Settling in to Tamboerskloof

By way of a brief recap, I’m in Cape Town, South Africa to spend the season with my friends James and Laura while James works on Blood Drive, a grindhouse style SyFy show he wrote for the express purpose of freaking me out (I assume). I’ve been here just over a month now, so what better time to finally write an update in which I attempt to cram a month’s worth of adventures into a single post??

(Side note before we begin: WordPress is doing something weird with some of my image captions. I can’t fix it because nothing is “wrong” in what I can access, and I formatted every new paragraph break, caption, etc. the same way so I’m unsure what else to try. Any suggestions from others who’ve had this WP issue, feel free to drop me a line!)

Move ’em on

Two of my favorite people, and our pal Patches

Since I was already packed and ready to go, I spent my last day in Waukesha, Wisconsin – July 19 – chilling with my folks, snuggling the dog (I love you my good girl!), and watching Midsomer Murders to pass the afternoon until it was time for mom and me to head out.

Luckily I was on an early evening flight departing from my home turf airport in Milwaukee (#recombobulationpro), resulting in what had to be the least stressful international flight departure ever.

Head ’em up

After puddle-jumping down to O’Hare in Chicago, I was off to Heathrow in London, where I enjoyed a 9-hour tour of Terminal 3’s dining and bench-nap offerings. As I was somehow unable to catch any z’s in the 8 hours it took me to cross half the United States and all of the Atlantic Ocean because we live in the future oh my God 8 hours to cross all of that oh gosh oh wow(!!!)… the 20 minutes of sleep I grabbed on a bench across from Terminal 3’s Caffè Nero were a sunny, sweaty Godsend.

7/20/16: My cozy nap spot; my view of the famed English countryside; my lunch with Will

Side Note: This was by far – by far – the smelliest airport terminal I have ever been in, and I’ve flown through equatorial airports in the dead heat of summer. The perplexing smelliness of Terminal 3 is totally irrelevant, I’ll grant you. It was just really unexpected, so here you go. You can unexpect it with me. You’re welcome.

Lucy made a welcome sign to greet me at the airport! It now hangs beside my desk with Mimi’s missionary card, and a Christmas ’02 “Home is where your mom is” reminder from my mother.

Cut ’em out

I didn’t know what I’d be in for as far as day-to-day living here in Cape Town would go, but my greeting party at the airport on July 21 turned out to be a pretty solid indicator of what I could expect in the days to come.

I was met at the airport with so many  smiles by my friend Laura, her three year old daughter Lucy, and her visiting sister Mary. They cheered my arrival, towed my luggage, and happily hugged me hello in spite of my coating of three days’ worth of Travel Grime. Best “Welcome!” I could’a hoped for!

On the drive from the airport to the house we got to listen to Taylor Swift’s “Welcome To New York,” and “This Is Halloween” from The Nightmare Before Christmas, several times a piece, and frankly that is exactly what I needed, so thank you Miss Lucy for meeting me right where I’m at.

Resting at last; Airport selfies with Laura and Mary

The smiles, the hugs, and the repeated New York/Halloween sing-alongs in the car turned out to be a crash course for how the next few weeks were to go.

And I couldn’t be happier.

Ride ’em in

Since then the days have been filled with Everyday Living sorts of things – trips to the grocery store, playtime at the park… – as well as the occasional Travel Adventure sorts of things – botanical gardens, aquariums, jumping off mountains…

But most of that is more than I think I’ve got room for now in what’s already become something of a lengthy post, so for now I’ll leave you with a handful of Cape Town standouts…

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Rusks

All my life (read: since ninth grade when we did The Nerd where I heard of them for the first time), a rusk has been an underwhelming piece of round, rock-hard bread. If you were under a similar impression about rusks, I’m here to tell you: We’ve been had.

Rusks in South Africa are basically the scones of the biscotti world, and if I could go back in time and start every day of the coffee-drinking era of my life with a cuppa joe and a buttermilk rusk from Melissa’s I’d easily be a 28% happier person than I already am.

Also 28% larger.

