It's hot here in Africa. Suprise! Apparently, Cape Town is known for its winds, but I'm not hating on that right know, unlike the locals. The only time I saw the temperature it said it was 47. I hate not knowing celsius. Okay, that's 117. Not sure if that can be right. Wouldn't we sizzle and pop? I sweated though my pants twice today (attractive) and kept buying bottle after bottle of water. Don't feel like I got a lot of sun, but we'll see tomorrow.
Let's start with my trip.
First flight was late, I was practically bouncing up and down, willing to get out and push the plane back myself because I had a rather short connection. Now once I got to Buenos Aires, I received conflicting reports about what to do, and the lady at the South African Airways counter was adament that I had to go through CUSTOMS, go to the ticket counter, get my tickets, go through CUSTOMS AGAIN and all will be fine. "Don't worry," she says, "we won't be boarding until 5:30." It's 5 o'clock. The people at customs and taxes downstairs were very friendly and told me that I didn't have to do this, but I said the lady upstairs said I did, so they said I should do what she says. $131 in taxes. Stupid Argentina. But I can come back for the next 10 years even though I don't plan to. The people at the ticket counter were shocked to see me and said it was too late. I told them what was happening and they made some phone calls and eventually gave me my tickets. So I ran upstairs, or the broken escalator, and went straight through security (love that they don't care about liquids) and customs... again. He didn't seem to notice the date stamp on my passport and ran to the gate with that little bitch lady smiling at me. "You made it!" Yeah, no thanks to you.
Hot and sweaty I sit down on my seat and the plane isn't even half full. Something's broken so the air won't work until we get going, so it's basically a sauna in there. The flight attendants stress that we can move around once the plane is up so we all plan out what we're going to do. The nice man in the seat next to me, who helped fan me, was going to move next to his girlfriend so I stayed put. Dinner was served almost directly and they played two bad movies, one I've already seen. I tried to sleep, and managed about 2 or 3 hours. Was not happy when it was time for breakfast. I saw on the airshow that at one point we were right over Cape Town, and I thought about ringing and asking if we could just stop here.
The most obnoxious and abhorrent man sat in the aisle next to me. He complained non-stop about all the flight attendants who were doing a very nice job. He looked one staight in the eye and told her she should get a new career. He didn't know that SA wasn't a European line, because he would never get treated like this. He spoke to the head woman twice, and was mad that he wasn't served coffee as soon as he woke up. Coffee wasn't served then. He wanted coffee. HOT coffee, and after they brought him some, it wasn't HOT coffee. He was disgusting.
Well, Cape Town. The plan was, of course, to stay up as long as possible and sleep at night. Since I didn't get much sleeps on the flights, I feel asleep at 5 and woke up at 8. Then I went to sleep again around 10 and woke up at 1. I fell asleep again sometime cause when I finally got up it was after 10. I got dressed, made a sketch map on the back of a piece of paper and went out. The plan was to go to the aquarium, which was about 15 minutes away. The wharf is very pretty. All the old fishing building converted and painted into quaint malls and hotels. Lots of old ships, some getting repaired out of water, which was cool. I was a little underwhelmed by the aquarium. I was in and out in probably an hour. Not much to see. Did see a huge turtle and some penguins.
As I walked outside I saw a little booth for the city tour, which is hop on and hop off, so I decided to do it. Got on top of the double decker and saw some sights, learned some history. A lot about apartheid, obviously. Really don't know much about it so that was interesting. There was a stop at Table Mountain so I did that. It was pretty, but not the coolest city I've seen from above on this trip. Had lunch and bought a placemat as art work. Oh - before I got off at Green Street Market and did some bartering for some really cool stuff. The best part was that they didn't hassle you like the South American vendors. They said hello and asked what you were looking for, but that was only if you stopped at their table. And since it was "Sunday and so hot" they all said I would get the best price. I think I did alright. We'll see when I get home.
I feel like I just burned through money today, but then I remind myself that the Rand is 8-1 and all their bills are like ours: 20, 50, 100, 200. So it's very easily to go through a 100 like it's nothing.
Anyway, after Table Mountain the bus went through the coastal area with all the beaches, and where all the celebrities like "Prince Harry, Leonardo DiCaprio and Robby Williams" have been cited. The commentary would always say stuff like that. It was beautiful, though. When I marry my billionaire husband...
After the tour was done, I went through the wharf again and grabbed dinner for later, and breakfast (2 muffins). And now I'm back at the hostel. I'm being picked up at 4 in morning for some reason so I just hope I can get to sleep early tonight. Probably won't.
Sharks this week! Wooo!
