Stacey Ventures to South Africa

---

I have arrived!

... Kind of.

Calgary->Edmonton->Winnipeg->Thunder Bay->Toronto->Montreal->Toronto->Frankfurt->Cape Town.

It's been almost two weeks, and I have finally physically arrived at my destination in downtown Cape Town. I say physically, because mentally, who knows where I am. After my 7.5 flight to Frankfurt, 12 hours (awake!) in Frankfurt, and then 12 hours (dead to the world) to Cape Town, my mind has absolutely no idea what is going on. My body is happy to finally be done the drinking and 2am fried food extravaganza, and is (I believe) happy to be exposed to heat and sun again. I mean, it's been a little over a year since I went to Cuba, since this past Calgarian summer certainly does not count as warm&sunny weather.

The flight, not going to lie, was a bit traumatizing. That might sound overly melodramatic, but there is no other way to describe it. I was talking to one of my friends, who joked that Frankfurt seemed just lovely. At one point, I was absolutely convinced that I had regressed six years in the past, and that I was at the airport in New Delhi. I mean, for one, German is utter nonsense. Sorry, it is ütter nonsense. I reiterate: German sounds more like gibberish than any language out there.

Secondly, there is nothing in Frankfurt. I mean, yeah, it's very German in architecture, and there is one or two impressive buildings, but how can any German city have No bratwurst or schnitzel places open? Yes, that is how I spent my couple of hours in Frankfurt: searching for bratwurst and schnitzel, and ending up at a Starbucks. Tourist fail, haha.

Finally, a couple of hours before my flight, I was able to find out what gate my flight was leaving from. Some deep recess of my brain realized that I still had a Maple Leaf Lounge pass, which *might* work in the Lufthansa lounge. It didn't. But, thank god, my disheveled state did. When the lounge check-in man (my brain still hasn't 100% recovered) told me I could go in, I told him that I "could literally kiss him."

He didn't look like he wanted to take me up on that offer.

The flight from there wasn't too bad. I sat next to the largest German man alive (I'm sure HE could have told me where to find bratwurst). But that feels mean, in light of his extreme effort to squash himself to the window to afford me a little sleeping room. I watched "The Social Network" at god knows what time, and I can remember only that Mark Zuckerburg is a jerk... or socially awkward... or something. And someone had very bad hair. That's all I got.

Cape Town is as beautiful as described. Sandwiched a la Vancouver in between Table Mountain/Signal Hill/Lion's Head and the ocean, it's as lush and idillic as any place I can think of. My brain, again, is struggling. I switch seamlessly between comfort and disorientation.

The weather? No problem. The demographics? No problem. Finding coffee this morning? Inciting near panic. (A thought I literally had this morning: what if they don't HAVE coffee?)

The accent is a pretty even mix of the two. When they talk to me, it's not too difficult to decipher. However, when South Africans speak among themselves, I question whether they are actually speaking English. I told my brother I would learn the accent, but that is looking more and more impossible. Whenever I hear British accents now, I wonder if it is South African. They are all combining into one hodgepodge- I'm shocked to hear how ignorant my own accent sounds whenever I manage to string words together into a sentence.

I'm already a different colour, having walked around yesterday and this morning. The thought now occupying every moment outside is the avoidance of awkward tan lines. Well, and/or melanoma.

I had my first half-day of work today, and it looks like I'll be having a lot of work to do. I'm quite excited about it, actually, when I am not overtaken by the numb/jetlagged feeling. There is only one other intern that has been handling the brunt of the work for the past two months, so the division is pretty pleased to have fresh blood involved. There are a lot of other people in the office, working for various other legal departments, so it's cool to be surrounded by a similar mentality and hear their thoughts on human rights work.

My roommate is American, has been here for two months, and is very friendly and understanding of my propensity to mooch all of her food until I manage to get settled enough to go grocery shopping. I met some other people in the internship program yesterday, and they all seemed friendly, in my delirium. I need to restate the fact that this city is beautiful- yesterday, picnicking in the Parliament Gardens, with the sun setting and Table Mountain in the distance- you still feel somehow that you are in Africa. So the backpacker in me is pleased.

Ok. The Canadian in me needs some serious caffeine and a nap. I have 'arrived'!

Stacey

---