Elevators

This morning, I got in the elevator, and the guy ahead of me said, "What floor?" And so I said, "4". So he punched 4 and 5. So he must have been going to 5.

But I have this thing where I hate the silence in the elevator and so I continued talking. I said, "And 2, and 3." Because it's supposed to be funny, because I noticed that he was on 5. And I always hate it when people punch in 2 or 3 because those people should just walk up the stairs and also because since I'm on 4, I want to be the first stop. So I assumed he would be annoyed that I said 4, and then I wanted to let him know I felt his pain. So then the elevator was slowing down to stop at 4, and so I go, "Have a good daaaaaaaaaaaa-y" (singing opera) and then the elevator took about 10 more seconds to open, and then I said, "I said that too soon!"

I wish I could just ride the elevator in silence like everybody else in the whole world.

South Africa

Was so much fun.

Now keep reading my blog because lots of interesting things happen to me all the time.

Today I bought two chairs on craigslist, for example.

Two More Afrikaans semi-swears

Goeie Genigtig
Pronounced: Huy-A-Ha-Nook-Tuk with the H's very phlegmy.

It means, "goodness gracious"



Vonk Prop
Pronounced: foonk proep

I can't remember what it means, but you use it in the car.

New York City

7 hour layover.

Called mom and dad.

Ate.

Walked around.

Shopped for stuff.

Bought a coffee cup.

Read my book.

Went to the bathroom, where -- and I am not kidding about this -- (and stop reading if you're a proper person with manners or a human being) I pooped the word "hi", lowercase, complete with a dotted "i". I couldn't believe it. I reached to get my camera to take a picture, but the automatic flusher thought I was done and flushed it all away. And then I cursed technology forever.

Goodbye New York with your fancy toilets with unforgiving motion detectors.

The Flight to New York

So I don't know how it happened but I made it into First Class again all the way home. Maybe it was because I totally flirted with the guy at the desk at the airport in Cape Town and he green lighted me in First Class all the way home, even from New York to Minneapolis! He said, do you know your priority? (Which I think means, what is the seniority of the person who you're flying under) and I actually winked at him and said "TOP priority." It was so worth it. And I met a nice old lady whose luggage was completely filled with only yarn, and then I accidentally walked in on an even older lady in the bathroom because she was too old to lock the door. I felt so bad because I said, "OH I'M SO SORRY WOW THAT WAS REALLY RUDE WOOPS I MEAN GOSH I'M SORRY I DIDN'T WANT TO..." and then I saw that it was a really old lady and then I felt so super bad becuase she reached out to shut the door but she was much much too old to get up so fast and I stood there watching all of this and then I went to another stall.

So I killed some time at the airport and got 20 BUCKS BACK at the VAT counter! But the 20 bucks was in rand and so I had to spend the money at the airport kind of like vintage Wheel of Fortune. YOU WIN! But you win the fun of buying crappy stuff for your house! How about a porcelain dog statue? YAY! But I bought a monkey for Murphy that was really really cute and it made me happy.

So the flight was fun. The flight attendant guy that I hit it off with was so super nice that he kept bringing me alcohol. I got very very tipsy on the plane. I was SOBBING and then LAUGHING and then SOBBING and then LAUGHING while watching Kit Kittredge: An American Girl. And then I took this photo because I was so nostalgic about flying and being above the clouds and it was SO beautiful (and I was buzzing):



And then I took this photo because first class is SO awesome!:


Can you see all the space at the end of my feet? Can you see how wide the chair is? Can you see my special down-like blanket? Can you see I remembered to bring my slippers with me on my trip? Can you see my tonic water, my individual salt and pepper shakers, my bun with butter? And that was before dinner people! Can you see Kitt's neighbor, so happy before her home was taken away by the evil evil bank?

I didn't bother getting out of the airplane in Senegal on the way home. I already been there. But man do they wake you up. DING DING DING DING. Attention everyone. Ten dudes from Senegal will now get on the plane and remove the cushions from your seat and run their hands inside the compartments of your suitcase and say "ma'am is this your bag?" and then spray some sort of deodorizer up and down the aisles of the plane and then you might get a chance to sleep after that but probably not.

p.s. Kitt Kittredge is really really good.

Last Day in Cape Town

OK OK OK!

I have been back for 16 days. It's time to finally finish the story of my trip to Africa. Besides I'm dying to post important things like singing random tactless songs about babies coming back to grieving mothers.

