Monthaversary One: Are we still waiting for our real life to begin?

It has been just over a month of living in Cape Town. Life is continually evolving here. When we first arrived, we did not have a car and we live on a big hill. We had to walk to get food and household goods and carry it all home. We did this every day and so little by little we got what we needed to be comfortable. We took minibus taxis everywhere to save money; we only rode in regular taxis twice. Now that we have been able to borrow a car, we have been revolutionized.

Learning to drive here has been tough. In the western USA, we are used to large, wide streets with roomy lanes. Here, the lanes are so narrow and cars are constantly swerving into your lane to avoid a stopped taxi or a car stopping to turn. Pedestrians add to the mix by playing roulette with their lives, walking against the light, not using crosswalks, and standing between lanes to let cars pass. Driving, initially was stressful with all these distractions and to top it all, having to manually drive a car where everything is flipped, such as the seat belt and stick shift. Now, driving is like second nature, and the roads, perceptually, do not seem as narrow as they first did. Weird, huh? Still, navigation is hard, and we are constantly using Google maps on our iPhones and the map book we bought in our first week. We have done some exploring to Betty’s Bay and Hout Bay. We got to see African Penguins and saw some baboons eating by the side of the road. We are starting to get to know various neighborhoods by going to places and asking people for their opinion. We are starting our initial search for another place and have tried to equate neighborhoods here to ones in Tucson. Would we live in slightly sketchy neighborhood in Tucson, probably not, so why would we here? The hard part is weighing it against distance to UCT and price of rent.

P at Gordon's Bay

We have gotten to meet new people, from South Africa and from the United States. Through a friend we actually met people from Tucson who live here. They are very welcoming and have given us many tips and links to South African web sites. The people here seem nice, but there are variations in ‘warmth’. The lady bagging our food at Pick N’ Pay jokes with us about liking “sour” limes. The couple we had dinner with a few days ago were great conversationalists.

Other parts of our lives are coming together. We joined a gym and we have been going regularly. I’ve taken several different classes here and am getting used to the emphasis on physical fitness that I have observed. And after noticing that Reeses was looking different, we took her to the Veterinarian on Main Road. We learned she is experiencing a false pregnancy, stemming from her last bout of heat. Not much to do but wait it out. She is lactating (not too much) and wants to be with us more than normal. She has not displayed any herding of small objects or nesting, thank goodness! On the job front, P’s learning how to “not to be grad student.” He is learning the ropes at this new job and if you ask me, doing superbly. I know it can't be easy starting a new job in a new country, supporting your entire family.

Me at Betty's Bay. Do you see the Penguins?!

And me, I’m learning to be a housewife. I really do not mind it right now, but I know that as our lives get more complicated here, my experience might change. I have never been good at housework, so I am feeling satisfaction from getting things done regularly. One perk is that I have gotten to read books, and not just listen to them on tape! 

Song of the Month:  Waiting for my real life to begin by Colin Hay. Listen here.

Last day and Travels

My predictions came mostly true: I only slept about four hours the night before we left Tucson. We had so much to do on the 14^th. We had a list of about 10-15 tasks that HAD to be done that day and were thwarted several times in our attempts to complete them, but we did it! We worked really well together in planning our day, driving route, time management, and communication. We were proud of ourselves. We even fit in a dentist appointment to fix a filling that had an air bubble in it and was causing me pain. My dentist came in on her day off to fix it for free! She is the best. Our reservation for Valentine’s dinner was at 5:00, we barely got home from storage at 4:45. We did the fastest quick change ever, no shower, no makeup. I realized that it really didn’t matter to me whether we stunk or not, just that we got to be together and relax. Afterwards, we had to drop off dad’s truck that we had borrowed and deliver the Land Rover to its new owner. Then we did the “weighing game” with our suitcases. Weigh it, take something out, weigh it, take something, out, etc. and repeat! Finally we got them at just under 50 pounds. 

We woke at about 5:00 a.m. for my dad to pick us up at 6:00. We showered and ran around putting last minute things into the shed that did not make it to storage. (And we still left things in the closet!! Aggravating). We left the house pretty messy, which was embarrassing to me- I would have stayed up all night cleaning if P had not made me stop. There was just not enough time…We got to the airport and it was pretty hard to say goodbye to my father.  I didn’t  let myself cry, or even now, because I might not stop for a long time. It is very hard dealing with competing emotions: feeling very sad about leaving our lives and family and friends, and being excited about  our adventure. 

Check-in went relatively smoothly, except that we found out we could have checked two bags, not just one each. I knew it, but had forgotten, and I depended on my husband, who had looked up all the luggage requirements, to know about such things… (enough said). The flight to Atlanta went smoothly and I got some good pictures- I love taking pictures from airplanes! We had over a six hour layover there, so we had a sit-down lunch and then used the last hours on our iPhones, e-mailing people, posting on Facebook, and calling loved ones one last time. I bought three overpriced reusable nylon bags (which has been totally worth it while traveling and here in CT) to help carry our jackets and magazines. We boarded our flight to Johannesburg (Joburg), which was a 15 hour flight. We were in the middle row, which had three seats. To our luck, the third person moved and we had the whole row to ourselves. We each had our own touchscreens with many, many movies and television shows to choose from. Then last time I travelled abroad, I did not have such choices- very liberating! Also, we did not need to listen to a book on tape together, as we had planned. We do that because we can share the same amusement while on planes that do not have in-flight entertainment. I watched several episodes of The Many States of Tara, which has a character with Dissociative Identity Disorder, a Drew Barrymore movie called Going the Distance, Due Date (this movie made Pedro really laugh, so I watched it and was not impressed…) and The Social Network (which I fell asleep and woke up to many times, the language was a little over my head!- all those smart Harvard people…). The flight felt like it was so slooow and lasted way longer than 15 hours! We got to Joburg and had about an hour layover after going through customs and re-checking our baggage. That airport is very confusing, CT’s seemed much more logical. We were picked up by a taxi guy with a sign; he was very friendly and explained a few things to us. We went to a faculty residence hall first to pick up our keys and lease, then arrived at midnight to our new home! When we were changing into our pajamas, I noticed that both of our legs were swollen and puffy! It is slowly going away. P slept fairly well, but sleep was elusive for myself. I woke up at 2:30 a.m. and stayed awake until 4:00, then woke again at 5:30 a.m. Luckily, I was awake when the dogs arrived at 7:00 a.m.  In the next post I’ll speak of our experience so far in CT.