It has been a while...

            Hello party people. I’m sorry I have been away from my post for so long; my lovely parents came and ferried me around the country on countless adventures (lacking internet), I have had a long (and still on-going) finals season taking up a lot of time, as well as getting some last hanging-out in with all of my study-abroad mates who are leaving soon. 

          First of all, in late April I went to Kruger National Park with my parents, and it was exactly like Jurassic Park, the movie. We saw everything, from lions and elephants, to leopards and zebra, rhino, buffalo, wildebeest, impala, giraffe, a chameleon, etc. And the amazing thing was they were all so close; we weren't allowed to leave the car, and the car wasn't allowed to leave the road (obviously), so we were confined to certain areas of the park. Yet, it seemed as though the park was so densely populated with large African animals of all sorts that observing from the road was no problem at all, and we were able to get up close and (almost) personal with many of the majestic beasts. I would recommend Kruger National Park, or a safari of some sort, to everyone who is able to, it was incredible and unlike anything you can do or see in boring old North America. 

rhino

elephant

                                                                      sleeping lions

          In more recent news, the house has been quiet for a while, first with everyone working hard on finals, then with a lot of my housemates on trips throughout South Africa. I have been getting in a lot of relaxing time, mixed with studying, souvenir shopping, movie watching, and exploring. I went to high tea the other day at a very fancy hotel, which made me feel a little bit colonial. We sat in nice, white wicker chairs, with flowery cushions, and ate all we could eat finger sandwiches, scones, cakes, pastries, fruits, etc. along with plenty of delicious tea. There was even a nice garden with a pool that we walked around at “half time” of the meal. But, I would say the most exciting thing that has happened to me recently is that I had a tailor make me an African shirt out of a couple fabrics I got to choose. It is definitely the nicest shirt I own, and I hope to get many great, in-your-face-years out of it.

That is all I have for right now… I’ll return in the next couple days (after my final final) with some closing thoughts on the experience, so sit tight. Nate, over and out, still, from Cape Town

Twins Opening Day: South Africa

The date was April 12, 2010 and I had just gotten home from a hard day, studying abroad in South Africa. I started off the evening with a nice nap until approximately 20:00 Cape Town time (that’s 8:00 PM for all you Americans). I woke up, whipped up some dinner, and then promptly ate said dinner. It was delicious so I ate a heaping bowl, which of course needed to be followed by a lengthy television watching session, while I digested. I began by watching a soccer match or two, which is all nearly all we watch here, in the rest of the world.

By the time I was done watching it was getting pretty late, and I was thinking about finding my way to my mattress. But I performed the standard last-flick-through-the-channels-routine, and to my pleasure, I found a channel, called ESPN no less, playing the Minnesota Twins game, live, in a brand new stadium (dayenu). I tuned in when it was already 4-1 Twins, and Pavano was still pitching. I also have approximately seven, at least tangential, Boston Red Sox fans in my house (two from Boston, three from the Northeast, and two Boston College students) versus the two Minnesotans in the house. There were only two Red Sox fans awake, but I was the sole Twins fan left, so I felt the pressure none-the-less. I was making small talk with them, describing how the Red Sox are just the Yankees these days, in slightly different uniforms, and how the Twins have a, “nearly 100% of winning the World Series, this year, in 2010.”

We continued to watch, and my spirits continued to rise, as Kubel hit a shot into right field stands, and the Nathan-less Twins still recorded a save (congratulations Jon Rauch). The Twins got the win, on international TV, and I was in a room with some Red Sox fans, so clearly I was in high spirits. And instantly I thought, thank goodness we put our nose to grindstone, tightened our belt buckles, and purchased this new stadium for the Polads and the Minnesota Twins organization. After all the years of having to sit through the East coast biased media playing Yankees-Red Sox games at every opportunity, maybe we can squeak in there, as a legitimately high profile team in the nation’s eyes. It would be well-deserved and about time, with our two home-grown former MVP’s, our batting champions, our Cy Young award winners (I suppose Santana is an ex-Twin, but the point still stands), and our repeated play-off appearances. That’s what I was thinking as I watched us win our first game in Target Field, all the way from Cape Town.

