Science

Leavin' On a Jet Plane

Hi Everyone!

Well, it's Friday, around 2pm South Africa Time. We had to check out at 11am, so we stored our luggage at the hotel, and then went down to the waterfront to check out the store. Our taxi was driven by a guy who's last name was Silke, and he said his parents moved to South Africa from Spain after "the war". Which war? He looked kind of old, so Lizzie and I assumed he meant the Spanish/American war, or perhaps he was involved with the rout with the Spanish Armada, but anyway, after telling us this, he asked if we'd hooked up with any fellas down here, so we immediately flung the doors open, and then tucked and rolled the rest of the way, landing at Victoria's Wharf, which is basically a giant shopping mall. We looked around, had some disgusting lunch which is sure to haunt us on our 20 million hour flight, and then decided to decline Mr. Silke's kind offer to drive us back, and hopped into the most rickety cab I've ever seen. The driver told us that his differential was going, and then asked us, over the grinding of the gears, about the election.

So the election is big news here, at least with the drivers.

He said that he thought McCain was past his sell-by date, which was hilarious, but then he talked about how "hot" Sarah Palin is. Vomit-tastic. He actually drove by our hotel because he wanted our opinion on George Bush. So folks, if you're traveling abroad over the next few weeks, make sure you've read up on your American Politics, and be ready with your this-person-is-nuts-so-I-can't-give-my-real-opinion-but-if-say-I'm-voting-for-the-other-guy-I'll-puke vague generalization. Basically, act like you're a first year writing student:

"Throughout history, there have been elections. Elections are very important. The democratic process is necessary to the government of a country. Our country is interested in change, but also in maintaining a connection with the past, as well as looking ahead to the future. So please, tell me about cricket."

Anyway, this will be our last post before flying (Capetown to Dakar to NYC to Boston). We'll hope to do some wrapping up once we get home, but have a great Friday, and we'll see you all soon (unless someone is trying to murder us by letting a whole bunch of poisonous hippos loose on the plane. I'm going to call Samuel L. Jackson. Hippos on a plane is going to be a hit!)

Love--Shannon and Lizzie

When Elephants Attack--a progression of aggression

From our encounter with Amarullah the elephant the other day. A montage.

Friends Don't Let Friends Drink and Blog

Heya!

Well, it's Thursday, 9:09pm here in South Africa. Our hotel is next to the ocean, and so we can hear the waves hitting the rocks (which occasionally we mistake for whales). We just returned from dinner in the 5-star restaurant in our hotel, called "Salt", which led to me telling my "Two peanuts were walking down the street and one was assaulted" joke far too many times. Still funny every time.

Lizzie had her conference this morning, gave her talk, and actually was driven to the event by a fellow named Waleed, who said that Emmanuel had told him about us, and then asked how she was voting. She said that she didn't believe in voting because it makes you sterile, and she wants to have lots and lots of babies. It was just safer that way. Also, thinking gives you wrinkles. Yuck.

When she came back, I was still fighting shutterfly (the connection here is so slow. We have an awesome coriolis force video to put up, but we'll have to wait until we get back to the states and have the bandwith to do it.) but hopefully by the time we have to leave tomorrow, most of the pictures will be up. (That's right, folks, we're taking off 6pm here, which would be uh, noon in Boston).

So yes, dinner. I generally don't drink much wine, because I am a total lightweight (the waiter at the restaurant we were at last night, when I ordered my martini, looked at me and said, concerned, "But that is very strong!" I'm of Irish descent, dammit, bring me my ZZzzzzzz....) however, South Africa is famous for it's vineyards, and I had to try some South African wine, and ordered a Pinotage, named Carpe Diem. Lizzie had the gall to order a dessert wine with dinner, which threw our waiter off big time, almost as much as when she said "all set", a peculiar Northern US idiom which not everyone even in the United States seems to get. Especially because it doesn't make much sense.

The Pinotage was ridiculously good, and it had the instant effect of turning on those Irish genes I possess which turn my face bright red. Now I matched my wine, how exciting! Lizzie made the mistake of having some weird beet-root tart for dinner, but being the classy gal I am, I had squid tempura, forgetting that tempura meant fried, and I hate fried food. Anyway, I (classily) picked it out of the coating, and then we both decided that more wine would erase the poor dinner choices, and oh how it did, especially when coupled with dessert. I had a dessert wine this time, and it was hella good, and I dared Lizzie to have a dinner wine with dessert to really screw up our waiter, but she said she was all set. We paid, stumbled back to our room, and I checked on shutterfly, which is still uploading our pictures. Sheeyit. Bring on the Pinotage--it's going to be a long night! (Note, a side effect of me blogging while slighting intoxicated is that I think this is freaking hilarious. Wait, no, I always think I'm hilarious, even when I tell stupid peanut jokes. Or cheese ones. Right, Seth and Lauren?)

