5 flags become 2

I purchased 5 flags (well, purchased 4, was given one) for the world cup: Spain, Brazil, South Africa, USA, and Italy.
Today the number of usable flags became 2.

Also, as an awesome anthropologist blending in with the locals, I was the only one in the entire pub supporting the USA. Having everyone cheer when you feel a crushing sense of defeat is saddening indeed.

But it's nice that there's a collective pride in Africa due to Ghana's win.

In other news -- up until this past year I had never gotten a pedicure frightened to death of those stories of unsanitary beauty salons my mom relayed to me from some TV show back in the 90s. Thoughts of deformed feet and fungus infestation kept me far away and at bay. Today I went to a Chinese salon in Cape Town. The itchiness in my heel better be from the new stockings.

Espana, Espana, nana

Again I forgot my camera. Aye, never learn. Luckily there will be another Italy match on Thursday and another Espana match on Friday. I've got my flag ready for Spain, still need to buy one for Italy.

Today it was off to the water front to watch the Spanish match with a bunch of Spanish people! Exciting, seeing as how this time Spain actually won! In my excitement I managed to devour a dinner's worth of corn nuts, chips, beef jerky (or deer jerky, whatever it is they have in South Africa), and dried fruit. Og, I need to go on a serious weight loss plan.

Moonlighted as a Spaniard, as I was asked "Where are you from?" on the streets several times, and each time I would answer "Espanaaa!" and then run away before I was forced to respond with any of my well practiced spanish phrases (necessito comer - I need to eat, estoy hambrienta - I'm starving, te amo - I love you).

Ended up at a bar where we met up with the Italians from the previous day. D, a very tall and humorous spanish guy, took my good friend A out to see his boat. This launched the Italians into a heated conversation. Apparently in Italy, the sexual come-on is "would you like to come see my butterfly collection?" (those Italians sure know how to get women). According to Steven Pinker it's "would you like to see my etchings?" (no witty comment about Harvard professors getting women comes to mind). According to the Germans I met at WorldMUN it was "would you like to see my stamp collection?". I informed them that the Americans were far less subtle and our "booty calls" are somewhere along the lines of "shall I get a condom?".

Other interesting encounters for the night included: a Japanese lady who kept telling me how pretty I was and showed me off to her friends. She also told me to beware of Italian men, like G, who was standing there smiling sheepishly; that and a whole host of Irish guys dressed up in communist outfits (they were supporting North Korea in the match today - a shocking 7-0 score, yikes!).

All in all a successful evening. I'm bringing my camera with me everywhere from now on. Fsho.

Italia, Italia, Italia... la la

Watching football with two Italians with "mojo" resulted in possibly the cutest thing I've seen in ages.

Two guys, both with impecable hair, ray ban sunglasses, and outfits that put my frumpness to shame, sit with me at a table in Claremont where we have just eaten almost everything on the sushi menu for half price. Each guy has one chopstick at times in his mouth at times between his teeth as he stares agonizingly at the TV screen showing the New Zealand vs. Italy match. At Italy's free kick, G, the more easily handsome one to my left, holds onto his chopstick with both hands and hides his face behind it, lowering his head down to the table peeking through where he can. D walks stands up and sits down, then stands up, then sits down again. He also employs the typical "what the fuck" Italian hand motion: touch your thumb to your middle finger and then wave your hand toward and away from your chest. For more emphases use two hands. For even more, take the hands up to move behind and in front of your head.
By the end of the match there is a pile of wooden shavings heaped neatly on our table.

I wish I had brought my camera.

On being fat and dumb

I thought that China had prepared me for fakes by ohhohhoh how I was taken hook line and sinker for this one. Herbal Infusions.

And here I thought I was lucky for the free trial sized extras

Now I check all backs before buying anything.

Also, KFC in South Africa. That's a zinger chicken and a hash brown. Omnomnom. I hate winter cuz I gain weight. Now I'm going through two winters. Fudge. (mmn, that sounds good right now)

Box Master ftw

Kat's Weekends: Episode One

The ongoing adventures of our tactless, gullible, and adventure seeking heroine, K, and her attempts to eke out a living on her own in Cape Town, South Africa. Where going outside after dark (approximately 6 pm, season winter) is never a good idea.

Day of the week: Saturday

Woke up planning to head out at 9 am, hah! If I can barely wake up for work by 9 am I wonder what compelled me to believe I could do so for a weekend. By 9:45 am my flatmate, A, an assertive woman with a head full of curly orangish-brown hair who is living in Cape Town to study english, was knocking adamantly on my door insisting that I wake up. And what A wants, A gets.

We walked over to the train station and rode a minibus. To enlighten those of you who have never been to South Africa, a mini-bus takes after the first half of the name much more than the second. Mini, cramped, smelly, loud it is. Bus-like (in the spacious and regulated sense of the word) it is not. Imagine a soccer mom transporting, say, the entire soccer team in one mini van. Then turn the mom into a driver who could give a Shanghai taxi driver a run for their money and one of the kids into a scrawny guy who yells out destinations really loudly. Next stop... biscuit mill market....