Of course, maybe they were only playing the game because Boston was playing in it, and it was just a lucky coincidence that it was the Twin’s opener in their new ballpark… I wouldn’t put it past those devious connivers, out in Bristol…  

Pics, courtesy of my parents, from the game:

                           

The Road to Nam

                 Hello party people. I just returned from an incredible road trip to Namibia, not to mention it has been eons since my last post, so I decided it was the perfect time to throw down a little blogsky.  Early last Saturday morning a few of us got up early to go retrieve our rental van at the airport. We got a ride to the rental place, and managed to drive the van through the rough streets of Cape Town back to our house. From there we loaded up and hit the road to Namibia, unaware of what we were getting ourselves into…

            We had a 13 person van and an eight person tent for the ten road trippers, so on average we had plenty of room. There were six girls and four guys, and the men had to, nay, got to do all of the driving. We drove about eight hours the first day and slept in the town of Springbok, still within the South African border. On Sunday we woke early and crossed the border into Namibia, but not without some questioning from skeptical border guards. 

            Our next stop was Fish River Canyon, and we arrived there in the early afternoon. We set up camp swam in the swimming pool, and then hiked out to the canyon, which is the second largest in the world (after the Grand one of course). There were amazing views into the canyon, and we watched the sunset from the rim. 

                                      (Our trusty Toyota Quantum, at the Fish River Canyon...)

The next morning we woke up to baboons raiding our campsite, ripping open bags of oats and throwing them everywhere, before dashing off into the bush. We also woke to discover a slow leak in one of our tires, which was looking pretty flat. A nice South African helped us change the tire and we were on our way, only slightly slowed down by our morning’s problems. By lunchtime Monday we were in Keetmanshoop, a small town in the boonies of Namibia (but then again, everywhere in Namibia is the boonies…) The surrounding area held the famous quiver tree forests as well as a boulder park known as the Giant’s Playground. The quiver tree forest was unlike anything I had ever seen, with tons of strange, unnatural trees sprouting from the desert-like terrain. 

Our van did get stuck in the sand at the quiver tree forest, but again, a nice South African helped us out, pulling our van out of the sand with his 4x4 truck.

The Giant’s Playground was even more incredible; the endless field of boulders stacked upon each other was awe-inspiring, and seemed as though it had to have been made by giants. 

The campsite that night was teeming with gigantic slow-moving bugs of some sort (we thought they were some sort of locust or cicada, except they weren’t flying, so maybe it was an early stage in development, or maybe they were just beetles or something) which weren’t really bothersome, except for occasionally when one of the boys would throw one in the tent. 

The owner of the campgrounds also had a sweet dog named Terry, who became friends with us, or at least pretended until we gave her some food.

On Tuesday we had a long day of driving before hitting the dunes of Sossusvlei in the late afternoon. The Sossusvlei was definitely my favorite stop on the trip, due to the National Geographic-like views and due to the fact that rolling around in mountains of sand is a ton of fun. 

                  (From the left: Me, Will, and Elliot, all Macalester students, at the Sossusvlei)

We watched the sunset from the dunes that night, camped out nearby, and then watched the sunrise from the dunes the next morning. It was a foggy morning, so we didn’t literally see the sun rise over the horizon, but it wasn’t a big deal; the sun burning through the fog was just as breath taking.

(Me after playing in the sand all morning)

 Also, in one of the outhouses near the dunes, I saw this bloody scene of a beetle eating a dead lizard… pretty creepy…

After the dunes we drove the ocean town of Swakopmund, on the west coast of Nam (the nickname Namibians have given their country), for a couple nights of relaxation in a hostel there. We arrived Wednesday night pretty tired, so we got some seafood pizza at a local pizzeria and then went to bed early. The next day we went antiquing some (it was a tourist town, so it had plenty of antique shops) as well as laid on the beach and hung out in our hostel (where there were other international students, a pool, a lawn for soccer and a pool table…) A couple of us (the brave ones) also went to the local snake park, which was extreme. We saw a bunch of huge, extremely venomous snakes, including an 8 or 9 foot black mamba, a bright green boomslang, a few cobras, a puff adder or two, and some zebra snakes. I had never seen such deadly animals before, so I thought they were pretty cool.

After our second night in Swakopmund, we started the trek home, driving all day Friday and Saturday, making it back to Cape Town on Saturday night, around 8. On Friday night we stayed at the same campsite in Keetmanshoop we had stayed at days before, and saw our friend Terry the dog again, as well as the army of huge bugs.

Speaking of which, over the course of the trip we saw a lot of wildlife, although it was mostly arid or desert environment. We saw baboons, ostriches, zebra, springbok, oryx, elands, lizards, as well as a whole host of huge bugs. 

