Who are we?

This blog is an agglomeration of the thoughts and experiences of two American girls who packed up and moved to South Africa on a whim. Caz from Fairfield, Connecticut and Mandy from Milwaukee, Wisconsin first met as roommates in 4127 on Semester at Sea in Fall of 2010.
In the interim, Caz returned to finish her Bachelor of Science with a double major in Biology (concentration in Microbiology) and Geography with a minor in Chemistry at the University of Miami in Florida, while Mandy took a hiatus to rediscover her real passion working with pregnant women, advocating for home birth and delivering babies outside of a hospital environment. We reconvened to follow both of our fields of study (read: hopes, dreams, asiprations, life goals, etc.) outside of the United States. Hello South Africa?

We are both here for at least a year and a half, though the more time we spend falling in love with South Africa, the more we'd like to think it'll be longer. We are both starting jobs in November/December: Caz working with infectious disease at a hospital clinic and Mandy beginning her training to become a certified midwife. Before then, we are both writing a book about our experiences leading up to this adventure as well as the multitude of serendipitous happenings that led us here.

As always, feel free to comment or ask questions. If you have an interest in a topic, let us know and we will surely oblige you (within reason). Enjoy!

Monday, August 5, 2013

Semester at Sea and Ketchup

As many know, Caz and I met on our voyage around the world with Semester at Sea. Room 4127 forever. Our lives changed the day we embarked on the journey of a lifetime and met our new roommates. An eloquent yet bold, angsty, and exuberant New Englander from Connecticut and me, an awkward hopeless bleeding heart from Wisconsin. Who knew we would be such great friends? Anyways, since we left Cape Town in early October of 2010 we vowed to come back and have even greater adventures. And here we are today. As fate would have it, the MV Explorer is making an appearance at the V&A Waterfront this October, where Caz and I plan to go harass the current student body and reminisce yet again of our times on the ship.

As we spoke today we made a decision to find the students that will be staying in our cabin 4127 and extend a formal invite to come tour the city with us. We can show them alternatives to the tourist traps down Long St., take them where the locals go, and ensure that they meet real South Africans while they're in South Africa. It blows my mind how many people travel and never make the effort or take the time to meet the locals. What's the point if all you do is hang out with other tourists? We can show them how powerful the connections you make on adventures like Semester at Sea are. We can reinforce the fact that the adventures don't end after you disembark the ship. Semester at Sea was only the beginning for me and it turned my travel flame into a raging inferno. Needless to say I am very excited about the prospects of having an impact on future SASers. We plan to write a Letter of Intent to Semester at Sea and ask if they will help us, if they won't, then we will just use Facebook to stalk them. This is our attempt at giving back to SAS for all it gave to us.


Next order of business: Ketchup. The ketchup here is a lie. A dirty rotten lie. My closest of friends understand my love for ketchup. I crave it with the insatiable hunger only women experience. So today when we ordered the MOST wonderful crispy french fries (chips as they call them here), I was highly disturbed when Caz informed me the ketchup, "wasn't quite right" here. Caz and I were about to leave Den Anker when the waiter walked by with a bowl of chips for another table. We both stopped our conversation at the same time as if distracted by prey. We looked at each other and more or less drooled in unison, after asking at the same time, "OMG WANT FRIES?", we flagged a waiter down. I swear we're like crack fiends. The waitress brought us our chips and gave us a little bowl of "ketchup". I was horrified when I bit into the weird, watery, appley tasting tomato paste gone wrong. It's as if they used apple cider vinegar instead of distilled white vinegar and added unidentifiable spices. I blame the Europeans. It tastes like something they would put on fried fish. I didn't realize how something so small and unassuming would crumple my whole moment. Still, I ate the not-ketchup because it didn't taste bad, it just wasn't MY kind of ketchup. I have resolved to force Brandon to bring me a suitcase full of Heinz squeezable ketchup when he gets here in December. Until then, please, if anyone is out there, send me ketchup! If I have to deal with PMS without ketchup again, it's not going to end well for anyone! Now I wonder what the hell they serve at the McDonalds down the road. I must find answers to these riddles.
lies...

- Mandy
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Location: Cape Town, South Africa

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