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ENTRIES FROM THIS CATEGORY
- Go Directly To Jail
- Price Hike - American Vacation - Just Relax - School Trips - The Ride of Good Hope - Reading is FUNdamental - Alumni Day - Zombie - Irish Telepathy and The Next Generation - Finishing in Cape Town - The Little Green Van - Big Cats, Big Birds and Telephones - Superlatives - Up In The Air and Down The Funnel - Foofie To The Very End - Just When You Thought It Was Safe To Go Into A Protective Steel Cage... - Cute Baby Animals At Knifepoint - The Positive Poster Child - Back On The Streets - The Changing Of The Group - A Day At The Office - Mugged Again - The Biggest Let Down in Cape Town - Escape From The Cape |
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March 05, 2004
Go Directly To JailDAY 137: After the seven-hour flight -- which included a screening of Intolerable Cruelty, some of Disney's The Haunted Mansion, some Super Nintendo and hardly any sleep with all the noise coming from the rowdy Argentine rugby team onboard --...Read this entry March 07, 2004
Price HikeDAY 138: Cape Town is flanked to the north by the geological marvel known as Table Mountain, a massive rock formation with a flat top like, well, a table -- but one that was sculpted by a blind man. It...Read this entry American VacationDAY 139: Adam and Brett, the two Americans I met the night before in the hostel's living room had pretty much the same plans that I had for the day: to trek up Table Mountain and to see the big...Read this entry March 08, 2004
Just RelaxDAY 140: To recall a conversation I had when I first arrived at my Cape Town hostel, the guy who checked me in, Ingmar, said that it's good to have a relaxed attitude in South Africa because things may take...Read this entry March 10, 2004
School TripsDAY 141: Since the age of three, I was raised in Teaneck, New Jersey, U.S.A., a proudly multi-cultural suburb of New York City. Teaneck has some roots in the American Civil Rights Movement of the 1950 and 60s -- in...Read this entry The Ride of Good HopeDAY 142: If you haven't figured out already, I'm a pretty big cycling enthusiast. I'm no Lance Armstrong or Dave Mirra (nor do I aspire to be), but I do enjoy the feeling of being on the top of a...Read this entry March 11, 2004
Reading is FUNdamentalDAY 143: Every now and then I need a day to just chill out, catch up on Blog duties, do a little freelance design work and -- one of the favorite pasttimes of the backpacker set -- read a book....Read this entry March 12, 2004
Alumni DayDAY 144: It may be interesting to point out that I attended Teaneck High School, five miles from New York City, from 1988-1992, and Rutgers University, the state university of New Jersey, from 1993-1997. While this information isn't exactly exciting...Read this entry March 15, 2004
ZombieDAY 145: Amongst the things that I hate about the way my body operates -- other than the odor it produces in my crotch when I wear polypropelene long johns on a day of snowboarding -- is the fact that...Read this entry Irish Telepathy and The Next GenerationDAY 146: So I was sitting in the kitchen with my roll and Marmite for breakfast. At the table was one of my dormmates, Farhad, a fortysomething South African from Ladismith in town to do the famous Cape Argus bike...Read this entry March 21, 2004
Finishing in Cape TownDAY 147: Named after its two major sponsors, The Cape Argus Pick 'N Pay Cycle Tour is a 108-kilometer race, which takes willing participants up and down the hills, neighborhoods and beaches in and around Cape Town. With about 35,000...Read this entry The Little Green VanDAY 148: In travel culture, there are two kinds of people away from home: "travelers" and "tourists." From the pages of National Geographic Traveler to internet bulletin boards, people usually agree that the term "traveler" refers to those who see...Read this entry Big Cats, Big Birds and TelephonesDAY 149: The Cango region just north of the mountains of the Garden Route has many attractions, each with its own brochure fighting for the tourist dollar. Sorting through the options was a bit daunting, but luckily the Bok Bus...Read this entry March 23, 2004
SuperlativesDAY 150: An electronic alarm clock went off at 6:30 in the morning. I knew I didn't set mine and just lay in the dorm room along with Chris, Andy, Sonja and two other English guys. (The four other girls...Read this entry Up In The Air and Down The FunnelDAY 151: I don't know who said that video games deteriorate a youth's mind, but whoever said it obviously never got to fly an airplane. Having flown virtual planes growing up on computer flight simulators and Zaxxon on my 1980s...Read this entry Foofie To The Very EndDAY 152: Amongst the differences between American English and South African English are certain words and phrases -- in South Africa, a "backpackers" is a "hostel," a "braai" is a "barbecue," and a "foofie slide" is a phrase that just...Read this entry Just When You Thought It Was Safe To Go Into A Protective Steel Cage...DAY 153: Ever since a particular Steven Spielberg movie was released in 1975 about shark attacks -- I won't mention any names -- sharks have been engraved in the mainstream human consciousness as vicious man-eating fish that can split you...Read this entry Cute Baby Animals At KnifepointDAY 154: If you've read the comments of Day 149, you probably know that I got mugged at knifepoint at dusk on Sunday, March 21st. Since my little Sony digital spy camera was violently cut off its strap by my...Read this entry The Positive Poster ChildDAY 155: I was ready by nine in the morning to walk downtown to the police department to report my mugging at knifepoint the night before. Word of my story got to Sylvia, The Backpack's "gran" ("grandmother") and she totally...Read this entry March 24, 2004
Back On The StreetsDAY 156: I hadn't left the confines of the hostel since the mugging at knifepoint two days prior, and it was about time I got over my fear and ventured out on the streets of Cape Town again. However, my...Read this entry March 25, 2004
The Changing Of The GroupDAY 157: I always wondered about Eve, Ingmar, Joanne, Dave and Karen, the young twentysomething employees of The Backpack. They'd make good friends with travelers -- only to have them leave 2-3 days later. How tiring it must be for...Read this entry March 28, 2004
A Day At The OfficeDAY 158: If there was one thing worse than being mugged at knifepoint, it was the long arduous task of getting back on track after the fact. With plenty of telephone calls to make (picture below), e-mails to send and...Read this entry Mugged AgainDAY 159: When I started the day, I felt confident that everything would go according to plan and I'd be on my way out of South Africa already. Little did I know at the time that I'd be mugged again...Read this entry March 29, 2004
The Biggest Let Down in Cape TownDAY 160: Originally I was only supposed to be in Cape Town for a week; my mental capacity for any one place while traveling can only handle so much with my overstimulated, MTV-generation short attention span. It was supposed to...Read this entry Escape From The CapeDAY 161: "Erik, you're still here?" Joan from housekeeping asked me. She had bid me farewell four days before during her last shift at The Backpack since she expected me to be gone by next shift. "Yeah, I'm still here....Read this entry |