The clock is telling me it is 15:46 on Monday, January 23rd, but my mind and body are having a hard time believing that. After 20 hours of travel, moving forward 7 time zones (unfortunately this doesn't mean I watched the Patriots game 7 hours early and then was able to place bets given that information.) and without any solid sleep, it seems like its Sunday night. The 83o Fahrenheit temperature makes me question whether or not this is what January looks like anywhere in the world. For now I will have to suspend my intuition and trust the reality of Cape Town.
Many American students traveling from the major hubs of New York, Chicago, DC and Atlanta finally left the airport at about 1400 hours after our bags arrived an hour after we did in Cape Town airport. As we drove from the airport to our apartments we passed many visibly impoverished townships as well as naturally beautiful natural landscapes. We arrived in the town of Rondebosch, which is a western suburb of Cape Town, which we will call home for the next several months. Located at the bottom of the University of Cape Town Campus, Rondebosch is a town inhabited by many UCT students.
I will be residing in Helena Flat 3. We were all surprised by how nice the flats here are, ours is spacious, simple and comfortable. Each student has their own bedroom and I share a common space, bathroom and kitchen with 2 other fellows, Jake and Peter. Jake goes to the College of William and Mary and Peter goes to the University of Minnesota. Our apartment also happens to have a balcony, which offers the ability for breezes to swoop through our flat and cool down the hot air. A group of us wandered onto Rondebosch’s main street to find some necessities and get a bite to eat. By the time our supper had concluded everyone was having trouble keeping their eyelids open, and I, who had only a week ago been freezing my ass off in Foxboro, Massachusetts had to find a way to watch the Patriots Ravens AFC Championship game.
Pretty good view, especially considering the circumstances
There was a great deal of adversity I had to overcome in order to be able to watch the Patriots game. First of all, I was incredibly tired and was ready to finally lay down in a bed and sleep, it had been about 36 hours since I’d last been able to sleep lying down. Secondly, it was already 10 pm local time in Africa, thousands and thousands of miles from any land where football actually means football. I ended up discovering a way I could buy some internet (literally, here you pay per MB of data used) and also bought NFL Game Pass, which allowed me to stream the game in HD nonetheless. Though it cost more than it usually would and took about an hour and a half to get setup, I was as happy as a clam lying in my flat watching the AFC Championship half way around the world, as if I were minutes from Foxboro. Sure enough the Patriots punched their ticket to the Super Bowl as most expected, however, it was in a subpar game for Brady and with help from Billy Cundiff doing his best Ray Finckle impersonation, missing the game tying field goal with 11 seconds left. Unfortunately I did not have enough internet or energy to stay awake to witness the Giants reserving an invitation to Indianapolis to rematch the Patriots and Giants previous Super Bowl appearances. It will be quite a game in 2 weeks and I will be happy to stay up for the 2 or 3 am kickoff South African time. I drifted off to sleep with a smile on my face and a sigh of relief, having arrived safely halfway around the world destined for an incredible experience ahead of me, topped off with a Patriots Super Bowl in two weeks. All is well in the world.
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