So on the very last day of my trip I begged Leigh to hang out with me (Leigh is the guy in the photos with a tank top on.) Everybody else was working. Mineska had school and couldn't meet up with us until 12:30. So I rode into Cape Town with Tony. He drives an MG (a tiny little British sports car) and we had to lay my suitcase outside, on top of the window because it didn't fit in the trunk. Plus we put it in his dad's BM trunk because they work together but his dad got confused and took the suitcases out of his trunk.

So Tony brought me to his office at 9, and Leigh wasn't coming until 10, so I walked across the street from his office and had coffee, two eggs and toast for $2.30. Awesome. Then I wrote in my journal for a while. And then I walked to a shop and talked to the crazy owner, who kept talking about the black government and the mistakes they were making regarding being able to sell ivory. If you can picture me tiptoe-ing backwards out of the store with my neck all tightened up like, YIKES, please do so because that's what happened. I thought for sure he was going to make me put on a white cloak.

Then Leigh showed up in his BMW M3. I don't know much about these things, but it's a very nice car and it drives very fast and you can open it just by touching the door handle if the keys are in your pocket. I think it can hover.

Anyway, Leigh gets in the car, and I go to open my door and **CRASH**! I opened the door too hard and smashed it into the abnormally tall curb. Total scratch. Down to the metal. OUCH. I wanted to crawl into a ball and go far far away like Jenny on Forrest Gump. So, I got in the car and couldn't look at Leigh because I wanted to die. Well he was very nice about it and when we got to the aquarium I forced him to look at the scratch and he showed me all the scratches he has put into the car and I felt better but I mean seriously. Kady! Jeez!

So we went to the aquarium at Cape Town and saw all kinds of cool stuff. Like the hermaphrodite eel: (makes it's own offspring, not male or female)

And the king spider crab: (likes to play king of the hill in slow motion over and over with other king spider crabs in the tank)




And this ugly thing:



And this cool thing:



And these pretty things:

At about 11:30 we got a call from Mineska and met up with her at this fabulous restaurant on the "waterfront" and I had a yummy cosmo and something else I can't remember. And then I went shopping and got myself a really cool leather bag. ummm...then we all said goodbye and Mineska brought me to the airport but on the way we stopped to see Aidan because he had this silly blanket I bought at Green Market Square but he ended up with it that night at Llandudno. He also made me a CD of really great S.African music and other stuff. Thanks Aidan! And then we tearfully said goodbye at the airport. Well not really tearfully. But it was so so so so so so so sad to say goodbye to South Africa and to Mineska.

I knew I would miss their silly accents and their hospitable spirits and their toilets with the "onsie/twosie" flush option.

Fun!

How many countries can you name in 5 minutes? Read this before you start, it will help you:

You have to type them.
You have to spell them correctly.
You don't have to hit enter. If it recognizes what you typed you get a point and you can start on the next one.

http://www.oneplusyou.com/bb/view2/countries


By the way, I got 93. Out of 300. Sad.

Speaking of subconsciously singing songs...

So when Anna moved out and I was super sad and depressed, I caught myself singing this one while vacuuming. I was singing the "When I was young..." part, and kept singing, not realizing what I was doing, and then when I got to the "All by myself..." part I stopped the vacuum and laughed hysterically.

p.s. who else thought this was sung by a woman?

Random

Kim, do you remember when you had a miscarriage way back in the ealy nineties and I was a young teenager and we were sitting in the car and I started singing this song? Sort of quietly under my breath and subconsciously? And then I realized what I had done and I quickly stopped singing? And you go:
"Why did you stop singing?"

Table Mountain

So on Sunday we decided to hike Table Mountain. I was looking forward to getting some exercise and checking out the gorgeous view of Cape Town from on top of the mountain, but in the end, we all got really lazy and afraid of a cold front coming in that would bring the hikers' dreaded "tablecloth", which is a thick cloud that comes and covers Table Mountain and causes a bunch of deaths every year. Hikers are walking around Table Mountain, minding their own business, when BAM the clouds come in and completely blind them, and then they fall of the mountain and die:



But for me, it was more laziness. There's a cable car that will bring you right to the top without any sweating or nettles or snakes or any of those unpleasantries.

We borrowed Tony's dad's BMW (which I got to drive!). Tony said, let's take the BM. I had to explain what that means in America.

Here's a picture of me driving the Bowel Movement:



I even parallel parked it backwards onto the left side of the road. That was weird, but I was pretty proud of myself!



