Hello everyone!
This weekend was pretty busy with a couple braais, getting ready for school to actually begin, and worrying/being excited about World Cup Tickets. Friday night, our friend Steven had a braai at his place. The whole house and more people went so it was really nice to be able to cook our own food outside in the company of many fabulous people. Friday afternoon many of us in the house heard back from FIFA that we had received our world cup tickets! I unfortunately didn’t get the England vs. Algeria match, but I still ended up with the France vs. Uruguay match which is the opening day of the World Cup and the first match in Green Point Stadium.
Saturday yet again brought us to another braai, but this one was definitely more local. The restaurant, called Mzoli’s, is located in a township outside of the city a bit. The braai was actually rated one of the best places in the world to order fresh cooked meat by Andrew Zimmerman (sp?) on the Travel Channel. Our landlord’s friend Andrew took us in a big van and we arrived to music, dancing, and of course loads of meat. We all had a big table set up for us when we arrived. I actually ended up trying the lamb, chicken, and sausage that was served to us and have to admit that it tasted pretty good! I don’t think it will be a deal breaker for my vegetarianism though. We were there for about 5 hours eating, talking, dancing and enjoying the weather and the change of scenery. I was surprised to see this extremely large restaurant that is pretty famous around the world, located in a township. It felt kind of awkward at first, but after being there for a little bit, I realized that we were getting the real deal when it came to South African cuisine and atmosphere. Later in the afternoon we got an unfortunate call from one of our roommates who was on the bike and wine tour with some of our other roommates. To our extreme surprise, our housemate Jessica was clipped by a train while biking and had to go to the hospital for skin graph surgery and for her horribly broken arm. We are all extremely grateful that she is alive and will be out of the hospital this afternoon. She is apparently the first ever person to survive getting hit by a train in the Western Cape. Her parents are getting here today to bring her back to the house from the Stellenbosch hospital so we are all excited to see her and hope she has a quick recovery. All of us were pretty tired after a long day out in the sun and being pretty worried about Jessica, we went home and had a relaxing evening. As Jessica would have wanted though, we didn’t lose our morale and kept the spirits high all weekend.
Pretty much me in a nutshell
Dancer at Mzoli’s, ah!
Sunday was pretty chill all afternoon. I ended up going to bed at 8pm and waking up around 12:30 with my roommates to go watch the super bowl at the corner bar. The Corner Bar is our favorite spot for late-night samosas. They are honestly the best craving snack food ever with a shell similar to an egg roll stuffed with cheese, spinach, and onion. We had convinced the owner to keep the bar open for us until 5 in the morning so we could watch the game. Wow what a game though! Whodat think they goin’ beat dem Saints? I was pretty happy to see the Saints win, as was most everyone else at the bar. It makes the Vikings look good, and New Orleans could use a little good news now-a-days. After being there till 4:45am, I was literally sleep walking home with my roommates, ha.
Samosas!
Super Bowl at the Corner Bar
Monday was our first real day of class and I had a lecture and three hour lab, so it wasn’t too bad. It is nice to get a routine finally going with classes. I still don’t really know what my third class is going to be, but I think I will be able to figure it out by tomorrow afternoon. I am planning on dropping African Music and taking another history course about South Africa. The language classes were super intense and I don’t want to be stressed because of classes this semester. I only had one class today, but went to the library and figured out how to print from computers and got my wireless internet set up on campus. Today was also the first day of the “first come, first serve” final ticket sales phase of the World Cup. I ended up applying for Italy vs. Paraguay at Green Point Stadium, and also applied for the USA vs. Slovenia game in Johannesburg. I figured I will give it a shot and try to make it out there if at all possible. To be able to see the USA play in the world cup would be pretty much the coolest thing I can imagine right now. I think I have World Cup fever going.
I suppose since it is my birthday we are going to get dinner somewhere tonight. We’re going to save the whole “21st Birthday Night” for the weekend. I haven’t really done anything exciting yet though. There is nothing too special about being 21 in South Africa, ha. Facebook messages have been nice coming from people back home. Thanks a lot! ☺
Until next time.