Pictures!

Mini Derek Fisher

Beard a month ago

Beard 2 weeks ago

All taken by my friends

Taken by yours truly

view from Table Mountain

explanation of the cloud, or tablecloth, often spilling over table mountain

Table Mountain- 4-18

Saturday, we were scheduled to climb Table Mountain.  Table mountain is an amazing mountain that looks over all of Cape Town.  Our bus arrived at the foot of the mountain in the morning, and we were met with incredible winds.  We were advised by rangers, a policeman, and other hikers that we should not attempt the climb.  Table Mountain is one of the top death causing mountains, but a small group of us were determined to face the winds nonetheless.  And I justified that most of the deaths were from cliff climbers, not trail hikers.  This “fact” seemed vaguely familiar to me as something I had heard, but it is likely that it was completely fabricated by my subconscious.  But it was good enough for us and we were even more intent on climbing.  Then our semester coordinators told us climbing the mountain was not an option because it was too unsafe.  Plan B was to go downtown, and from there everyone could split up to shop, go to the beach, etc.  After driving into town, me and 7 others immediately hopped into a taxi and went straight back to the mountain to climb it anyway.  And we did.  Our motivations of the morning were even more magnified by rebellion: not only against being told we may not do it, but against being told we were not capable of doing it.  It was definitely a hard hike.  It was very long and tiring, but we were pretty safe the entire time, and we ultimately climbed the trail in much less time than it was marked to take.  The summit was beautiful.  Our soreness and tiredness was obliterated inside the shadow of our desire to frolic.  And frolic we did.  We frolicked around the huge summit and all the way back down the mountain while thoughts of friendship and badassery danced in our heads.

Travel Week- pretend this was posted 4-16

This past week we drove all the way across South Africa, from Pietermaritzburg to Cape Town.

We stayed in six different hotels along the way, and because the entire drive was along the coast, most nights were spent hanging out on the beach.

On Sunday we were in Port Elizabeth, and it happened to be the day of the South African IronMan triathlon.  The beach part of Port Elizabeth looked more like a level in Tony Hawk video games than any place I've ever seen.  My good friend Derek and I have missed playing basketball this entire semester, and we often talk about how nothing sounds better than playing a game of basketball.  Derek and I walked up to an empty swimming pool and I looked up and saw a basketball rise above the roof of a building and hit a backboard.  My involuntary response was to ecstatically yell a swear word or two, and we were both running towards the court immediately.  We came around the corner to see a group of guys playing ball.  We asked if we could get in, and we kicked off our flip flops and played an hour of ball in our bare feet and beach clothes.  Oh boy did we dominate.  It was so awesome, and despite the new blisters on our feet, we felt so refreshed.

The following day we went bungy jumping, at what is apparently the highest jump in the world.  On the platform, music was playing and everyone was dancing, which created a great distraction before the jump.  The jump was so amazing and surreal.  It was oddly peaceful, and if it weren't for all the blood rushing to my head, I wouldn't have minded hanging there all day.

We arrived in Cape Town on Wednesday which happened to be my birthday, and we had an awesome two days of exploring the city.

Internet has been sketchy, so I haven't been able to blog in a month.  These next two blogs were written a couple weeks ago, but I'm just able to post them now.