Toilets

Most of the toilets I’ve used here have been mounted directly into the wall, and are often higher off the ground than I’m accustomed to, resulting in:
1) A near constant fear I’m going to break them off the wall.
2) My legs falling asleep within moments of sitting down.

It’s not that we don’t have wall-mounted toilets in the States, because we have ’em all over the place. Just not as often in homes? I guess? I don’t know. And do not be fooled about the height by the angle of this picture! Yer lookin’ at a serious Tiptoe Situation here…

I just — something about them has me paranoid I’m gonna crash one of these things to the floor while my legs are too numb for me to catch myself, and “Dumb American Limps Away From Toilet Crash Disaster” is not exactly the headline I want to be responsible for creating in the Tamboerskloof Gazette you feel me?

Tamboerskloof

…is our neighborhood in Cape Town.

Coffee

It’s not that they don’t have coffee in Cape Town, because they do. They have a lot of it and it’s really good, and just yesterday I had the single greatest iced coffee I have ever had in my entire life. It’s just that Cape Town also has giant grocery stores where the only coffee available for purchase fits onto the top half of a single end cap and it’s All. Instant.

Now before you go mailing me emergency packages of coffee blessyourhearts, there are grounds available at other stores! Quite a bit of what they sell are Nespresso capsules, though, and I’m just not about that life, so here at the house we usually pick up grounds from a nearby coffee shop.

Most days, however, I’ve been forgoing coffee in favor of mug after mug of Rooibos tea. So very, very, very many mugs of Rooibos tea. I’ve already added a box of the daily brand to my Amazon wish list so I remember to pick some up when I get back. If you’ve ever gotta go caffeine free, God help ya – this stuff’s the way to do it.

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There’s so much more to cover about my travels so far, the people we’ve met, the places we’ve been, but honestly I’m at a loss for how I could possibly top today’s foray into airport b.o., coffee woes, and toe-numbing toilet escapades. Tune in again next… whenever, for when I attempt to do just that, with wineries, paragliding, and live jazz. In a crypt. Because why not.

The Importance of Being Earnest at SummerStage closed last night. Following a post-show group outing for eggplant fries, I was home by 12:30, laying awake in bed until 2, back up at 4 to the tune of a thunderstorm booming and splashing outside my window, before finally accepting sleep as a lost cause and getting out of bed at 7.

I attribute this sleepless exhaustion to a number of factors, chief among them my brain’s current unwillingness to stop replaying the first half of the first line of Formation on a loop, and its apparent address-this-now! concern that I’m going to forget to update my auto insurance before I leave for Cape Town on July 19th.

It’s gonna be a long day.

As I seek to fill time until I’m literally so tired I have no choice but to collapse, below are two things I had to take care of for my upcoming travels which I thought I’d share here with links and contact numbers for others Googling the issue for details.

#1: South Africa Work Visa Requirement: FBI Identity History Summary Letter

One of the requirements for US citizens seeking international work visas is to contact the FBI for an “Identity History Summary” ($18) to prove you’re not a bad guy.

Since we can’t smile in passport photos, how else will they know we’re chill?

Per the Biometric Services Customer Service line which you can call for updates on your IHS request (304-625-5590, 8-5 EST), their turn-around time for processing these requests is 13-15 weeks. HAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAhahahagross.

So, like, if you — just as a hypothetical example — got your fingerprints taken at the sheriff’s office on March 30th (Form FD-258, $10 in Waukesha), and mailed them with your IHS request to the FBI on March 31st, then called BSCS for an update on June 22, you could, hypothetically, be told your request is still being processed and to call back next week and then expect to wait at least another week for their response to arrive in the mail and you’ve still got to have time to take it with the rest of your visa paperwork to the consulate in Chicago before your departure on July 19th and you won’t have time for a return trip to Chicago if it turns out you missed something and oh my God this is cutting it close!!!