                                                 (Oryx at the Sossusvlei)

Also, the trip went pretty much according to plan, with very few hiccups along the way that couldn’t be fixed pretty easily. And probably most importantly, everyone on the trip got along famously; the long periods of driving were actually a lot of fun in the crowded van with ten people, there were very few arguments or altercations, and spirits were very high the whole trip; we were sad to be returning to South Africa from the great country known as Nam. 

                      (All the girls on the trip, at a stop near the Fish River Canyon)

Getting away from life in the city and getting out to the sparsely populated, desolate wasteland that is Namibia was great, and I realize I need those types of breaks in my life. Nam was definitely the farthest from legitimate civilization I have ever been in my life (it is the second least dense country in the world, after Mongolia), and I can’t wait to go back. Nate, over and out from Cape Town. 

one more thing...

I forgot to add, this is a picture of me and all of my housemates (plus one extra). We are at a concert in the Kirstenbosch botanical gardens, it was phenomenal. 

1st of the month

Its 00:13 on March 1st here in beautiful Cape Town. I'm getting ready to go sleep out on our porch, where some of us moved our mattresses yesterday. Sleeping outside is magnificent, especially on hot African nights. Not much else to say for now, just checking in on the first of the month; but also, to my friend Scotty Petesch I'd like to say: eat my shorts. Nate, over-and-out...

Will work for bandwidth...

          Sorry about the long break in blog posts. As I settle in I find I have less and less to report, besides the fact that it is still warm and sunny, and I am still sitting by the swimming pool. Other than that, the internet at my house has been down for close to a week here, and it is slowly draining the life force from my body. Our internet has been going down intermittently for periods of 3 or 4 hours since the first day I arrived. But maybe about two weeks ago, it went down for about 3 or 4 days, which was brutal. We got it fixed, but then a couple days later it went down again, and it has not gotten fixed yet. Apparently there is a problem with the line to our house or something; either way, it probably won't be up and running again until next week. During these hard times, these lean days, I have had a lot of time to contemplate, and reevaluate my reliance on the beast we know as the "World Wide Web."
          We do have internet on campus, but it is unbelievably slow, and its almost worse than just not having any internet. You wait and wait and wait, hoping a page will load, but in the end they almost never do. I am posting this blog from an internet café, which are a good option for internet, except for the fact that you have to pay for food, they give out limited internet vouchers (today mine is for 20 megabytes, which is really not that much) and you have to bring your laptop out in public, which is generally not a great idea in this country.
          So for the last few days I have been existing basically free from the internet. And it has been refreshing. I have less to worry about, fewer obligations to fulfill, I waste less time on Facebook or ESPN (or Blogspot...) and I have just been relaxing. I have gotten some reading done, watched a few movies, learned to play a little guitar, and in general have had a very chill few days, without any internet to hold me back from the good things in life. With all of that said, I did feel an immediate sense of relief as I logged back on today, as the internet flooded over my body, and my thirst was finally quenched. The internet is a necessary tool in this modern world and I generally need my daily dose in order to sleep well at night. But a few days off never hurt anybody, and I would go as far as to recommend trying it...

Other than that, all is quiet in the Western Cape... Nate, over and out

Soccer is in the air

Soccer is in the air here in South Africa, with the biggest sports tournament in the world arriving in about four months. I watch soccer all the time, there are soccer ads and billboards, and we play soccer all the time. Everyday at maybe three o’clock, kids go down to the UCT turf field, where there is a relatively new small sided, net enclosed, mini field. It is the greatest thing ever, with lines, mini goals, and even penalty kick spots. We play 4 vs. 4, winner stays, first goal wins. There are usually about 4 or 5 teams down there at a time, and it is relatively competitive. We always bring an American squad down there, and play simple, aggressive, powerful American soccer, which is effective, even if it is not as pretty as some of the South Africans we play. I am just amazed at all the spontaneous soccer going on everywhere here, it is very refreshing. In the US playing a good game of soccer takes organizing and tracking down enough people. Here there are enough people for small-sided tournaments, everyday of the week for hours on end. Now I understand why the rest of the world is so much better than us at soccer… All of the Americans here seem to be soccer fans or players also, probably because the World Cup happens to be occurring at the end of the semester. That’s about all I have to add for now;  I love soccer and so does everyone here, its great. Nate, over and out