endings 2011

friday:

it was too early for pg to get up, so i went alone to shadowslight's office to sit and chat and drink frisco coffee with him and his mother (the coffee wasn't as bad as i expected, it must be relative to israeli coffee). my mother made certain to leave me a map, and it proved most enlightening:
1. turn left at the university
2. ???

brilliant :P

from there i returned home to pick up pg, fill up the car, draw loads of money and head to mr. pickwick's. we met up with protoplasm on the way, so i handed over the loads of money because it's what i owed him for the emergency plane ticket from goa to delhi. paid back in less than a year!

we waited a while for aeroplane, using his tardiness as an excuse to drink alcoholic shakes - their banana, nuts and bacardi milkshake is excessively and decadently delightful. the meal was great too - a burger with five toppings of my choice? yes please! the bacon, avocado, mushroom, egg and one other that i can't remember formed a very successful combo. aeroplane arrived just in time, and we had a fun lunch.

after saying goodbye to aeroplane, the three of us went hunting for outer limits. this took us a bit longer than we thought it would because while the building number is displayed in giant lettering, it's not visible when you're walking by on the same side of the road. my buddy treated my to his "super" hot-chocolate, standard nestle but four tablespoons instead of teaspoons. powerful! we chatted, i bought pirate fluxx and then it was time to head home. we played a few rounds of the game, which were really fun, and then it was time to get ready for dinner with my sister and her family.

it wasn't a mission getting there, and this time the map my mum had provided was just fine. when we arrived my sister's fiance informed me that my mum's car's engine doesn't sound so good... good thing he did, it's not noticeable when there's music playing. seeing my younger niece and nephew was great, the evening was enjoyable and the food was delicious.

we came home a early to get some sleep before the climb.

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saturday:

we woke up at 6am, actually managing to get out of bed and ready ourselves on time. we arrived at the cable station almost exactly at 7am, but the guys we were meant to meet weren't there. what was there was a cold wind, with which we waited for a half an hour before giving up and driving to the trail's start.

the plattekloof gorge trail was tough going up, hard on the legs and on the lungs. the entire way up was a fight between the wind and the sun, with the sweater coming off and on indecisively. there were a few other people on the trail that early, but not a lot so there was a certain sense of camaraderie. some of those people were a heck of a lot older than us, and towards the end of their non-stop hikes from cape point to the waterfront. holy shit.

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unfortunately, i was feeling mighty uncomfortable for most of the way up, a leftover from the fights we'd had a few days prior. the more i thought about it the more i realized that what was making me more uncomfortable than anything else was that i wasn't feeling comfortable enough to say that i wasn't feeling comfortable; about halfway up the mountain i finally just said something. what i got back was that she'd been feeling just a shitty about things as i'd been, and it was only a short while later that that icky sensation dissipated and since then things have been right as rain.

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my phone began to emit "battery dying" beeps as we hit the top of the mountain, so i turned it off to save juice for emergency services. the wind on the top was extremely strong, and bitterly cold - no matter how incredible the view is, biting cold makes it tough to appreciate. i could barely take photos because my hands were frozen to the point of being rendered fairly useless...

we stopped in the shelter of the locked toilets to regroup after the shock of discovering that not only wasn't the cable car operating, but that neither were any of the shops and there was no hot cocoa waiting for us. we were alone and frozen, and had to walk into the wind to get back. we wrapped ourselves up as best we could, and headed out. we were so cold and eventually got so lost that i was considering calling emergency services - as a local, that would have been incredibly embarrassing!
but we found ourselves in the end, and stopped in a sheltered, sunny spot to eat sandwiches and heat up.

the way down was far easier on the muscles and lungs, far tougher on the knees and reflexes - one has to be very aware of one's footing on that path. my left knee began to ache on each step at one point, and i was quite worried that i had damaged it but after a couple of minutes it was fine again. there were tons of people that we passed on the way, and the constant stream meant that there were no opportunities to relieve myself :P

i retrospect, we're really glad that we were stood up because i'm pretty sure we would have slowed the geezers down considerably.

after getting home and showering, we went for lunch at caffe neo - the waitrons were weird and the menu is annoyingly unavailable except for the main board. the food was good, though.

we visited the park and the biodiversity garden, walking out well impressed and having had a very pleasant stroll. the city has made excellent use of those fields.

after the walk, it was time for a quick nap before hitting checkers for some serious sweet shopping. once we'd amassed all the - i'm actually a bit embarrassed about how much money the candy cost - packets and bags and boxes, and had our little incident with the persistent beggar on the way to the car, we headed to the southern suburbs to my aunt and uncle's fortress to experience the influence of master chef. dinner was great and we had a really fun evening.

we returned to sea point against the sports traffic; all plans to leave sea point had to be cancelled because both sides exiting were jammed. instead, pg and i packed, laughing at all sorts of oddities we came across in the process.

in the middle of the night, soon after we went to bed, my mother got a phone call letting her know that a friend of hers had passed away. it's one thing to get sick and pass away within two weeks; quite another when those two weeks are the end of a fifteen year struggle with hepatitis c that one contracted from a needlestick injury.

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today:

today marks the end of three weeks of tourism, family, reconnecting with friends and introducing pg to the flip side of my life. it hasn't all been wonderful, but we're in a good place and i'm very proud of her for managing such a whirlwind tour. there are plenty of people i had to see but didn't, plenty of things i had to do but didn't, and plenty of "OMG you didn't take her to see X?!"s, but that's just the way things are.

now i need a holiday.