Sunday, September 26, 2010

Other news

I went down to the wharf and listened to a very interesting (meaning weird) talk on hare krishna and meditation. There was a wellness fair going on that I wanted to see and turns out it was new age wellness.

I also went to have traditional South African dining and ate Boboti and it was delicious. It is a meat dish with custard on top with rice and jam. Sounds strange, but it was one of the best meals of my life. Plus, I also ordered South African dough bread and white hot chocolate. Sweet and savory together? It works.
I did it!

Running a marathon in South Africa? = Loads of money
Running a marathon in Antarctica = Even more money
Becoming one of the youngest people in the world to run a marathon on all 7 continents? = Pretty freaking priceless

I just finished the Cape Town Marathon and can now officially say that I have run a marathon on all 7 continents. I plan to do it again.

I have also managed to keep myself alive. It's been touch and go. As much as I would like to have a Lifetime movie made about me, I am not interested in becoming Natalie Holloway 2.0.

The race was hard and I had to walk almost immediately. I got a side stitch at mile 2 that didn't go away. I was sick all last night so was super dehydrated. My legs were cramping all night, so knew I was in trouble. I think I had a touch of stomach flu. Plus, the night clubs went outside and people were up to 5am. In fact, when I left for the race, people were just headed home. It was insane and I had to listen to it all night long. I struggled and composed different strategies going from mile to mile to make it through. But I finished in the rain and cold. Yesterday was perfect weather, but not today. I am so cold I'm shaking. I also broke my camera. I hope the pictures are okay. It's the buttons, so probably not the memory card.

Yesterday I went to the townships where people were displaced during Apartheid. It was poverty like I've never seen. People live in these total shacks with 5/family or a hostel with 3 families with 5 people each and they all share these communal bathrooms. But they are lucky to have bathrooms. Many of the shacks used communal porta-potties, where they also showered. It stank and was very sad. The children were sure cute though. I got invited to go to the local pub, which was men sitting on the ground all drinking beer from one large tin-no such thing as cups. They invited me to drink their beer, but I said no. They all looked really offended. But I am American and offensive is how we roll. They talked with that clicking noise.

Not a lot of people speak English here. I'm surprised. Mainly Afrikaans.