Down here in the southern hemisphere, school’s out for summer! LDOC came early on October 15th, and our return home to the States is creeping up on us far too quickly. We still have a few weeks before we pack our bags to head back to the land of apple pie, baseball, and people who name their babies something as ridiculous as North West. In procrastinating for our final exams, we’ve had a lot of downtime to reflect on our time here and the stark differences between Cape Town and the US. Here are 3 things common to Cape Town that we’ll be missing back at home.
1. The range of edible animals
Over the course of the past 4 months, we’ve whet our palates with dishes comprising of animals we’d never even heard of before setting foot in South Africa. Springbok and ostrich are favorites, and we’ve tried them in every form: burgers, steaks, and even in enchiladas. Next up are impala and kudu (variations of antelopes). We’ve even tasted chicken feet! …But that was one time, and neither of us very much enjoyed picking out toenails before digging in. While we’ve tasted the good, the bad, and the ugly (try eating feet and you’ll understand!), we’ll definitely miss having a wide variety of exotic menu items to choose from.
2. Birds flying just about anywhere
As natives of cities, neither of us are unfamiliar with the prevalence of pigeons and their flying friends, but Cape Town is on another level. It is not uncommon for a lecture to be interrupted by a flying rat soaring through the classroom, chirping loudly. We’ve taken a turn for the outdoors so we aren’t complaining, but we will note that we’ve encountered these winged menaces in restaurants, bathrooms, libraries, and even the gym! When sitting outside for lunch, no one is safe as we learned the hard way with an aerial surprise that landed right on Libby’s lap. We hear it’s good luck but to be honest we probably won’t miss this aspect of Cape Town too much.
3. Dance Clubs in Shopping Malls
En route to our favorite Thursday night spot, Tiger Tiger, we dutifully head through a revolving door, up an escalator and past a Levi’s. This has become a normal practice for us, but as we recall waiting in the line for Shooters, we are reminded that the setting for this Capetonian hotspot is in fact far from ordinary. They have weekly themes that engender bar mitzvah flashbacks and are a constant source of entertainment. We will miss the attempts to make us Americans feel at home on the 4th of July by dressing their bartenders in American flags, the minimizing of our Oktoberfest FOMO with a similarly beer and pretzel-filled evening, and most importantly, reminding us that no theme takes it too far when they kicked off the weekend with a ‘commando’ themed night. Yeah, you read that correctly. While at times ridiculous, many of our favorite nights have been spent dancing the night away in a place most would go to for retail therapy. Just one piece of advice: try not to lose your wallet there because trust me, you don’t want to see it in the daylight.