Plugging In

I've been terrible at updating anyone on my life since I got to Cape Town, mostly because the flat doesn't have wifi, and I've been tearing through my research projects at work to finish in time for me to take a week of vacation in Namibia in September. I'm planning to crack this weekend and buy a wifi router for the flat, mostly because Skype would go a long way in helping David and I work around two 9 to 5 jobs and a six hour time difference. And with that, I will probably be online more, and puttering around in a cardigan with cats at my feet and a cup of tea and a novel in my hand significantly less. (My feelings about this are mixed.)

The last week has been excellent, though - we did the Fan Walk for the semi-final between Uruguay and the Netherlands in Cape Town, which involved a lesbian bar that everyone basically had to rip me away from because I had an Amstel and they played You Shook Me All Night Long and I was like, no, get away from me, this is my home. I went out again when two friends of mine from college were in town, where we somehow ended up going clubbing with two Brazilian guys, evenly splitting the conversation between English, Spanish, and Portugese, and worrying that the less-balanced one was going to die of a heart attack somewhere around his sixth whiskey and Red Bull. It was fairly epic. A couple nights later, I tagged along for the going away party for the woman who rented my room in the flat before I did, who is going back to Montreal. At least three people were like, "you also have a Canadian accent," and I was like, no, nothing quite that sexy, I am tired and there has been champagne and my vowels are getting away from me.

Mostly, though, I've just done a crazy amount of work that I didn't have the uninterrupted time to do in New York, often while sitting in front of the space heater and watching Oprah with the cats and my host mother, Daleen, while she knits sleeves and says things like, "I'm as full as a female badger." Most of you can probably understand how happy this makes me.