It's Nearly the End of the World

Capetown--Wednesday

Our hotel in Capetown is pretty rad, and being the "business hotel" on our trip (Lizzie's conference is Thursday) it is super fancy and everyone is helpful, and so far there hasn't been any contemptuous sighing, which we received much of in the previous two cities we were in, mainly when we didn't have correct change. Lizzie was up late on Tuesday night working (and then of course, I had some blogging to catch up on) and so we slept late, but then met le beau garcon Patrick who was going to give us a tour of Table Mountain, the Simon Town Penguin colony, Cape Point and the Cape of Good hope. Patrick was a dashing ex-pat from la France, and his accent was definitely French, though peppered with those hilarious "Ja's". He took us to Table Mountain, which is part of the mountains that dominate the landscape of Capetown. Table mountain is flat on top, of course, and is often covered with a shroud of mist which the locals call the table cloth. There are twelve peaks around Table Mountain, referred to as the twelve apostles, and also a mountain called lion's head, which sort of maybe looks like the sphinx. (Lizzie asked if the back end of the mountain was referred to as Lion's butt, and Patrick laughed and said no, that it was called signal hill, which we decided was classier, but less interesting). We took a spooky cable car (which was oddly sponsored by visa) up to the top. I am not afraid of heights, but Lizzie is. Not only did the car go up, but the floor spun as well, so she was having a great time. At the top, we saw Robben's Island where Nelson Mandela was imprisoned, and which now is apparently overrun by bunnies. (Also, Patrick told us that Robben's Island is just Dutch for Seal's Island.)

We poked around, got some pictures, and then descended for the 2 1/2 hour drive to the near end of the world, or at least the end of Africa. Patrick was full of information, which we absorbed nerdishly (again, it didn't hurt that he was tres beau), and then we stopped at the Penguin colony. He told us Penguin Fun Facts, which totally weren't fun but actually sad, because the colonies are slowly dying out, possibly because of over fishing, or because humans are harvesting the penguin crap (which Patrick dashingly called guano) to use as fertilizer, and the penguins need it to build nests. (The cuteness of many of my penguin photos are marred by their being covered in guano). We were feet away from the Penguin, and I'm not going to lie to you here, if Patrick weren't there, Lizzie and I totally would've each touched at least one penguin. Maybe more. They were ridiculously cute, and there was much squealing, which I'm sure Patrick found absolutely annoying. I mean charming. The penguins liked it anyway, and brayed at us, being jackass penguins. After the penguins we made our way to Cape town and

OH MY GOD BABOONS! NOOOOOO!!

There were Baboons everywhere, all over the roads, staring at us. I took some pictures, mostly so I can horrify my sisters, who share my fear and loathing of all things Monkey-like. They apparently hassle people for food because idiot tourists feed them, so when we got to Cape Point, I had my punching fists ready, empowered by my Spider killing, ready to knock out Rafiki if necessary (who am I kidding? I will never kill another spider, and if a Baboon came at me I would run away crying). We decided to hike up to the top of Cape Point, instead of taking the train (go Rabbits!) and it was simply breath taking. (The view, that is, though the hike didn't help). We saw a huge cross that was erected in honor of Vasco De Gama's loop around the cape, and also the point where the warm and cold currents meet (though it's not quite where the two oceans meet). I've never seen anything so incredible in my life (except for Snakes on a Plane), and the only thing that marred the experience is that we ran into Veruca Salt and her Dad/Boyfriend/Cousin. WTF? You've followed us to the ends of the earth? What are the chances? South Africa is pretty damn big, and they decided to fly to Capetown on the same day we did, and visit the same attractions at the very same time? We had seen a bunch of whales a quarter mile off the coast on our drive to the Cape Point, and apparently Veruca had seen them as well, and was lecturing us about the kind of whales they were. SHUT UP. JAMES ISN'T HERE, NO ONE IS IMPRESSED. Ugh.

Anyhow, we enjoyed the scenery for a bit longer, and then hiked back down. Patrick, who had stayed at the bottom, was surprised that we hadn't taken the train either way, and that we weren't freezing. It was probably 60 degrees out, and yes, there was a wind chill (in all of the pictures I'm in, my hair is blowing around like mad) but for crying out loud, 60! I prefer 80, yes, but I prefer 60 to the 40's we'll be returning to. Also, we're lazy Americans, but not *that* lazy.