We had to wait for a while to get onto the cable car and here are a couple pictures of us waiting:




So the cable car was scary! It goes STRAIGHT up the mountain. And it spins, so you can see out all sides. As soon as it left the ground I lost strength in my legs. I bent my knees and felt like I couldn't stand up. It was very cool to see, but of course the whole time all you can imagine is the thing breaking and the whole bunch of people jamming into eachother as the little ball bounces down the mountain. It didn't help that Leigh (dude in the photos) is a super-smart engineer programmer guy and he said the cable car was really poorly designed.

We pretty much goofed around the whole day on top of the mountain. Here are some pictures of us goofing around:










Then we saw this guy:



Which prompted a wave of stupid human tricks. We did cartwheels, whistled between our thumbs, and challenged eachother to feats of strenth. Pretty soon people from all countries were joining us. We had French people, German people, Pakistani people, everybody was joining in the fun. And because I was so inspired, I belted out "WE ARE THE WORLD...WE ARE THE CHILDREN...WE ARE THE ONES WHO MAKE A BRIGHTER DAY...SO LET'S START GIVING..." And people actually started singing with me. It was very funny. It was such a fun day.

Back in Cape Town

So when I got back to Cape Town from the Kruger I decided I better figure out what I had to do before I left because I only had Saturday, Sunday and part of Monday. I kind of wanted to go to Cape Point (the very bottom of Africa -- where two oceans meet and it's very pretty there) But the doctors from my safari said that they hiked down there and saw a rattle snake. And they had to walk by it. Plus it was quite a drive and would take the whole day and I am such a lazy person, so Mineska and I ended up spending Saturday on the beach *wink* and Saturday evening we went for dinner at a nice little tapas place in Cape Town called Asoka. There was a tree growing right through it. Mineska ordered a pineapple and coconut juice and then Tony took my favorite picture from the trip:



And here's a picture of me telling the story of how when we were kids Kasey and I would fight all the time and one of her signature moves was to use my hair and head like a punching bag. She would first PULL my hair and then PUNCH my head. Double whammy.



And here's a picture of me saying something super important to Mineska:



And here's a picture of Tony and Janine drinking from a really BIG glass:



And here's one where that shows my ability to totally captivate my audience with my super intelligence:



And here's me again, telling another story:

Look how interested people are in my stories:

Not sure if this is custom?

When we would go out to eat, all of my South African friends would spend the first five minutes tasting each other's meals.

So you have to take a little bit of everybody's food, taste it, say how awesome it is, and then you can finally eat what you ordered. I wasn't used to this at all. Usually I need to eat my food super fast and I'm always very hungry so this little custom was hard to get used to. But it was very cool when I think about it. And unselfish.

Like for example Janine ordered Salmon rolls, and she got four of them. There were four of us and so she only got to have one of her salmon rolls. But she got a bite of everybody else's stuff...I still think she got screwed.

But it makes me think she's a nice person. Maybe that's the gig?

Getting home from Kruger

So...after all that hassle of trying to get up to the Kruger National Park I was determined to be comfortable on the way back.

So on the way up the van was set up like this:

Germany Driver


Nobody space Spain Spain
Germany space Spain Spain
London space Germany Germany
JapanGermanyelbow-yGermanyKady

As you can see, the best seat in the van belonged to the Second Germany person behind the passenger seat. Still in the action, but tons of leg room. And as you can see, I had the worst seat, positioned over the wheel well and next to elbows lady from Germany.

So on the way home I was really wanting that Germany seat. Bad. So because we got dropped off last at the treehouse, we were first to be picked up. So I sat in my chair and I was so excited. YES! I'm not normally a me-first person, but I knew it wouldn't seem selfish because I'm traveling alone and that was a one-seater. Plus I suffered the whole way there and I would be darned if I was going to suffer the whole way back! Anyway the trailer got hooked up to our van and off we went. Then we picked up the other people. And then I got this pit in my stomach, like, what if somebody asks me to move? What will I say? What if we're not going to be in this van? But we had the trailer, so of course the other people would get in our van right?

WRONG.

They took the trailer off our van and put it on the other one, and we had to move. So I lost my spot. Well maybe I could get a good seat in the new van.

And then, just like I KNEW would happen, I was shuffled into the back seat in the exact same position as last time. Except now it was:


London Driver

Nobody space Germany Ireland
Germany space Spain Spain
Japan space Spain Spain
IrelandFrenchgirlFrenchgirlKady



So at least I wasn't with the elbow-y German lady, but it was still so squishy and boy was I MAD. This kind of thing always happens to me.

