Our flight from Baltimore to Heathrow was a breeze- easy and quick, especially compared to what was to come with our next flight. Yijing, Mandi and I all booked the same flight over, so we arrived in London around 10am on Saturday. Yijing has an aunt who lives in the city, so her aunt picked us up, dropped me and Mandi off at the tube to go exploring while Yijing stayed and caught up with family.
I managed to give Mandi a whirlwind, readers digest version tour of a good part of central London in about 5 hours or so. Initially we were planning on hitting my personal favorite tourist spot, the Tower Bridge first, but for those of you who know London transport, the Circle and District lines are god awful spawns of Satan, and as there was planned engineering works, we opted to hit the main core instead. We started out in Picadilly Circus and eventually hit Chinatown, the Covent Garden and Leister Square areas, Trafalgar Square, the Royal Mews, Buckingham Palace, and St. James Park (all on foot, might I add) before ending up in Westminster to see the Houses of Parliament, Westminster Abbey and the Eye. In typical British fashion we stopped at a pub for lunch so Mandi could get fish and chips, and per usual, got called out for our American accents almost immediately.
I managed to get some sleep on that first flight and between that and the adrenaline, Mandi and I were golden starting out our day trip. Lunch perked us up slightly after a significant walk, but by the time we worked our way back to Zone 3 where we were meeting Yijing's aunt who drove us back to the airport Mandi and I were both running on fumes, to the point where I found myself seriously dozing in and out on the tube and the park bench. The first stop back in Heathrow was a very caffeinated Coke to wake me up at least until our on flight dinner came, after which I could safely pass out. I knew that since I had essentially been up 36 hours by the time our flight to Capetown landed I really needed to sleep on the 12 hour flight. I managed to take a serious of tiger snoozes, unfortunately I think everyone on else on the plane, including the infant, who did impressively well, slept much better than I did. Middle seats + a hot cabin + no way to recline = sleepy Katie. Also, on a side note, bringing slippers onto the plane is one of the greatest ideas I've ever had- both comfy and stylish!
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| The three Baltimore --> London --> Capetown amigos. |
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| Anyone who has known me for a significant length of time knows I hate selfies. I think they're ridiculous, especially because so many people take them seriously. There are a few exceptions, but selies are rarely a good look. Anyone who has known me for a significant length of time also knows I'm sarcastic, so therefore I love taking ridiculous, make fun of selfies selfies, so that's my goal for this trip. Take as many absurd, dramatic selfies as I can. So far, so good. |
I didn't really think about the flight time since I had been on transatlantic flights plenty of times before, but the 4 hour difference between our flight to London and our flight to Capetown made a huge difference. You're just antsy and restless and nothing is worse than waking up from a post meal nap to see that there are still 9 hours left of flying. While not particularly comfortable, the flight went smoothly and Barbara, the owner of the lodge where we are staying, met us at the airport to bring us into town.
Barbara is the epitome of an excellent host. Not only did she pick us up, she gave us a wonderful minitour/summary of the changes in South Africa since Apartheid, gave us lots of tips for safety and getting around, set us up in our lovely rooms, and even went out to by adapters for our adapters since the electrical outlets in the Lodge, for some odd reason, are different than that elsewhere in Africa.
I think I had romanticized this trip and what I'd be seeing too much before I came. After leaving the airport and hopping on the main road, immediately you were surrounded by slums. Called "informal settlements" or "informal townships" there are the areas that typically housed blacks during Apartheid. I'll get more to the settlements later, since that's actually what our studio is about- Khayelitsha, [click this white box! Khayelitsha] the largest of the informal settlements, but it was shocking to see just how third world parts of this country is, and to see the disparity of wealth. Literally a two lane highway divided these rusty tin roofed huts from sprawling gated, middle and upper middle class homes. I didn't take pictures as we were in a car and I wasn't expecting such a sight, but I think that's when it hit me that while filled with absolutely gorgeous natural features and some nice developed areas, that is by far the 1% of how these people live. Barbara also filled us in on the politics and (cover your eyes, Dad) gang activity in the area, which was really helpful information because I didn't know much about either. In a nutshell, the gangs are mostly in the informal settlements and are often commandeered by drug lords, particularly those who sell "tick," a form of cocaine. As Barbara put it, "if you do it once, you'll be dead in a matter of 5 years" because the drug not only melts your brain, but runs in dangerous circles. Also interesting, which I didn't know, is that Capetown is governed by a resistance group. The African National Congress (think Mandela) governs the country, but the Democratic Alliance group rules locally. Despite both of those things, Capetown is still significantly safer than both Johannesburg and Pretoria, the two other capitals, which says a lot about the conditions.
Once we got here, we all took a solid two hour nap before meeting up with Sidney, our professor. He and his wife met us and went over our itinerary for the week which is jam packed with fun, touristy things like a tour of the Cape and an overnight village to Stellenbosch in South African wine country to work for our studio like meeting with local officials and others who have studied informal settlements and Khayelitsha specifically. Following our meeting our group of 5 walked around Main Street Observatory (Observatory is the neighborhood we're in) which was adorable filled with lots of shops, cafes and bars. This area is traditionally a young, student enclave, which was very evident with tons of similar hostels and lodges nearby and eateries that seem to cater to a younger crowd. We stopped at an Asian place for lunch, hit the grocery store, and are now taking it easy, forcing ourselves to stay awake until a reasonable hour so we can go to bed and start trying to get our biological clocks adjusted.
A very pleasant surprise was the cost of living. 1 USD roughly equals 10 SA Rand, so I knew that seeing 100s and 1000s on prices would be normal, but I didn't have any idea of how much things actually cost down here. My lunch, which consisted of a massive plate of chow mein (I needed two leftover boxes for what I didn't eat), two spring rolls and a bowl of egg drop soup that I kid you not was larger than a Panera bread bowl was R64, so about $6.40. I literally brought home three to-go containers. At the grocery store I bought a bag of clementines, 2 apples, a loaf of bread, butter, milk, cereal, jelly, wafers and a liter of water and it cost me R113, or 12 bucks. Not a bad deal for a baller on a budget like myself.
I'm tired of typing, so I'm going to shut up now, but I'll be posting lots more this upcoming week when we're doing much of our touristy/introduction to Capetown things.
The weather here is kind of strange, while Mediterranean for the most part, within our day here has gone from very sunny, to severe wind and chill, to 10 minute rainstorm, to sunny again to now overcast and damp, but hey, when this is the view of your lodge (in blue), even with clouds you can't really complain.
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