Rolling Stone

I write to you as a man with a home. It turns out that my nervousness about moving into the apartment was unfounded, since all I had to do was drive to the building (a task that was not without its driving foibles) and tell the doorman that I was moving into number 902. The keys appeared and I began to get acquainted with my new home.

The first thing that struck me was the security of the building. To get in, you have to pass a doorman who's there 24/7. Once you manage to get into the elevator, you have to use a special key that allows you access to only your floor- in my case floor 9. Once there, you are faced with a large steel door which requires yet another key. After getting through that one, you proceed to your door, which is of course has a key lock. On top of all that, there are key locks on all the doors to the patio (yes, we have a patio), and even between the main living room/kitchen and the bedroom! Access to the garage (which you can get to from each floor) has a long code to input, and all the stairwell exits are exit only (I learned this the hard way, trying to get up a floor and having to walk to the bottom). If I had any worries about my security, they would have evaporated by now.



The apartment itself is really fantastic. It's on the top floor of the building, which is literally on one of the main cultural squares- Greenmarket Square. From the patio, you can see all that is going on as well as a beautiful view of Table Mountain. There's air conditioning in all the rooms, as well as on the patio, a full kitchen with a big fridge, dishwasher, and stove as well as TV with a comfy couch. It's pretty well stocked, with a french press coffee maker, an ironing board and iron, and cutlery, etc. I can't imagine how much a place like this would cost in New York City, but I know it would be too much to afford until I got pretty far career-wise. Here, though, it only costs 750 Rand a week, which translates to less than 100 dollars a week. How insane is that? And since I'm splitting it with Toukam, my budget will be able to breath easy. My sincere gratitude goes out to the people who found this for Toukam. The only complaint I have is that there is no internet access in the apartment, so I'll either continue going to internet cafes (there's a really cheap one nearby), start going to work early/stay late to use their internet, or maybe even get internet here for the time we're staying. I guess we'll figure all that out this week.


As for the building itself, there's a pool on the roof (unheated, I think) as well as a gym (which I can't figure out how to get into). I'm really pumped to be living here, and I'm sure Toukam will be too. The location could not be better- there's a bunch of great restaurants right next to us, an outdoor African Market in the square, and a lot of great people. What a blessing this place has turned out to be!

I got a nice feeling for the apartment, but started to feel a little hungry, so I headed out once again to try and grab some groceries. Unfortunately, my hunger got the best of me and I stopped by a cafe for a chocolate croissant, and they pointed me in the direction of the supermarket, called "Pick 'n Pay". Although almost every store in this town seems to be closed on Sundays, this one was open, and I began to stock up for the week and the summer. Roaming the shelves, I picked up everything from sugar and flour to chutney and apples. The rumors were true- food is CHEAP here! I can't remember any specific figures, but all of my groceries for this week as well as all the essentials for the summer was less than 75 bucks. I ended up taking two trips, since there is only so much I can carry by myself. On the second run, I tried to get a couple bottles of South African wine to have for when Toukam arrived to start getting used to this region's wines before we head to the wine-country, but I found out the hard way that South African law forbids the sale of alcohol on Sundays. After the cashier scanned the bottles, the manager came rushing up and started chastising the poor woman for ringing them up, and even went to far as making a loud PA announcement reminding the other cashiers that alcohol is not sold on Sundays. I felt really bad for the cashier, but she was laughing about it by the end. I guess I'll hold off my "Pinotage" (the unique South African type of wine) purchases until tomorrow. Lesson learned!

After all these exciting produce-related venturings, I had built up an appetite. Now empowered with foodstuffs in my kitchen, I decided to meet the challenge of cooking head-on and started making grilled cheese sandwiches with an apple on the side. The meal turned out pretty well, with the bread not burnt but the cheese melted- hopefully a sign of successful culinary pursuits to come. Having been filled with the work of my hands, I left the building in search of a phone card and other things. I had wanted to go to the internet cafe I had been at yesterday but, surprise, it was closed. Thinking that I would be without access to email and blogging, I resigned myself to a disconnected day. Not so! I passed by an African trading store with an internet cafe inside. Going inside, I found the cafe in the back of the store's basement, in a room that had white tarps covering the walls. Interested more in the price of the internet ($1/hr) more than the aesthetic, reconnected there. The symphony of Kenyan voices only added to the experience.

Next up I took to the deserted streets of Cape Town in search of a phone card. I walked all the way to a gas station I had seen, but they didn't sell them. As I dejectedly walked back home, I took another shot in a ministore, and they had them! With the card, I think I can get about 10 cents a minute to the US- not too bad. I also looked for a power converter (oddly, South Africa has a unique plug that doesn't work with my travel pack if converters) but to no avail. I'll try tomorrow morning when more than one shop per block is open. Once I got back to the apartment, I began my domestic duties by ironing a bunch of the shirts I will be wearing to work this week. I gave ironing a nice old college try, but I just could not get them perfectly wrinkle-free! I did my best, and I'm hoping I will improve my form over the coming months.

My appetite being aroused after such manual labor, I began pondering what to make for dinner. I settled on a microwaved bag of assorted veggies and chicken breasts with chutney. The veggies were really great and fresh, and after sauteing the chicken with a little olive oil, I had a surprisingly nice meal in front of me. Tough simple, I hope that the success of this meal will lead to more complicated and more delicious meals once I get recipes and things. I enjoyed the meal, did the dishes, and went to use my phone card. It worked well at a payphone nearby, and it was nice to call home and hear the voices I'm so far away from. It would have been nice to have done that with Skype from inside the apartment, but what's the use in whining?

Tomorrow is my first day of work, starting at noon. I'm really excited both for the new experiences I will have and all that, but also to have something significant to be working my days around. Things actually get stressful when your main goal for the day is to find an internet cafe or phone card, which is silly- now I can put my energy towards something meaningful. I think I have a good feel for the route I'll take to the suburb where the office is, Noordhoek, but after that, I'm at a loss. You see, I have not been given either an address or phone number for the office here in South Africa. My email corrospondance has been silent on the issue, and their website only has their American information, which couldn't help me today because it's Sunday and won't help me in time for work tomorrow because of the time difference. So, unless there's an email from my employers in my inbox tomorrow morning, I'll drive down there and do my darndest to find the office through less conventional means. Who's up for an adventure?

Also, Toukam arrives tomorrow evening, which should be fun. It will be interesting to see how our experiences here differ- his being a paid intern at a consulting firm and my being an unpaid commuting intern at a nonprofit. Good times are to come, I am sure, and all the while our road trip into Africa shines on the horizon keeping us moving. Onwards and upwards!