Just a little hello

Why hello cyberfriends!
It is my 4th day in Africa and so far it has been a mixed experience. I have loved a lot of it and been quite annoyed with other things. One thing I have loved is the BEACH!!! We went to the local beach today and it was FANtastic! The water was perfect, the sky was blue and the mountains were beautiful. Things I have not liked so much: the lack of fresh food I have been able to get my hands on so far. We are going to a fresh fruit and veggie market tomorrow though (so hopefully that will change). My roommates are both really nice but I have a feeling they will not end up being my best friends in the world. Not because I don't like them, more because they are quite girly and we are just simply into different things.

Well, enough ranting about my day to day life, lets talk about what I have done so far.

The 24th was my second day of orientation in which our whole program went on a campus tour. UCT (University of Cape Town) is beautiful. I really love it. There are four (I think) different parts of campus. We live on lower campus and the library and other main buildings are on upper campus. Than there is middle and some other campus which... well I have no idea what's there. The important ones are upper and lower campus. Upper campus is situated literally in the shadow of the mountain and you have to walk up serious hills to get anywhere. Luckily we have the Jammie, which is what they call the shuttle system for UCT students and also what they call the main square on campus (it is a bit confusing). I, myself, think it is a pretty darn cute name regardless.

So near the end of our tour we decided to take a little hike up to the Rhodes memorial. The view from up there was amazing. We could see the entire city of Cape Town and the ocean (no idea if it was the Atlantic or the Indian). While we were up there we had a lovely (relatively cheap) lunch at this really awesome restaurant on top of the mountain. My greek salad was the only really fresh veggies I've had since I've been here. After the tour was over we went to Cavendish mall to get some supplies for our new apartment. When we got back I cooked dinner for myself, ate and than went to sleep early. It was lovely.

The next day on the other hand was so long and so boring I could feel myself losing brain cells. We spent the ENTIRE day in a dark, UCT classroom listening to orientation stuff. From class registration to trip opertunities. It was okay until about the 4th hour...

After all of that talking, Interstudy was nice enough to cater our dinner at an on campus restaurant. It was okay, a lot of meat (which seems to be a trend around Cape Town). Once dinner was over we decided to lay out on the grass in front of Jammie square. Since the sun was still out and it was a beautiful day we thought we'd do what any normal UCT student would do and "just chill out." It was really nice. The rest of the night consisted of a walk back down to lower campus and some more friendly conversation in one of my neighbors apartments.

Yesterday was our Tourist day. We took a bus at 8:30am to one of the local townships to see what that was all about. Parts of it reminded me of Indian slums and other parts reminded me of Española, so there was a wide range of living arrangements. It was interesting to say the least. At the end of the tour they took us to this "pub" (which was really just a little shack) and had us taste their homemade "beer." It tasted like lime, vinegar and milk? water... very strange, but strangely good.

After our stint in poverty we had lunch on the waterfront (nearish to the world cup soccer stadium). Lets just say the difference between these two places was like the difference between a bumblebee and a hedgehog. The next part of our tour was a boat trip to Robben Island. Robben means seal in Dutch, by the way. It has some really crazy history, aside from its infamous imprisonment of Nelson Mandela. That was pretty much the end of our Tour day and by than we had been out for over 12 hours. It was long, but really an awesome experience of contrasts and contradictions.

S. Africa so far is filled with similar contrasts and contradictions. It is a huge jumble of different kinds of people living in a place that walks the thin line between a first and third world country. It has been and I almost guarantee it will give me an amazing lesson in not taking ANYTHING at face value.

It’s Not the Destination, Rather the Journey…

The day is finally here. It is January 20^th, the day I leave for Cape Town.

When I woke up on this solicited day (much earlier than I would usually rise, may I add) there were strange butterflies in my belly. My parents, brother and I went out to a nice goodbye breakfast at La Cocina (of which I didn’t eat much). We got in the car (in which my conversation was scarce) and drove the half hour to the teensy Santa Fe airport. The feeling of major excitement was tangled with a nervous dread that I have NEVER experienced before, during, or after travelling. I just wrote it off as jitters due to the brand new adventure I was embarking on.

