Living in //Hui !Gaeb

For those confused about the post title, read this article about the new Khoisan name for Cape Town. 

 
I have been in Cape Town for almost a month, and what a month it has been. Most of my time and energy has gone into settling into my new job, and the rest has been spent on searching for permanent accommodation. With regards to the first, I love my job, though it has been an intense few weeks and the people I work with are highly intelligent and driven.

Apartment hunting, on the other hand, has been nothing short of a nightmare. Never mind the fact that places never do their advertised photographs justice, for the most part, agents do not seem to care one nanometer about potential tenants since there is such a high demand for places to rent. In my recent experience, given the following, choose none.

 

 

However, tenacity and perseverance have paid off, and if all things go as planned (which they never seem to do, so touch wood), I will be moving into the new apartment this weekend. And not a moment too soon, either. Anyone living out of suitcases and showering with cold, damp towels should not expect to be in a pleasant mood, no matter how beautiful the city they live in. There also has not been much time left over for exploring, so I cannot wait to get settled so that I can better acquaint myself with the Mother City.

To distract myself from the inevitable disgruntledness resulting from wet towels, wrinkled clothes and cabin fever, I made a checklist of sorts of peculiar things I have spotted in Cape Town thus far. These include:

• A real-life Zooey Deschanel hipster lookalike shopping in Woolworths food
• A man pushing his transportable market stall on a trolley down a main road, being followed by a police car blaring "GET OUT OF THE ROAD!" through a loudspeaker
• One chilly Thursday morning, we had a great view from our kitchen windows at work of some guys relaxing in their rooftop jacuzzi
• A whole family arrived for dinner at an Indian restaurant, all packed into a bus
• An Asian mother teaching her toddler daughter how to walk backwards
• In a restaurant, a little girl came and deposited fresh seaweed on the table  

 

And a few for which I have photographic evidence, in case I hear "pics or it didn't happen".

• An almost indecipherable message left on my car window from an inconvenienced passive-aggressive neighbour:

• A rainbow which lasted for nearly an hour:

 

• A Bos vending machine giving out free Bos drinks for tweets:

 

• A house in the street my aunt lives in caught fire, billowing clouds of smoke, spotted from work:

As the weather continues to behave like a heartbroken teenager, my to-do list is being filled with items that involve indoor activities. Mostly this includes visiting museums, doing lots of baking, becoming a patron of local restaurants and eating banana bread baked by a Nobel Peace Prize laureate. Once the new apartment has been furnished, I will get right on that.