south africa

This is somewhat related to my Culture Shock blog post. But somehow there's a re-occurring theme with 3 basic things that always surprise me and get to me a bit (a lot?) when I'm traveling in a foreign country. This doesn't include the US which is may as well be the same as traveling in Canada (well, the more urban areas anyway).

Disclaimer: Parts of this blog post contain graphic details.

1. Toilets. When I first arrived in Italy with Scott, we met a guy who had just arrived in Europe from the US for the first time. His girlfriend warned him about the toilets, so he brought a massive pack of toilet seat covers to show those toilets who's boss. However, in a lot of Italy the toilets have the seats removed! Needless to say, he got owned. I'm not sure why the seats are removed, but they're standard north american style of toilets, just with no seat, so you kind of need to do a half squat above the toilet, or seriously mummify the thing with a ton of toilet paper.

In a lot of western Europe you need to pay to use the toilets, this was a bit annoying as we always had to carry change with us just in case, though after using a free toilet in Spain, we were more than happy to drop a bit of change for clean crapping.

In Hungary, for whatever reason, many of the toilets had a nice little ledge for your, well... to "rest" on prior to being flushed. Not really my thing, but I guess some people like to examine their "stool" prior to flushing.

The apartment I'm living in now has a nice little add-on bidet for the toilet (you can probably get one for /your/ toilet too! (let me know and I'll try and hook you up)). Thus far I've been too afraid to use it. But I did turn it on once to see what would happen. Fortunately my face wasn't anywhere near it when it took a good shot up towards the ceiling. A minor wipe down of the nearby surfaces was necessary.

2. Tissue paper. Nowhere I've been have I been able to find as soft as toilet paper and kleenex as is in North America. Hungary was the worst I've been for both (and I won't go into any more details there, but I'd have been in about as good a shape with a fine sandpaper)... but honestly, soft toilet paper and kleenex are the exception, not the rule. We have spoiled bums in North America.

3. Recycling. I've had to come to grips with throwing out plastic and glass bottles when I'm traveling. Especially when I can't speak the language. South Africa may as well have had no recycling at all. Now in Buenos Aires, there's clearly recycling, but I just haven't been able to crack the system yet. This might seem a silly thing to be bothered by (in my top 3), but really, I cringe every time I have to throw out something that I know can be recycled, a small part of me dies inside. (Maybe a spanish speaker can provide me with a script en espanol with how to get more info about it :) ).

They've got barely understandable accents, drive on the wrong side of the road, their toilettes flush in the opposite direction and safe sex means doing it with a can of mace and a taser under your pillow. Kinky... I know, but that's how they roll in South Africa. I returned May 7th and just finished uploading the rest of my photos to Flickr. I didn't really feel like blogging as I went, instead I just tried to upload Flickr photos... which proved difficult at points with crappy internet connections and power shedding.

Everyone seems to want to know what my favorite part of it was. Unfortunately I don't really have an answer to that question. I just went to visit friends and relax, I didn't go there to go on a safari, diving, or any other things someone might want to do while in South Africa. I guess the best part was the people who I spent my time with there (oh, and thanks for letting me crash at your places too :-) ). That said, I still did some pretty cool things... like tasting crocodile (among other animals), driving through joburg's lion park, feeding giraffes, eating penguins, and visiting the wine lands outside of cape town.

The crime there didn't seem nearly as prevalent as everyone led on, but then again... wait, I meant watching penguins, not eating them! Who could eat a penguin!? Anyway, there are definitely some cool areas in Joburg, but the suburbiness of it kind of turned me off. After a week in Joburg (and one stomach flu later) I went to Cape Town with Sam and her friend Sara... I took this week completely off work. Cape Town is a beautiful city. We stayed for the first few days with Guy at his place (I believe in or near the Camps Bay area) on the side of the mountain overlooking the ocean. We spent the rest of our time at Adrian's mostly just chilling and video gaming awesomeness :).

A few of the trips extra highlights... getting lost trying to pick up Adrian's brother Jo and turning a 30 minute drive into a 3h drive... driving through the wine lands and doing tastings (at one place we had like 5 or 6 good sized tasters for like $1.50 CAD!)... and of course arriving at the Cape Town airport, waiting in a 2h line-up and yelling at the ticket guy only to find out we'd shown up a day early. And oh yeah! The afternoon in downtown London, England was nice too :).

Flickr photos are here! But these are some of my favs below.