I finally got out and went dancing this weekend. It was good to finally dust off my dancin' shoes. I started off Friday night with an Internations party in Sandton which is the business district to the North with all the Hoity Toity Fancy Pants bars... not really my scene, but I needed some where to go before the main event. One does not simply show up at the club before midnight (actually I don't even know if it is open before 11). The IN social was better than the last... this one was at an outside Miami beach-style place called The Sands. I met a bunch of interesting expats from around the world from Trinidad to Austrailia to Ireland. I hardly run into any Americans, but I did meet an older banker dude from NY, but he turned out to be a complete creeper so he got ditched real fast. Old banker dude- "I love Techno! I go to Ultra! Tiesto and Skrillex are the best!" Me- "um, no. Go away".
I ubered over to And for ToyToy (techno night). The club reminded me of old Smart Bar days... crowded, smokey, banging techno. I checked out Black Book... their set was tight. The crowd was young, but I met some fun kids, including my new side kick, MK. I was supposed to be playing wing woman, but it was a typical techno show, so mostly dudes and unfortunately for him, he's into chicks. I had meant to only stay a minute to check it out, but it was so good I didn't get home until 3am. I'm looking forward to the next Friday I'm in town.
Side bar: I had the best Uber drivers this weekend. I had one play be his personal South African house music play lists and another that made sure the hotel gate opened for me at 3am.
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| Internations-sans American Creepster. #sotan #legsformiles |
Side bar: I had the best Uber drivers this weekend. I had one play be his personal South African house music play lists and another that made sure the hotel gate opened for me at 3am.
Saturday, I really meant to do another Park Run... but I'm too old to be that productive on 2 hours of sleep. Ironically, Facebook alerted me to a memory of a post from the same day in 2009 where I boasted of getting 7 hours of sleep in a 55 hour period. Ha. I was just functional in time for the soccer game at 3:30 at FNB Stadium. It was sports team vs sports team. One team was yellow and the other were pirates? Go sports teams!! We probably should have sprung for VIP tickets and had private parking and separate seating and what not, but we didn't. Lesson learned. Our seats were in the sun, but the upside to general seating was we could really feel the vibe and were in the middle of all the dancing and festive-ness. I took some videos... I'll try to upload. (I can't upload). I remembered hearing all the horns inside the stadium when the World Cup was televised... its a whole different experience being in the middle of all the horns. I regret not purchasing one. Getting out after the game was a little hectic... I think we went out on the wrong side or something and there was no easy way to get to an Uber. We should have just called one immediately and had him instruct us where to meet him. We didn't. So we spent an hour wandering around as the only 2 white girls- pretty obviously Americans- in a see of drunk African locals- mostly men. I need to research this more and write a whole separate blog, but harassment of women and rape culture is a huge problem here. There were a lot of cat calls and bullshit and taking our pictures- I'm still not sure if this is some creepy fetish or I'm going to be sold online. I didn't necessarily feel unsafe... there was enough people around, a handful of security and I'm a fucking badass. And to steal my running friend's tagline: no one shits on my cupcake. It was more annoying than anything...especially since I was getting hangrier by the minute.
Sunday, I used my new best friend Meetup.com again and found a hiking group that was hiking the Hennops Trail, touted as the best hike in the province. I had to be up pretty early, as it was over an hour drive away, in the hills near Pretoria. The drive was easy until I got to the park and then there was a lot of one lane roads and off-roading and a GPS that had no idea where I was going, even with GPS coordinates (hmm, I don't think the parking lot is in this river).
I'm starting to recognize people from other Meetups which is nice. Our group had about 25 people. There was a fast group and an intermediate group.... I fully intended on going intermediate, but ended up right in front with our leader. Damn it, Type A personality. The hike was beautiful, hot, challenging, engaging and fun. I realized maybe an hour into the 4 hour, 11km hike that I have never actually been hiking... up to now, I've only been outside walking with a moderate effort. I spent more time on my ass than I did on my feet, but I accept that... luckily I have a lot of padding down there. Better my ass than my face. Like my running experience, there was a whole lot of up and the whole up time I was praying for some down. Until the down came...the up was all physical and the down, very mental. The hike ended with a fun chair ride across the river, probably not entirely safe, but a great way to end the hike.
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| This was obviously early before I started to question my fitness and my decisions in life |
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| Up! Up! Up! |
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| All the Up was worth it |
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| Across the river in a little metal chair. |
In other news, I thought I had purchased a magical pillow this week. I was so very excited. Alas, after two days, it was not so magical. Back to the mall for me, but maybe not to Game/Walmart. For those who have stayed at the Riot-Little pad in Chitown, you know I have a pillow problem.
This week is going to be mostly 10-12 hour work days to make up for the long weekend I'm taking to go to Cape Town this weekend... so don't expect any updates until next week. My social calendar is unfortunately sparse this week.
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