photo by JDS
9 Things We Have Gotten Used To and Embraced:
1. The left side
As you may know, South Africa was at one time under British rule. That is evident in a couple ways but one of the most obvious is that they drive on the WRONG side of the road. When we first arrived, it only took a few instances of looking the wrong way before crossing the street before the left side became the right side.
After a week in northeastern South Africa on semester break I can now say that I have driven on and become comfortable with the left side. But have no fear America, I will gladly drive on the right side of the road when I return.
Another note on cars in SA, 95% of them have a manual transmission. The search to find an automatic for vacation for useless Americans was a joy. I have brushed up on my manual driving skills, some may say lack-of-skills. A friend bravely let me drive his car one afternoon giving me some pointers and practice behind the wheel. I wasn’t allowed out of the parking lot but I think I kind of got the hang of it. Only stalled out once.
Another thing they do on the left here is pass people. For example in stairwells, I’m always going down the side that everyone else is going up. It is natural and instinct for me to go to the right when passing someone but I’ve begun to think in the world of lefts.
2. Military time
In the U.S. the idea of a 24-hour clock seemed impossible to understand. After arriving in SA I was unpleasantly surprised that time is often communicated in this foreign clock. But after 2 months I can officially say that I can look at the clock on my circa 1999 cell phone and tell you what time it is without using all of my brain cells. Hey Army, you are really going to want me now.
3. Bare footedness
You may be wondering what we mean by this. Well one of the “characteristics” of Cape Town is that life is laid back and meant to be enjoyed at a slow pace. One way this is expressed is by walking around without shoes. The first time you see someone without their shoes on in public you think something must have happened to their shoes because no one just walks around barefoot, right? Wrong. Here you can go to class, breakfast, lunch, dinner, the mall, the grocery store, to the movies, shopping, on the bus, almost anywhere, barefoot. I have seriously considered trying this out for a day but I thought everyone would stare at my feet. They wouldn’t. It would have been normal. Maybe I’ll eventually muster up the courage to try it. Keep you posted.
4. The conversion rate
This is one of the greatest beauties of traveling abroad, well traveling outside of Europe I suppose. The conversion rate has wavered between 7.2 and 7.8 rand to the dollar. Our first couple visits to restaurants and stores, we were slightly alarmed by the prices we saw but once you stop thinking in dollars you realize that an amazing piece of steak can be had for the bargain price of R80 = less than $11. The conversion rate is one reason why the three of us are pretty sure we have gained weight… (Refer to the food blog if you care to see exactly how).
5. The wind
There are only 2 occasions when we don’t embrace the wind. The first is at the beach. There can be a light breeze inland but when you reach the beach there are tropical storm sized gusts which don’t make for ideal sunbathing sessions. The second occasion is when you are getting ready in the morning and you think the wind wont be too bad so you decide to wear a dress and then BAM, you can imagine how we walk around on those days.
Otherwise, we love the wind. It cools us off and occasionally brings gust of ocean-smell to our backyard, giving us the illusion we leave on the beach.
6. Howzit?
This is a common way to greet someone here. After you hear it a few times, it becomes natural and somewhat addicting because it is so fun to say. Try it sometime, you wont be disappointed.
Other South African lingo we’ve learned and use:
Tomato Sauce= ketchup
Chips= fries (or almost always means fries)
Curios= souvenirs
Take away= to go
Petroil= gas
Lekker= cool
Sundowner= cocktail
Serviette= napkin
University/uni/varsity= School but when you say ‘school’ here, people think you are referring to high school and give you a funny look
7. Buying electricity
Before coming here we read the blog of a fellow badger in Cape Town so we knew that we would have to go buy electricity. So when we arrived it did not come as a total shock. To keep the lights on in most houses requires that you buy electricity credits from the grocery store. You get a long multi-digit code on your receipt that you then take home and plug into your electricity meter, which in our case is a less attractive box by the front door. This may seem unnecessary to some but we have grown to appreciate it. Because we have to physically go out buy it and we can watch our credits depreciate, it has made us aware of our energy consumption, which we think is kinda of cool. I speak as the least green person in the house that having to buy electricity is a great idea and could be the solution to global warming. Patent pended :)
8. Cheap great wine
Some of you may not know that South Africa is home to some of the world’s finest wines. The landscape in the Western Cape, the region of South Africa where Cape Town is located, is extremely diverse and perfect for growing grapes. This means this area of the world produces a variety of wonderful wines. On top of it all, wine is inexpensive. We can drink a quality bottle of wine for about $5 US. Amazing.
