procrastination exists, even here

i'm sitting at cocoa wah-wah (our favorite restaurant/cafe, in case you have forgotten) with the intention of starting one of my two papers that are due next week, but have decided to procrastinate a bit. i love that the only time i really feel an urge to write in this is when i should be doing something school-related.

this morning a few of us went to a farmers market nearby. we went last week as well, and it is amazing. it's a very white, upper-middle class, birkenstock-wearing, dads-carrying-babies-in-frontpacks, organic vibe, full of people who regularly eat oysters and brie. so it's not at all an "african market," but i love it. there are millions of samples, and you can also get great food (i got a falafel sandwich today), and things are relatively inexpensive. there are also a lot of cute boutiques and other overpriced stores right next to the market that we went into today, all of which i love. i'm a sucker for farmers markets, and plan to go pretty much every saturday to restock on couscous, cheese, fruit (today i got figs and strawberries), etc.

the girls here are, in my opinion, unbelievably gorgeous and i am fascinated by them. there is definitely a type of south african white girl here: skinny, blonde, tan, fresh-faced, wearing an adorable belted dress and gladiator sandals. there are obviously many types of people here, and i find it difficult to read or accomplish anything on campus because i get so wrapped-up in people watching and eavesdropping on others' conversations. even now, writing this, i look up and around me after every sentence. hence the difficulty doing homework.

last night we went to an awesome bar called assembly, which is in an old warehouse in the city. from the outside it looks like an abandoned industrial building, but it's really fun inside. thursday night we went to hemisphere, which is a bar on the top floor of the ABSA (the south african bank) building downtown. since it's on the top floor, you can see the entire city and the ocean (hence the name hemisphere) from the windows that line every wall of the bar. there are so many places to go out here, and while it's fun to find certain places to fall back on, i really am enjoying trying out new places.

with that in mind, i'm kind of itching to do some more traveling. it's sort of difficult here, because there aren't really good trains to take, and driving to other major cities (durban, johannesburg, port elizabeth) takes a while. but i'm hoping to take a long weekend sometime soon and go somewhere else for a few days. 

my friend katelyn is having two friends from home here for a week, starting today, and i'm extremely jealous. we were talking about how surreal it is that people from her other life at home are suddenly going to be part of her life here for a little while, and those two lives are so completely separate and different, but now they're going to be bridged. it makes the world feel a lot smaller.

lately we've been making fun of where we live (mowbray) quite a bit. as much as i like our apartments, and generally don't feel unsafe, it's really funny when you step back and look at what we've gotten used to: the flattened rat that has been plastered to the middle of the road for about a week now; the pair of underwear on the sidewalk; the cracked-out man sleeping in the middle of the sidewalk this afternoon; the constant yelling from the minibus workers; the homeless woman who daily pours an entire bag of breadcrumbs on the sidewalk for the annoying pigeons; the cat, dubbed "street kitten," who lives somewhere on the premises, has a possessed look in its eyes, and is constantly covered in dirt; the elusive techno music that is always, always wafting into my open windows from somewhere; the fact that i witness and am not fazed by any of this on my way to the 7-11, which, by the way, is our saving grace, as i go there at least once a day for something or another. the 7-11 isn't supposed to sell alcohol after 5 pm or on sundays, but during these off-hours, they'll oh-so-sneakily put the wine in a bag for you, and then it's okay. i love it.