Luckily the French girls got off about 3 hours later and then I had the seat in the back with just the Irish guy and I read almost my whole book.

And as you can see the drive back was very beautiful in the daylight. We got to get out and stretch a little and look at the Drachensburg Mountains. We also shopped and I bought a wooden thing of three women but it broke on the way home. London bought one and I decided I had to have one too. But I only had 90 rand in my pocket and he paid 150 for his. It was marked for 450 so I thought he did a good job negotiating. London gave me a 200 rand and I offered 120 because mine was smaller than his and she gave it to me for 130. Well then I got back on the van and one of the Spanish ladies said she got hers for 85. I hate the whole negotiating system! And I think I only wanted my thing because the guy from London bought one. I decided I wasn't going to buy anything and then when he bought his I guess I figured I had to have it. So now I have it but it's broken.



And then the flight back was uneventful and Mineska picked me up and we went to the Schwarztrauber's house and watched music videos and that's when I typed the world's longest blog entry and it got lost.

Don't hassle the Hoff

So that photo I just found of David Hasselhoff reminds me of the nude beach at Sandy Bay. You'll have to ask me privately to tell you that story...

12:30

In South Africa, if you want to say it's 12:30, you say "Half past twelve."

But you say "Half past" super fast and so it ends up sounding like "Hoff pus".

Wonder what old David thinks of that?

Charlize "South Africa's Pride and Joy" Theron

So everybody knows that Charlize Theron is a famous person to come out of South Africa, but why is she on the cover of all of their magazines? She was on GQ South Africa, Elle South Africa, etc etc etc. Yes, Charlize is a movie star. Yes she's from your country. But jeez...you don't see Prince on the cover of every Minnesota Monthly do ya?

Monkey in our room

I woke up around 6 on the day we had to leave the treehouse and saw a monkey sitting on top of the wall. He saw we were still in there and then left. I guess he figured he would come back later and eat our food or something.

I don't remember if I mentioned this earlier, but a woman at the treehouse had a huge hole ripped in her backpack by a monkey because she had a sealed bag of chips, wrapped in her clothes, in her closed backpack. The monkeys wanted the chips real bad and ripped open her backpack.

I couldn't believe they could smell it all the way in there.

I'm creative

Butts!

Zebras and wildebeast

Zebras can often be found grazing with Wildebeast. They are not enemies, in fact they help eachother. Zebras can see very far, but they can't hear very far. And wildebeast are just the opposite, they can hear really well but their sight is not as good as a zebra's. And so they all stick together and alert eachother of predators. They don't even compete for food. Zebras eat the longer grasses, and the wildebeast uses it's tongue to get at the shorter lower grasses.

Wow!

Also, zebras all have unique stripes. When a baby zebra is born, the mom goes with the baby alone into the bush for the first six months so that they baby can get used to its' moms stripes.

Neat!

I love the picture of the zebra butts. We were warned that 80% of the photos you'll take will be of butts. Butt -- I think it's cute.

Hyenas

Hyenas have very strong jaws that can break bones. Usually after a lion or a leopard kills something, they take what they want of the meat, and the vultures and hyenas come after they are all done and eat the rest. Hyenas eat bones and everything! EW!

Night number 3 in the treehouse

Yah. I gave up.

The two French girls (Cecile and Emmanuelle Van Lith) let me stay in their treehouse with them. I. LOVE. THEM. They were very nice and sweet. Cecile did tell me that they really needed to sleep, which made me think that maybe they didn't think I would take them up on their offer? And maybe they were afraid I would cry like a baby the whole night? I had been complaining about being scared and not being able to sleep? Not sure.

Anyway, just as I suspected, I was not even the slightest bit scared at all. I even took a shower! Which was super necessary after the 104 degree day. They had four beds in their room and I was just really tired of trying to prove my brave-ness. Besides, hadn't I survived two nights of that hell? Didn't I already have the bragging rights?

Here are my knightesses in shining armoresses.


(Short girl sandwich.)

And here is the treehouse I stayed in with Cecile and Emma:


And here is the coolest treehouse in the place. There was a tree in the middle of it! Two of the Spanish ladies stayed there:



This place wasn't so bad :)

In the daylight even tolerable. And animals everywhere:



If I didn't have a crippling fear of the dark, I would say my experience was entirely enjoyable. Here is a picture of the Swedish couple: (Toby and Stina) They're doctors!



And here is Toby, the guide:



Notice how fresh and clean my hair is. Shower!