Amorphous Travel

Peter and I are sitting in an internet cafe on the hopping Long Street with all the bars and nightclubs in Cape Town. Earlier today we had our last session and said goodbye to the Luther kids. We then had a crazy idea...why not move our tickets up and go to london? And so we did. It was only a $100 dollar charge so tomorrow night at 20.30 we are flying british airways to london heathrow. we're keeping our return flight on the 31st to chicago, so we'll just get one more country in. We've had a great time in cape town, but after a week we feel like we've seen enough. We were fortunate to have our tour guides son chilling with us so we have gotten the full tour of Cape Town. Last night we went to a stage performance of "Sarafina," a musical about the 1976 Soweto Uprising in South Africa that was kind of the beginning of the huge protest era. It was incredible! First of all we paid 100 rand which is like 18 bucks, and the show had almost all of the actors from the 1985 run that was on broadway and was nominated for numerous tony awards. One of the actors even played the part of Rafiki in Walt Disney's theatre production of the Lion King. Needless to say the singing and dancing were unmatched. It was an amazing end to our trip because it encapsulated everything we've been talking about in terms of the struggle against apartheid, the lives of the majority of africans, and the incredible, diverse yet divisive country that is South Africa. I loved it!

After Sarafina we had a last night celebration out on the town that didn't end until 6am! That left me enough time to pack, take a two hour nap, and shower. The first thing Peter and I did when we got settled in our new hostel was to sleep for 3 hours!

The other interesting event of the day was the Cape Town police station. I found out that I have some insurance for my stolen goods, so I went to the police station to file a report so I could get the insurance money...2 hours later I left with a copy of everything I needed. It was a chaotic place with a huge queue of people waiting to talk to police officers. The statement itself took an hour to write down and after calling and faxing durban I finally got the info i needed. Quite another interesting look at the S.A. justice system though.

So we're off again tomorrow and hopefully will be staying with my friend Emily...haven't asked yet, but I am pretty sure she's in London! I'll let ya know how the adventures are!