At the airport I was pleased to hear that my bags would be checked all the way to my final destination and I was given all three of my boarding passes (Santa Fe-Dallas, Dallas-London, London-Cape Town). This meant that my little eight-hour stop off in London would not require meddling with my luggage and I wouldn’t have to check in again. Little did I know that this would end up being a thorn in my side.

I said goodbye to my parents and brother and made it through security. As I was sitting in the lounge area waiting, I looked down and spotted a lucky penny (heads up). However strange this may sound, finding this penny eased the nerves I had been experiencing.

The first leg of my journey was short and sweet, Santa Fe to Dallas Fort Worth. I slept the whole time so it went by even faster. The second flight, Dallas to London Heathrow was similarly uneventful. I watched three movies and read a few chapters of Water for Elephants, but sleep somehow evaded me and that feeling of unease threatened a comeback every now and than.

Yes! Finally made it to London. Now I get a break from travelling. It is the morning of the 21^st of January and I have plans to meet a friend, Tarun, for a day in his city. I get out of customs and don’t see him anywhere, so I pick up a pay phone. “Hey Tarun, you on your way?” I ask. “Yeah, I’m on the train, about two stops away.” Excellent, he is on his way and I am feeling that lucky penny weighing heavy in my pocket. He arrives about twenty minuets later and we head off to the Tube (the subway in London).

We decide to go to his house and figure out what to do from there. In the end we spent a few hours relaxing on his couch and watching T.V. and catching up. The rest of the time we walked around at Harrows-on-the-hill, which is a cute little shopping center a few stops from his house. On our walk we ran into a man with a bucket asking for donations to charity. I didn’t have any spare change handy… except for my penny. A lucky penny to help the homeless? Well it’s pretty worthless (especially in Britain) but hey, it’s the thought that counts right? So I gave it, and this it seems is when my luck began to change and that cursed feeling of anxiety returned.

We knew my flight departed at 7:30pm and I had to be back at the airport by 5:30pm. So we caught a lift with Tarun’s mother and made it at 5:38, pretty good timing. I say my “thank yous” and “goodbyes” and head into Terminal 3. According to my previous arrival at Terminal 3 and my limited amount of research I had surmised that this was where my flight would depart. This assumption was further augmented by the fact that everyone who viewed my ticket in security (remember, I was already fully checked in so I could just walk right through) let me by and said nothing about the fishy situation that was to follow.

I made it to the lounge without a hitch and with plenty of time to spare. At this point I hadn’t had any proper sleep for about two days and I was beginning to feel the impact. All I wanted to do was get onto my plane so I could sleep away the night and awake in Africa. So when I looked at the screen (multiple times) to figure out what gate I needed to go to, the fact that the Cape Town flight listed did not match up to my ticket didn’t fully register. I had been changing flight carriers the whole day, from American Airlines to Iberian Air to British Airways. I had been pretty confused about my other flights also, but they seemed to turn out.

In the back of my head, being watered down and obliterated by my sleep deprivation was an inkling that something was not right. My flight left at 7:30pm, not 20:05, it was BA 59 not SA something or other. But what did I know? This was the only Cape Town flight on the entire board and I’ve been duped by flights with multiple flight numbers before.

Once the gate was announced I tore down to it so I could get on the plane and sleep. Sleep was literally all I was thinking of. I waited in the queue and slowly made my way to the front. When I got there the lady told me I did not have the right boarding pass. “What?” they checked me all the way through in Santa Fe, this should be right? So I’m sent to a different counter where a really cold unhelpful lady tells me that I am at the entirely wrong terminal, flight and airline… How the heck did this happen??

So I retrace my steps, still riding on almost zero sleep. On my way down I decided I was probably going to need to generate all the sympathy I could to make everything work out. I conclude that being the helpless, crying, unknowledgeable and confused American girl should accomplish this. The lady at the transfer counter confirms what the other attendant had said. Wrong Terminal, wrong flight, wrong airline… I was supposed to be in Terminal 5 (which apparently has British Airways flights along with Terminal 3) at 7:30pm, as we all had known.

