At Least We Have Good Weather: A Life of Love and Loss

Chapter 44

It had been over three years since I had last visited Cape Town, and each time prior to this particular visit, my travels had comprised of nothing more than a Friday work day, and a weekend for myself. So when I planned on coming down this time, I planned a little more, and managed to turn it into a five working days and weekend for myself trip

Well, the work side of it certainly took care of itself and I ended up being so busy that my devious little plan to take some time for myself during those working days simply just didn't happen. However, that turned to be the biggest blessing in disguise.

My trip was always going to be two-fold.

Firstly, I quite simply needed to breathe new air for a bit. Joburg was getting the best of me in so many ways, and I felt the anxiety settling in big time. I needed to get out for a bit, for everyone's sanity.

Secondly, I wanted to test the waters in terms of working out of the Cape Town office. As part of my overall smaller dreams, bigger wins strategy, I wanted to see how effectively working from the CT office would prove. And lo and behold, I got probably about three times more work done in the week down there than I would have back in Johannesburg.

Most of my closest friends lived in Cape Town, and I made sure I got to see them. In fact, some people really went out of their way to make me feel welcome, and that always goes so far in my book. If I couldn't make it to where people were, they came and fetched me. Gestures of friendship are not lost on me, and I ensured that while I was down there I re-ignited my live-for-the-moments lifestyle in full force. In fact I even set up several of these moments to take place after I left town in the hope that I would have left some tiny part of Burg magic in the city that has always been so good to me, and arrived bright and early on a Tuesday morning.

Of course, the trip was not without its typical Lemony Snicket moments, which so often define my adventures. Life often has an easy way, and a hard way, but they don't often tell you about the Burg way.

There's nothing quite like a first day in a different city, as basic logic always seems to disappear and you seem to make the silliest of errors. Starting with my rental car that took me 20 minutes to start because I couldn't figure out how to switch on the damn ignition. So there I sat quietly in my parking bay, trying not to look like a complete idiot, sometimes pretending to be on my phone with one hand, while with the other frantically searching for some sort of switch or immobilizer that may be the trick to switching it on. Little did I realize, to start the car, it simply needed to be in gear.

Innovation sure had changed since my days had been limited to my mom's Ford Tracer.

That first night, I also managed to lock myself out the house I was staying in. The bright idea of taking a walk down to KFC, seemed fine until I returned to the house only to realize I didn't quite have all the keys I needed. I phoned my Cape Town colleague who confirmed this to indeed be fact.

As I waited calmly eating my chicken on the side of the road, in the dark, and cold, she phoned me back with the genius idea of walking around the house and using the other door for which I had keys. As I say, logic seems to disappear in a new city.

On the Wednesday, I decided to take a walk in preparation for a conference I was attending the following day, in order to see the venue beforehand and if it was indeed 'walkable' I left with a colleague at about 5.30pm and took a breezy walk a few blocks down. Eventually spotting the conference center from a distance, it was in fact within walking distance, but certainly not from the route I took. Happy with the fact that I now knew where it was, I headed back. Back where, however, I wasn't quite sure, as I soon realized I couldn't retrace my steps. So what proceeded was a brutal amount of walking around to try and find my bearings. As the night got darker, and colder, I ended up being followed by a homeless man, swearing at me constantly for no reason. Ironically we would both make our way to the local homeless shelter. He was happy, I wasn't.