Monday, January 17, 2005
You know the theory of alternate universes? Well I think stepped into one when I boarded the plane for UK. Consider the following. In the scattered bits of news I've been reading from my rare visits to Internet cafes, I find:
1. Bulls are on a 6 game winning streak. They just got their 7th win minutes ago with an amazing comeback from a 6 pt deficit in under 2 minutes.
2. Singapore wins a number of soccer games, and eventually takes the Tiger Cup.
3. I got sunburnt playing frisbee on the beach in the middle of January.
4. I stay awake in class most of the time.
WHAT ON EARTH IS GOING ON HERE aaaaaaaahhhhhh
nayko |12:51 PM
Friday, January 14, 2005
4 Jan 05
The end of year situation is by now becoming a familiar one. 3 week holiday, no money to fly home, no homework. In such a situation, what could one possibly do? The answer is obvious. The wise man would clearly buy a lot of junk food, stay at home, and watch the entire season of Desperate Housewives. Unfortunately, that wise man was not me. So I ended up packing up my bags and heading for the three most dreaded words ever: George Bush's Presidency.
No, seriously, the three words I actually meant were, of course, Christmas Backpacking Trip.
You would think I would have learnt my lesson from last year’s trip in Spain. I mean, it was great, but really really tiring. In fact, I distinctly recall telling myself last year not to backpack for a while. Exactly one year later, I’m on a plane to Italy. At this moment, three questions should be burning within you:
Why Italy?
What's in Italy anyway?
Doesn't Zack's father in Desperate Housewives bear an uncanny resemblance to George W Bush?
Answers:
Seems as good a place as any.
Hmm, a good question. What is in Italy anyway? On the plane, I tried to think about what I knew about Italy. The list I compiled looked something like this:
Things I know about Italy
1. Pizza. Mmmm.
2. Pasta. Mmmm.
3. AC Milan
4. Errr...
5. The Ninja Turtle Artists
6. Pizza. Mmm
It should by now be clear that I was extremely well prepared for this trip.
Yes.
In order not to bore you all, I shall attempt to summarize each of the cities I visited in 3 words or less. Here we go:
Naples: Good Pizza, noisy.
Rome: Great Pizza, nice.
Venice: Lots of water.
Florence: Pizza not good.
Milan: Didn't eat pizza.
It should also be clear by now that I was extremely educated by this trip.
In all seriousness, though, Italy was a beautiful place that I can definitely recommend anyone to go (if one has about a week and 1000 euros to spare, that is). The sights in Rome are pretty breathtaking, Florence has great art collections, Milan is nice and cosmopolitan, Venice is quaint, and Naples, well, Naples is just smelly and disgusting.
An interesting thing happened in Venice. The morning of Boxing Day was a wet one, and it had been raining through the night. The result was magnificent – the canals were full, and water was moving quickly, and it looked altogether rather pretty. The only problem was that this water was in the middle of the hotel lobby. I kid you not. What happened was that the rain, coupled with high tide, caused the canals to overflow and the streets of Venice to flood. So we were rather helpless, stuck on the second floor of the hotel along with a bunch of Chinese tourists and a Japanese family. The problem was that we had to check out by 11am, and the check out office was across the street (it was a weird hotel).
So we waited, and at 1030 it became obvious that the flood wasn’t going to subside in time. The Japanese man acted first, stripping off his shoes and bravely sloshing his way through, with a Ganbatte chorus echoing from his wife. Then the Chinese tourists followed suit. This was remarkable considering that the water was freezing cold. Then Zhihui and I had to act. So we took a deep breath, steeled our bodies, and ...
The chambermaid appeared from nowhere and gave us garbage bags to tie around our feet.
The Chinese tourists gave us the strangest look as we merrily sloshed past them.
And so there are two morals to this story. Firstly, stay at home and watch Desperate Housewives. And secondly, when in deep trouble, always wait for the chambermaid.
11 Jan 05
It's absolutely incredible how much can happen in the span of a week. It's just been a week (give or take a couple of days) since I've gotten to South Africa, and it’s been one of the greatest experiences ever. A week ago, I was at the airport meeting all my program mates for the first time, exchanging awkward hellos and nervous smiles. Since that week, the following has happened:
- Visited 2 townships near Joburg - Alexandra and Soweto
- Gone to the Voortrekker Monument in Pretoria
- Went to a neighbourhood concert at Vusi Mahasela’s house
- Went to Constitution Hill, the 'watershed of freedom and oppresion'
- Played Frisbee at the University of the Witwatersrand
- Saw penguins at Boulders National Park
- Went swimming with penguins at Boulders beach
- Gone to the southernmost tip of South Africa (Cape of Good Hope), the confluence of the Atlantic and Indian Oceans.
- Gotten sunburned (oops)
Sorry if this sounds overly rambling, but the past week has been absolutely overwhelming. There's an incredible wealth of things to see and do over here, and our profs seem intent on making sure we see and do most of them. The weather's brilliant too. Awe, amazement and sheer delight have become pretty familiar acquaintances over the past few days, but above all I've just been feeling a sense of immense gratitude of having God’s grace in getting into this program, meeting wonderful people, and having one of the best quarters ever. For the U of C students reading this, APPLY TO CAPE TOWN! And experience 24 degree weather (on the other scale).
nayko |12:05 AM
Thursday, January 06, 2005
Life in 575
Studying abroad
Weather extremely lovely
In Johannesburg
Place is desolate
Has no internet access
Must wait till Cape Town
Translation:
South Africa is really nice, but I'll have no Internet Access for the rest of the week. Will update this thing once I get to Cape Town next week, I promise.
nayko |4:58 AM