This is when the waterworks kick in, because I am also told that I will not be able to get onto another flight until 4:45pm the following day, thus having to sleep in the airport (which I have done at Heathrow before and it is seriously miserable) and also not arriving in Cape Town until 6:15am on the 23^rd. This makes my trip a grand total of three days long and has shattered all the previous records. On top of it all I have to pay a 100-pound fee to change the flight and I have no phone or Internet to contact anyone (I do end up getting a very short, very expensive pay phone message to my dad and than later in Terminal 5 get some free Internet access).

So as I tramp through the airport balling my eyes out (because apparently once I start the crying thing it just won’t stop) all I can think of is that damn penny and the stupidity that infiltrated my mind. I knew that flight wasn’t right, but yet I did nothing. I had a bad feeling brewing since the beginning of my trip it was not just nerves. Alas, here I am, stranded in Terminal 1 overnight until I can return to Terminal 5 to catch my flight, a full day later than was intended. Upside: when you are wondering around an airport crying you meet some really amazingly kind people.

A funny part of this whole fiasco is, on the Tube back to Tarun’s house we were talking about how when our mutual friend Gabriel was visiting London he grossly miscalculated when his flight left and completely missed it. I jumped in with a similar yet way more hilarious story about my family mistaking a 6:00am flight for a 6:00pm flight and missing it by twelve hours and I added how, I have never done anything like that with my flights before. How the only flight I have ever missed was because the connecting flight was delayed… If this isn’t foreshadowing I don’t know what is.

Well all I can say now, after the crying has subsided and I can accept the fallacy of my brain, is, my Journey to Africa has definitely started off with a mind of its own and a message that I need to listen to my intuition and trust the inklings I feel. The Muslim saying “In Shah Allah (God willing)” seems appropriate and I think will be a necessary mantra for my remaining travels. I need to remember to take a step back and enjoy the process rather than being so focused on the destination. There is nothing I can do at this point, I just have to get a really good night sleep so that I can get on my plane and begin my true journey.

24 hours later… well actually a little bit more 

I made it to the airport in Cape Town. The rest of the trip was uneventful. I slept a little and ate a bit in Terminal 1, caught my plane and than passed out again. I woke up about half way through and watched movies the rest of the way. I got in at about 6:30am on the 23^rd, as scheduled, went through customs, picked up my luggage and than attempted to find a moneychanger. On my way I met a girl, about my age, she asked me if I needed a Taxi (since I had missed the allotted arrival day for my program and I didn’t see anyone there to meet me I figured I did). She was very nice and her dad was my driver. He took me to my apartment, gave me his card and told me if I ever needed anything I was welcome to call him (I probably won’t, but the thought was nice).

The minute I got to my room the people from Interstudy (the program I am on) came and gave me a phone. Alas, my voucher for talk-time didn’t work so I still need a new one of those. After he left I had about ten minuets before we were leaving for our first day of orientation. I quickly took a shower, changed, and than headed out on my way. The day was long and tiring and filled with sitting around. I got back to my room at about 5pm and fell asleep. I slept and slept and slept and woke up the next day at 6am refreshed and ready for this semester to begin!

A Heads Up

(this is me, FYI)


Hello all you wonderful people who are going to be reading about all my lovely adventures come next semester!

I decided a blog was probably the easiest and most fun way to keep everyone who is interested updated about my semester in Cape Town, South Africa.

I cannot promise you that I will be super regular about writing, but I do promise I shall try. I also cannot promise that I will be interesting to read, but again I shall make an effort.

So... a little explanation about the name maybe? First off, it is in no way a reference to the show Malcolm in the Middle. I thought since I have adopted the nickname 'Marmoset' from a good friend of mine it would be a suitable way to convey myself in this blog. Since marmosets are a type of monkey (kinda) I liked the play on 'monkey in the middle'. It is a fun playful game, which I hope this trip will mimic. This blog is also about me being in the middle of an adventure, a new experience. That is my explanation and I am sticking with it! ;) I was going to use Marmoset Business (monkey business), but I'm not sure the idea comes through with that one as well... thoughts?

I hope you all (whoever decides to read this thing I am creating) enjoy!

p.s. I probably won't actually start updating until I am headed off on my trip. A heads up to all you people who will frantically be refreshing this page to see if I have posted anything new... hehe.