Next we headed to the Cape of Good hope, which is on the same reserve as the Cape point, but a wee bit further south, and lower elevation. On the way we saw Ostriches, a male and female and their babies. They were ridiculously cute, and my pictures are a little glare-y because I had to take them through the window of the car, but I had to get a shot of the Ostriches against the backdrop of the ocean. Not what I expected of Ostriches. We stood around at the Cape of Good hope for a while, hoped for good things, and then headed back, only to be immediately stopped by a pack of baboons who were camped out in the road. I, personally, would've gunned it and taken out as many as I could have, but Patrick waited for them to leave. They watched us the whole time, looking for hand outs, but unfortunately I didn't have any cyanide on me. Finally they left, and we drove through all the little dutch towns with their dutch names (there was even a windmill) and made it back to Capetown proper around 8ish. Then we ate (I had the best Calamari I've ever had. Except, oddly, for Wimpy's, the food here has been amazing. I had to hike up to the end of the world so I can fit in my seat in the airplane.) Now, as I'm writing this, we're attempting to upload my pictures to shutterfly. Tomorrow while Lizzie's at her conference, I'll hopefully be finishing that, and then it's the roof deck overlooking the ocean and books for me, and keynote lectures on economics for her.

Some girls have all the luck.

George Bush's biggest fan

Tuesday--Pilanesberg to Capetown

So it was time to leave the bush velde, and head out to civilization. We were picked up by our driver around 10:30, even though he was scheduled for 11:00, and he found this to be exceedingly awesome. His name was Daniel, and he kept talking about how safe a driver he was. Yes, he was super safe, especially when he was turning around to talk to us instead of looking at the road in front of him. He informed us almost every five minutes about how fast he was driving, but in kilometers, so it wasn't really helpful. At one point, we passed a hideous car wreck (note: everyone in South Africa drives like ABSOLUTE SHIT) and Daniel was very excited about this as well. There was a small blue car that had been totally ripped to shreds by a truck, and Daniel kept saying "Look! Look! Dead bodies! Look!" Lizzie was half asleep, so she looked out the window, much to her horror. I knew from the wreckage that it must've been awful, so I kept my eyes to the shoulder. We had to drive off-road to get around it, and Daniel reported:

"Two dead white men and three dead black men!"

Thanks for sharing, Daniel.

The other most awkward part of this was that he gave us a comment card. We had to fill it out and say what a safe driver he was because we were stuck in his car, and then our safe driver read it in front of us while driving. Yes, very safe. In any case, we survived that, and made it to the Jo-burg airport.

I was hungry and cranky (Yay!) and so we had to find somewhere to eat in the airport, the only available location being Wimpy's, a burger chain which I assume is named after the character in the Popeye cartoon, but I could be making that up. The food was hilariously terrible, and we asked for Diet Coke and got Tab, which was super excellent. Mmmm, diet tab.

We flew out to Cape Town, collected our luggage which had thankfully arrived with us, and then went to meet the car that would be taking us to the hotel we were staying at. The driver was a black man from the Seychelles named Emmanuel, and the first thing he asked us was if we were from Cape Town. So we told him we were from America, and he said "Oh! Who do you want to win the election?"

Lizzie and I looked at each other and said, in stereo, "Obama."

He asked us why, and we gave our myriad of reasons, and he laughed the whole time we were speaking.

And then he tried to school us stupid white chicks.

First he said that McCain needed to be president, because when black men become president, all of the white people leave and that leads to the destruction of countries and their economies, just like in Zimbabwe. (Yes, because with our white male president right now, our economy and country is definitely headed in the right direction). He also said that he was a huge fan of George Bush, and preached to everyone about how awesome W is, because George Bush worked for God, and not for the Devil. He said that George Bush believes in what he does, and as long as you believe in what you do, and believe that it is correct, it's the right thing to do.

Really? Well what if we think the right thing to do is to not pay you, sunshine? Does that make it okay? What if we decide that murdering you and stealing your car is the right thing to do? Break out the ice pick, Lizzie, it's car jacking time!

I was annoyed with his condescending attitude, and shocked at his naievete, and saddened by his self-hatred. He went on to say that it's okay that the US went into Iraq for the oil, because, hey, everyone needs oil! Just take whatever you want, and that's cool. I wouldn't be so soap-boxy with someone from such a different culture, normally, as I'm sure there are reasons for his believing what he does beyond what I'm aware of, but he clearly was not willing to do the same for us, as he was obviously not interested in hearing a dissenting point of view, especially from two women. So get out there and vote, folks, just to prove Emmanuel wrong. He doesn't vote, by the way, because he's not originally from South Africa, and doesn't feel like he should get involved. The man is just a closed-minded enigma, now isn't he? Also, he would like you all to know that the Seychelles has 85,000 inhabitants, and is perfect, and everyone loves each other. That's probably why he emigrated to South Africa.

The racism here is intense. (Not, of course, that it doesn't exist in America as well). There's three large strata of people, Whites, Blacks, and Coloureds, the "Coloureds" being anyone not "purely" black or white. Racism is rampant between each group, most destructively between the Coloureds and the Blacks, and also, when it exists within those two groups. The ending of Apartheid, though a majorly positive step, seems to be a small beginning to fixing a much larger problem. Again, my knowledge and experience about and in South Africa is limited, but I think I can safely say that hatred is never the way to go.

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