To start off, let me clear any confusion that I once again do not own a TV and therefore have no awareness of Olympic activities whatsoever.
Friday - My parents are reading this blog so I won't go into details. But after a 100 minute "power-hour", it was bound to be a good time.
Went to Old Biscuit Mill round two Saturday morning, but this time I went into it with a strategy and didn't entirely stuff myself with delicious fresh food. After many hours wandering the fabulous market, a few girls and myself went to visit Long Street, the hub for most activity, in Cape Town. By day it's known for the shopping, by night the crazy night life and bars. To protect the stores, all of them have a locked gate at the door where customers have to get buzzed in or out. Prior to entering the store, my friend Meredith took a picture of the view down the street, assuming it was quite harmless. After we entered the store, some homeless guy came scurrying up to the other side of the gate screaming at her for taking a picture of him and that he deserved money for this service. A whole 3 minutes later, which is really a long time to be yelled at, he left. We also visited a market area where all the dinky overpriced trinkets and jewelry are sold, a place where everyone is forcing you to buy their stuff. Drives me insane. You walk through, and get stopped by someone saying "Here, my lady, look at this! I give you deal!" I did however end up getting a sweet green bangle for half the price the vendor was asking for. Which ended up being $3 USD. I came home just in time to catch the story of two of my housemates carrying another guy on our program down a mountain. Apparently the hiker, Nate, was climbing Devil's Peak with two other girls, slipped and tumbled down the extremely steep trail, broke his foot and gashed his head open. The program director got the SOS call while he was at our house, and two of my housemates volunteered to go with the program director, up the mountain, to carry Nate down. Why couldn't the park patrol people help? They didn't answer their phone. South African's like to have their weekends off apparently.
Relaxed night at the house on Saturday, only to prepare for our 7AM pickup for shark cage diving! After a two hour drive to the location, we were fed breakfast, watched an "inspirational" video about sharks, and headed out onto the boat. Twenty divers on board, and zero room. The concept though is ridiculous. First the crew tries to reel in the shark by throwing bait out near the boat. Honestly seeing the shark from the boat was almost as cool as being underwater with it. Five divers went at a time, fully uniformed in the most difficult wetsuits to put on, into a cage mostly submerged under water. Since we don't wear any breathing apparatus, there is about a foot and a half of clearance at the top for breathing room in between spottings. The water was absolutely freezing. When I stepped into the cage, I literally thought I was going to get hypothermia because it was so flippin' hard to breath. To minutes later I was totally used to it and it was fine. The crew scopes out the sharks, then yells "DOWN" when we have a good view and all five bodies crawl down the cage for as long as we can hold our breath. The positioning of our hands and feet in the cage is crucial, incase a shark gets too close and decides to take something with him. They were huge. And ridiculously ugly. And at least two rows of teeth very visible. Words can't really describe, but anything you see on shark week, I was there. And I'm still alive.Close to being just as entertaining as the sharks was the crew member throwing tuna in the air off the boat for birds to catch. It was unreal. Quite the coordinated birds.
Though I took a motion sickness pill prior to departure, it definitely didn't work. I was sicker than a dog. When all was done, land had never felt so good. Another thing checked off the South Africa bucket list.
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