Once at the actual biscuit mill my day brightened considerably. It was a market of the best kind - free samples everywhere and delicious food for cheap! There were bales of hay lying around for people to lounge on and different vendors selling food from around the world.

Oh, yum.

It was shaping up to be an average day at the market until we meandered over to another bakery stand and was stopped by a guy who started the conversation with general questions: where are you from? What are you doing in Cape Town? - Questions I answer every day. And a proposition: Now it's your turn to ask me three questions, and if you like the answers then you will let me take you out for dinner and some drinks tomorrow. Without waiting for the third question he took down my number and A and I bid him farewell, thinking to ourselves that we would most likely never hear from him again.

After wandering around the market for an hour or so more we decided it was time to head over to the France vs. South Africa rugby match that we had been given free tickets to by the French rugby players we had met at a club the other night. Unfortunately this meant getting back into the transit they call the mini-bus. Oddly enough, as we started our wait on the street outside the market, who should we run into but the guy from the bakery stand. He offered us a ride to the hotel where we were to pick up our rugby tickets - not only that but also a ride to the stadium which was apparently much further away than we had originally anticipated. This proved to be an interesting experience. Though my entirety experience with this person consisted of a 45 minute car ride, and as a social anthro concentrator I would hate to generalize... (or do anthropologists love to generalize, I can't ever remember), but A and I succinctly summed him up with a new word that I was honored to add to A's english vocabulary - narcissistic. More subtly though I would say he's eccentrically self absorbed. To his credit he did drive us to the rugby stadium in traffic. +2 gentleman points.

I could see their expressions as they "scrubbed"

Have you ever watched rubgy? It is the strangest sport - a mix between soccer, football, and utter mind numbing scrambling. Turns out this match was actually a rather important one as the stadium was pretty much packed and cars were parked all the way until into the freeway exit. Shame I didn't quite get the sport since I was six rows up from the field. In the end, despite my "Alles les bleus!" chants that I had learned in France during the 2004 world cup, the score was 45-17 South Africa.

After the game, as I was getting on the train I had a run in with a pick pocket. He literally reached into my jacket pocket and went for my new camera. Luckily I was fast enough to stop him from grabbing anything and the security guards nearly jumped the man. In my fervor to save my beloved camera I also ended up stripping the man of his jacket. Who's the pick pocket now!

From the Cape Town train station we mini-bussed it (sigh) over to Sea Point.

Now I'm writing on Sunday and much has happened between then and now. Ah, curses, I'll never be able to catch up and get decent amounts of sleep. I suppose I'll just resort to something I do often and well: Lists & bullet points

- Met a guy at a gas station who took my number

- Ate less than satisfactory Soondobu

• one minus points for asian food in cape town

- US & England tied

• We deserved the win because English goalies actually do suck we're awesome

- Said farewell to French rugby players who provided us with the free tickets to the game

• Next stop for them is Argentina - hope they fare better there

- Craziest part of my whole day

• Walk/ran the 5 blocks distance from the bar to home at 12 am. Could have been shot/mugged/raped/any and all of the above, but arrived home safely and out of breath.

Our next episode, Sunday, will not be aired, but it involved shinanigans ranging from 5,000R dresses to 2 soccer teams packed onto one mini bus to good chinese food (one + pt for cape town) to salsa dancing to germany beating the shit out of the australians. Till next time,

fin

Kat's Kitchen: Episode One

The ongoing adventures of our cooking skill-less heroine, K, and her attempts to eke out a living on her own in Cape Town, South Africa. Where going outside after dark (approximately 6 pm, season winter) is never a good idea.

Meal of the day - dinner.

Step one: Turn on the fire... though standard procedure this step has its difficulties. This time, for instance, K had to turn the knob way past any drawn symbol to light the stove and then turn it back down to an agreeable temperature. This step took around 5 minutes and some frustration.

Pretty blue flame....

Step two: Fry salami - try to move it around in the pan but get scared when the oil starts spitting at you. Finally manage to pull it out when it is nice and black around the edges with the consistency of a charcoal briquette. Is it even ok to fry salami? Whatever, it's practically pepperoni isn't it.. but bigger. Slice up some cheese. Take crackers out of carton and arrange them nicely on a plate (can do). Wash spinach, put it in a bowl. Cut up pieces of today's leftovers from lunch: cheese and chicken quesadilla (a girl's gotta plan ahead). Et voila!

Mn, hungry

Step Three: Realize, after scarfing down a deeelicious dinner, that you could have set off the smoke alarm had there been a smoke alarm. Notice a thin veil that has gone into your bedroom and a scent as though someone has lit up the cold cut portion of a deli.

Reverse S curved. (ok, no one's going to get that reference)

Step Four: Put to use good lessons learned in college. That's what a college education is for, after all.

I knew I needed those books over the summer.

fin