"the lighthouse just bitch-slapped my retina!"

(Picture if of one of the night-time beach walks that Michaelle and I have gone on).

Alright, so some impressions of South Africa so far:
1. Still can’t get used to them driving on the other side of the road. Always go for the wrong side of the car. Pretty sure if I had to drive here I would crash.
2. I apologize ahead of time if I come back to the States ending every sentence in “eh?” “Beautiful day, eh?” “Yeah, we had a great time, eh?” “Pass the salt, eh?” I’m very impressionable when it comes to picking up the way people talk. This one’s inevitable. Eh?
3. Trying to pick up a bit of Afrikaans. So far I can say “how are you?” which I’m not even going to attempt to spell. Then “good” or “cool” or “sweet” is “lekker”- got that one down. Then “thank you very much” sounds very much like “buy a donkey.” Slowly but surely. It’s harder for me to pick up a language without full emersion which is impossible here with all the English around me. Granted sometimes I can’t even understand when people are speaking English… sounds like a foreign language at times.
4. Veggie bombs are amazing. Last night Michaelle and I went to a braai that Sam (our downstairs musician neighbor) had invited us to and kept talking about all week. He ended up not making an appearance… passed out in his living room around 7pm. Classy dude that one. He’s also been paying Michaelle a whole lot of attention since we moved in. I’m highly amused by this. She is not. Regardless, last night we had a blast getting to know these two couples from Cape Town. They all work in the film industry and are down on vacation for a few weeks. So we braaied with them and they introduced us to veggies bombs- just a bunch of cut up veggies mixed together with olive oil and spices and wrapped in foil and put on the fire. Delish. I hadn’t actually expected to be able to eat anything since from what I understand typical braai fare is not very vegetarian friendly. Good surprise. Good people. Good fun. I ended up staying up and hanging out with them until early morning and then laid out on our balcony to watch the stars and then catch the first few rays of sunlight starting the day. Love this place. (Luckily I was not supposed to go into work this morning. Michaelle and I have been alternating mornings and it was her turn).
5. It kills me that the sun sets at about 5:30-6pm. Makes the day seem so short. And the days are just gonna keep getting shorter until the Solstice. Sigh. We have plans to celebrate the longest night of the year though. It’s gonna be rad.
6. Hummus is outrageously priced. Very sad times. However, they do have peanut butter here which made me very happy. The brand that we bought has a black cat on the label which for some reason tickles Michaelle beyond reason. Strange that one.
7. Instant coffee is very popular here. We’ve had to settle for it since we don’t have a coffee maker in our flat, but whenever we go over to other people’s houses and they offer us coffee it’s always the same instant Nescafe. I have many good memories of camping trips when I was younger and my mum always had instant Nescafe. Also on the Trans-Siberian Express I specifically remember drinking instant Nescafe all the time. So it’s kinda nostalgic. But I want some real coffee. Regardless, the big jar we bought when we first got here a little over a week ago is now half-empty. Very telling of my addiction (or maybe just adjusting to the time change. Yeah, that’s it.) And that I’m a bad influence on Michaelle who was all gung-ho about being off coffee for the summer. Heh.
8. Public transportation here sucks. No buses run between St. Francis Bay and Cape St. Francis. Or from Cape St. Francis to Jeffrey’s Bay or Port Elizabeth. We’d have to go all the way over to Humansdorp to catch a bus to anywhere. No bus to get us there though. This is one of our major frustrations right now since we have to rely on rides from people to get into town to do grocery shopping, laundry, etc. Still keeping my fingers crossed that someone will lend us a couple of bikes.
9. People don’t recycle here. Can’t tell you how many people Michaelle and I had to talk to about how to recycle… there aren’t any recycling bins anywhere around here, then there was some rumor of special bags that we could get at the grocery store (still have not located these mysterious bags), then about there being a center in St. Francis Bay that no one could tell us the location of, then finally we spoke with the woman who runs the small shop on the opposite side of our building and apparently she’s the one to go to. So we just bring our recycling down to her. Problem solved. Whew.
10. It was 13 degrees (Celsius) here the other evening and everyone was wrapped up in sweatshirts and talking about how cold it was. Yeah. This is winter. I’ve been enjoying it. Though I don’t think I could live here year-round. I love my cold weather too much. Happy with this weather for my summer though :)

P.S. I'm leaving you with a picture of Nip. One of the three Rock-hoppers at the lighthouse right now. His brother's name is Tuck.