*wheeeeeeeeeeze pant pant pant*

Two of my take-aways from this so far:

– Follow the directions on the IHS letter request EXACTLY to avoid the risk of having your request rejected and having to start the process all over again, including getting your fingerprints re-taken as they don’t return the fingerprint card to you if they reject your request.
– No matter how long it may be until your departure date, don’t put anything off. Not something I didn’t already know, but I was certainly unprepared for just how long some of these steps could potentially take. I expected a month to be a common average wait time, but certainly not three to four months for a single copy of such a commonly requested document. (Or seven months for a series of vaccinations.) I started the process for this letter almost four months before my flight and I’m still going to be getting everything in just under the wire.

#2: South Africa Travel Requirements: Vaccinations

Another process I had to get an early start on was getting the necessary vaccinations. It is recommended that travelers to the area get vaccinated against Hep A and Hep B (which require follow up doses at the one-month mark, and a third Hep B shot at the six-month mark), and against Typhoid and Tetanus.

Your local availability options may differ, however here in Waukesha County residents can visit the Health and Human Services building without an appointment and request a vaccination for just about anything. Some of the more uncommon vaccines may have to be ordered, however when I went in, everything I needed was on hand.

Be prepared to drop a few bucks on this part of the process. Prices will vary depending on region, vaccine availability, etc., however for me the costs were as follows:

Typhoid: $75
Hep A, part 1: $50
Hep B, part 1: $50
Hep B, part 2: $50
Tetanus* Booster: $8
MMR*: $8

*This was a T-dap shot, which is a vaccination that protects against Tetanus, as well as Diphtheria and Whooping Cough (pertussis). I also got an MMR (Measles, Mumps, Rubella) booster while I was there because why not. Waukesha HHS keeps a ready supply of both on hand at $8 bucks a pop. When you go for your travel vaccinations, check to see what else is available and recommended for you. It may be cheaper than you expect, and $8 is a small price to pay for that sort of peace of mind.

Okay. It’s 9:45 am and I still can’t sleep. But at least my brain’s moved on to the chorus of Formation so I’ve got that going for me, which is zzzzzz………….

“I’m Leavin’ On Three Jet Planes…”

It doesn’t matter how clever I think I’m being, my friend Jenny sees right through me every time.

“YOU’RE MOVING TO SOUTH AFRICA,” she announced, when I set down two bottles of South African wine on her dining room table a couple months ago.

“Jenny how do you DO that?!“

Jenny and I gearing up for a shared pattern: Mushrooms then sarsaparilla then swordplay innuendo at the Ren Faire.

“The only time you ever bring over clothes you’re getting rid of is when you’re about to move,” she explained. “And the wine, well…”

I thought of the ten or so stuffed bags of tops and dresses I’d just dropped off in the other room, and of all the previous overflowing sacks of personal effects I’d attempted to pawn off on her over the years before embarking on countless other journeys.

Well how ’bout that. Guess I do have a pattern. A regular John H. Watson, that girl is…

Except this time around I’m not actually moving anywhere. What I am doing is heading to Cape Town, South Africa in July to spend several months with my friends Laura and James, who will be there while James works on a project with the Syfy Channel.

I’ve had a number of different jobs over the years, but I cut my teeth on babysitting.

I can’t find a picture with all three of us in it, which — I mean, I feel like that’s one of those things you should just have if it’s a friendship worth following to the other side of the globe, you know? The closest I could get is this one I took of them with their daughter a few years ago, if you’re willing to pretend I’m the dinosaur.

So… yep. My next trip is to live with friends in South Africa. Is that not the weirdest, greatest thing? I have all the visa paperwork in hand, and the most gorgeous flight itinerary that’s ever had my name on it, and I still can’t believe this is a real thing I am actually doing.

I’m sure you have a lot of questions – I know I did – so I’ll attempt to get the big ones out of the way right off the bat:

Q: What about work? Won’t they miss you?
A: I’m taking something of a sabbatical, though I will – as always – remain connected thanks to the co-blessings of Internet + Dropbox.

Q: What about your mom? Won’t she miss you?
A: Okay but why you gotta be like that though?

Q: What about Ghostbusters? Won’t you miss it?
A: It comes out right before I leave, so no worries compadres. I’ll get to see it before I take off.

Okay so that’s work, mom, Melissa McCarthy… That should cover it, right?