9. Beach
Being less than 15 minutes away from the closest beach is a blessing and a curse. We can basically go to the beach any time it is nice, and not too windy out. Coming from Wisconsin and an Atlantic coast with mediocre beaches, we are taking full advantage of the white sand and sparkling waters even to the detriment of our schoolwork :)
8 Things We Have Gotten Used To But Have Yet To Fully Embrace
1. Waiting for the bill
As you all know, we love to eat out and we do it often. However like most of the world, in South Africa when you are done with a meal you have to ask for the bill. It never will just come to the table after the food is taken away. Ever. This is a nice idea because waiters aren’t rushing you through a meal but we are too impatient to wait for the bill. At least I think that is our problem. Either way, we still don’t like it.
2. Transportation -Mini buses, Jammie buses, cabs, no car
The three of us are used to not having a car at our disposal, we have done it for the past 2 years. So coming here we knew we would have to take advantage of the public and university transportation to get around. Alas, it is still an inconvenience. BUT we aren’t letting us stop us from exploring.
The school bus is called a Jammie. Alex hates this name almost more than she hates catching one every day.
Mini buses are a HUGE mode of transportation. You can get just about any where in them, in fact I’m pretty sure you could make it across the whole country in one if you tried hard enough. They are big vans that stop and pick up people along their intended route for a low, low price (like $1 cheap). There is always one man driving the van and another yelling out the window announcing where they are going. It is this constant yelling that we haven’t really embraced but it no longer comes as a shock.
Cabs, we use more than the average person ever should but they get us everywhere we want to go.
3. Modern technologies that we don’t have- air conditioning and a dryer
Air conditioning, okay not a necessity we realize, but we aren’t used to sweltering heat in February and March.
A dryer. We share a washing machine with our neighbors but everything gets hung on a line in the backyard. On a nice, hot, breezy day clothes will dry in an hour. But these days are far and in between. Sometimes it will take all day for loads to dry. Annoying for sure.
4. Bedroom critters
This is only partially our fault, well my fault because I keep our back door open almost all the time. Kristine and Alex have both had cockroaches. I had a variety of little critters around my room and IN MY BED! I’m also the worst at dealing with bugs and I think the bugs know it. Last night there was a little praying mantis next to my pillow. Yuck. Gross. Ew. GO INTO SOMEONE ELSES BEDROOM!
5. Milk
We realize first that we are milk snobs coming from America’s Dairyland, so we can’t always expect the best. What we dislike about milk here is that is goes bad so quickly. On more than one occasion I have poured sour milk into my morning coffee without realizing it until later on in the day. Not a happy occasion. Maybe this is just saying something about all the preservatives that we put into our milk in the US but here milk only takes about 5 days for milk to go bad. Boo that.
6. House security
We, thankfully, haven’t had any security breeches at our cute, little, innocent house. This however comes at a cost. Everything has a lock. Everything. So when leaving the house every lock has to be checked and the security alarm has to be set. To get out of and into our house you have 3 locks to get through. This becomes an annoying process if you are trying to run in or out. But it does keep our things and ourselves safe so we really can’t complain too much about it.
7. Internet
This has taken us the longest to get used to. Each of us, at the beginning of the semester, had to buy Internet packages from the wireless Internet provider in our house. We bought, or so we thought, we bought enough “credits” that would last us through the semester. FALSE. We have become less conservative with our internet usage and it is eating up our credit. Some of our favorite sites NYTimes, the iTunes store, Facebook, YouTube, People.com, checking the NCAA bracket are what we call internet suckers. Uploading or downloading info drains our internet quota. South Africa is working on expanding their internet bandwidth, especially in time for the World Cup, but it has a ways to go until it is up to par with other parts of the world. Until then it’s expensive and on occasion very slow.
8. School, it cramps our style. Enough said.
