Oh the first day we also went out to a restaurant called Moyo. Coolest thing ever. It's also called the tree top place because some of the tables are in the trees. They come around and "paint" your face with little white dots, have live music, and the entire place is outside in the "forest." It was similar to a buffet. I had impala. (like the antelope creature) But no ostrich.
On the taxi ride there (it was 50 minutes) I got to see the wealth disparity. Not five minutes from the city I saw a township outside my window. Unbelievable. It was a life changing moment. Honest to god three blocks away there is a city that looks like DC and then you see rows and rows and rows of metal "houses" that are 12 feet by 8 feet.
Oh oh and when we were out the first night I ended up talking to some guys from the Brazilian rugby team. They were nice.
The second day we went to a market. It's called the white person market. The food there was amazing. It's not like a farmers market but more like a ton of restaurants. So chic. The entire city is chic though (this is indicative of where I was hanging out). After the market we went to UCT (the University of Cape Town) with some study abroad students who room with one of my friends back at UNH.
That night we went to a futball game at the World Cup stadium. Two Cape Town teams were duking it out. There were a lot of sea people there.
After the futball game we went to Mitchell's.
(Side note: Ok everyone in Cape Town is gorgeous. Guys, girls, everyone. They are so so tall and dress very metro and chic. (again this is indicative of where I was hanging out though). I may go back at some point so I can find my future husband. I'm talking gorgeous.) Anyways, there were these two attractive guys with scarves on at Mitchell's. Brandie and I were like we need to get a picture with them to show everyone how attractive South Africans are. So we go over and ask if we can take a picture. They say yes and we end up talking. They were from Sweden. How lame. It actually ended up being ok though because we talked for two hours until the bar closed. I talked to one of them and Brandie talked to the other. We talked about EVERYTHING from drugs to politics to how to pound it in cool ways (like the handshake). I never talk about politics with anyone because I think I sound undereducated but we did. I also tried smooch (which he said was illegal in the US but I don't think it is). It's pretty much chew but in small pouches. You just leave it under your gum. I definitely could feel it.
Fun Feeling: I knew nothing about Cape Town before I got there. I would have never considered visiting it. I was completely blown away with what I saw. At times (like when I was going through the company gardens) I felt like I was in DC and at others it felt like San Francisco.
Fun Fact 2: Someone started a rumor that there is a Chipotle in Cape Town. I was beyond excited. That is a lie though. There is no Chipotle. If I found out who started the rumor, they are going overboard. No. Joke.
Fun Fact 3: I think I have a little too much Grandpa Hopkins in me. J In most of taxi rides I would take shot gun and talk to the taxi drivers. About everything. I learned so much about the country and the politics. You learn so much more than if you go on a tour and listen to the guide. I asked one guy what the interest rate on loans is (21%...crazy since ours is what… .75 or something super low) and he went on and on about how he thinks the country is going into a civil war and how unemployment is 50% (also crazy). One of our taxi drivers was a political activist during the apartheid. That was cool. Another one had four daughters who he struggled to take care of. He wanted to get sponsored from someone in the US or Canada so he could feed them. You also find awesome things to do. One of the guys was going to set up a futball game in one of the townships that we could participate in. I really wanted to but because of lack of internet we were unable to.
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