trunk because they work together but his dad got confused and took the suitcases out of his trunk.

So Tony brought me to his office at 9, and Leigh wasn't coming until 10, so I walked across the street from his office and had coffee, two eggs and toast for $2.30. Awesome. Then I wrote in my journal for a while. And then I walked to a shop and talked to the crazy owner, who kept talking about the black government and the mistakes they were making regarding being able to sell ivory. If you can picture me tiptoe-ing backwards out of the store with my neck all tightened up like, YIKES, please do so because that's what happened. I thought for sure he was going to make me put on a white cloak.

Then Leigh showed up in his BMW M3. I don't know much about these things, but it's a very nice car and it drives very fast and you can open it just by touching the door handle if the keys are in your pocket. I think it can hover.

Anyway, Leigh gets in the car, and I go to open my door and **CRASH**! I opened the door too hard and smashed it into the abnormally tall curb. Total scratch. Down to the metal. OUCH. I wanted to crawl into a ball and go far far away like Jenny on Forrest Gump. So, I got in the car and couldn't look at Leigh because I wanted to die. Well he was very nice about it and when we got to the aquarium I forced him to look at the scratch and he showed me all the scratches he has put into the car and I felt better but I mean seriously. Kady! Jeez!

So we went to the aquarium at Cape Town and saw all kinds of cool stuff. Like the hermaphrodite eel: (makes it's own offspring, not male or female)

And the king spider crab: (likes to play king of the hill in slow motion over and over with other king spider crabs in the tank)




And this ugly thing:



And this cool thing:



And these pretty things:

At about 11:30 we got a call from Mineska and met up with her at this fabulous restaurant on the "waterfront" and I had a yummy cosmo and something else I can't remember. And then I went shopping and got myself a really cool leather bag. ummm...then we all said goodbye and Mineska brought me to the airport but on the way we stopped to see Aidan because he had this silly blanket I bought at Green Market Square but he ended up with it that night at Llandudno. He also made me a CD of really great S.African music and other stuff. Thanks Aidan! And then we tearfully said goodbye at the airport. Well not really tearfully. But it was so so so so so so so sad to say goodbye to South Africa and to Mineska.

I knew I would miss their silly accents and their hospitable spirits and their toilets with the "onsie/twosie" flush option.

Table Mountain

So on Sunday we decided to hike Table Mountain. I was looking forward to getting some exercise and checking out the gorgeous view of Cape Town from on top of the mountain, but in the end, we all got really lazy and afraid of a cold front coming in that would bring the hikers' dreaded "tablecloth", which is a thick cloud that comes and covers Table Mountain and causes a bunch of deaths every year. Hikers are walking around Table Mountain, minding their own business, when BAM the clouds come in and completely blind them, and then they fall of the mountain and die:



But for me, it was more laziness. There's a cable car that will bring you right to the top without any sweating or nettles or snakes or any of those unpleasantries.

We borrowed Tony's dad's BMW (which I got to drive!). Tony said, let's take the BM. I had to explain what that means in America.

Here's a picture of me driving the Bowel Movement:



I even parallel parked it backwards onto the left side of the road. That was weird, but I was pretty proud of myself!



We had to wait for a while to get onto the cable car and here are a couple pictures of us waiting:




So the cable car was scary! It goes STRAIGHT up the mountain. And it spins, so you can see out all sides. As soon as it left the ground I lost strength in my legs. I bent my knees and felt like I couldn't stand up. It was very cool to see, but of course the whole time all you can imagine is the thing breaking and the whole bunch of people jamming into eachother as the little ball bounces down the mountain. It didn't help that Leigh (dude in the photos) is a super-smart engineer programmer guy and he said the cable car was really poorly designed.

We pretty much goofed around the whole day on top of the mountain. Here are some pictures of us goofing around:










Then we saw this guy:



Which prompted a wave of stupid human tricks. We did cartwheels, whistled between our thumbs, and challenged eachother to feats of strenth. Pretty soon people from all countries were joining us. We had French people, German people, Pakistani people, everybody was joining in the fun. And because I was so inspired, I belted out "WE ARE THE WORLD...WE ARE THE CHILDREN...WE ARE THE ONES WHO MAKE A BRIGHTER DAY...SO LET'S START GIVING..." And people actually started singing with me. It was very funny. It was such a fun day.

Back in Cape Town

So when I got back to Cape Town from the Kruger I decided I better figure out what I had to do before I left because I only had Saturday, Sunday and part of Monday. I kind of wanted to go to Cape Point (the very bottom of Africa -- where two oceans meet and it's very pretty there) But the doctors from my safari said that they hiked down there and saw a rattle snake. And they had to walk by it. Plus it was quite a drive and would take the whole day and I am such a lazy person, so Mineska and I ended up spending Saturday on the beach *wink* and Saturday evening we went for dinner at a nice little tapas place in Cape Town called Asoka. There was a tree growing right through it. Mineska ordered a pineapple and coconut juice and then Tony took my favorite picture from the trip:



And here's a picture of me telling the story of how when we were kids Kasey and I would fight all the time and one of her signature moves was to use my hair and head like a punching bag. She would first PULL my hair and then PUNCH my head. Double whammy.



And here's a picture of me saying something super important to Mineska:



And here's a picture of Tony and Janine drinking from a really BIG glass:



And here's one where that shows my ability to totally captivate my audience with my super intelligence:



And here's me again, telling another story:

Look how interested people are in my stories: