The pistol landed with a thud,

its black cherrywood handle upsetting a glass of St Julian Red. Muzzle smoke curled lazily upward, the air of flint mixing with the right aromas of black cherries and spices as the split wine advanced towards the Captain’s veal. Outside, a train rumbled past.

Randoms. Doesn’t that just put you in the African savannah, about 100 years ago, right before a thunderstorm, with blood-red, orange, and purple skies at sundown? Maybe it’s just me.

Chris said in our first team meeting a few weeks back, that training while injured was letting the team down. In a related manner, I was reminded the other day that while my tendency was to push and push, and expect my body just to perform, just as important as what I need from my body is what my body needs from me. Which is to listen to it. I am a champion at hearing what my body has to say and pressing on regardless. But of course I know that it’s stupid and counter-productive, so, a renewed emphasis on not doing that.

Friday morning my right shoulder hurt for hours after doing max strict pullups, then we were doing muscle up progressions in the afternoon and my right elbow started hurting and I ignored it and went to go try a kipping muscle up or two anyway which was stupid because if it’s a challenging move for you and you’re tentative because you’re hurting … well what are you going to do but hurt yourself worse? Silly me. It’s not bad though, but bad enough that I needed to give my arms a couple of days rest. Felt very proud of myself for taking Saturday completely off. I’m convinced the root of all this evil is the external rotation issue that I’m not quite sure how to sort out. Better figure it out though, because it’s only getting worse.

In the meantime I’m taking every paleo anti-inflammatory known to man (well, fish oil, ginger and honey), and enjoying a lazy Saturday: sleeping in, going to the Biscuit Mill, acupuncture, chilling in a coffee shop, lying in bed reading, baking paleo almond-rooibos-honey shortbread. I had some amazing saffron snickerdoodle in Oakland last year, and I think rooibos in baking has a similar effect.

Although the acupuncture involved a lot of needles (41 to be exact, including 9 in my head!) it was one of those more chilled sessions. This was the first time I asked how deep the needles ago. Apparently 1.5 inches is the standard size, but sometimes he uses deeper ones. And now would be a good time to say that I’m sorry I asked … sometimes it’s best not to take the red pill. Ignorance is bliss.

Quite a funny time in Friday’s team workout. We had to do 100 team GHD situps (which are hard to explain, but suffice to say you use your legs to generate the force to snap your torso from backward extension up to touching your toes), then immediately after do sandbag shuttle sprints. I wound up doing 50 of these (the first 25 and the last 25). Speaking of a video game, when I got loaded with the sandbag I tried to start running but my legs wouldn’t co-operate. It was like stutter step running, and everyone was laughing at me (including me). But that’s what is so fun about working out in a group setting. And, again, good to know – if this ever comes up in a competition I know to loosen up my legs a bit before trying to run!

Friday after training I went to Long Street, which was significantly different than the last time I was there. All sorts of new bars, some of which look quite cool. I had dinner at Royale, then headed to my co-worker Anton’s place for a braai. I got there right in time to have second dinner (funniest quote: “You put out a lot, so you need to eat a lot!”). His place is nestled up right in the foothills of Table Mountain. Stunning. I can’t wait to check it out in the day time. It wound up being a bit of an emotional evening all things considered. We’ve been through a lot together. It dawned on me that it’s actually kind of the opposite of Jeeves, where I/we had easy success that even at the time I didn’t think we deserved. But it’s cool, and after all you can only connect the dots going backwards.

Working out of order here but Friday morning an excellent coffee & conversation at Hubspace, and then I spent most of the day working on updating the copy on the web site. Thursday was a cold & rainy day, almost like winter. I love all the seasons, even, and maybe in some ways especially winter. In winter you get to make springbok shank stew, cook oxtail, and relax around the fire with red wine (maybe in August), or tea in the meantime. You snuggle up in sweaters. There are lots of rainbows. The mountains are vivid. The sunny days are like gifts from the Gods. Broccoli, cauliflower, cabbage, and avos are local and in season. Calla lilies bloom in the wild.

I had acupuncture that morning and THAT was not a fun session. Later that evening I went back for qigong. This time was much better. It’s so not fun to be a beginner, and I really don’t understand how to hold my arms in these positions and yet be totally relaxed. But what can you expect after two sessions … you don’t exactly become a kung fu master overnight, and I have one of the positions almost down now. I’m glad I’m joining this community as more than just an acupuncture patient. Who knows where it may lead. But I think I’m really going to enjoy Thursdays: on that day there are boys playing with large knives. OK, playing is the wrong word.

I don’t really know that much about it but I know there are all sorts of different kinds of martial arts, and martial arts studios. Some of them, like muay thai boxing, are very testosterone-driven, and even use CrossFit-style circuit training for conditioning (well heck the police and armed forces use it … the sh*t works). But this is like the Western analogue of Eastern martial arts. Western medicine and Eastern medicine are different. Yoga, qigong, CrossFit: each trains the body and the mind, but the mix, the focus is different in each case. Yin and yang. Some of the hardest things I’ve had to do physically have been at yoga, and mentally at CrossFit, but usually it’s the reverse.

I actually already started to feel some of the power of chi in my second qigong session, similar to how I learned how to go ‘into the Zone’ during my first experience with kundalini yoga. Come to think of it, I’ve never used that technique at anything other than running because it kind of requires turning part of the brain ‘off’ which is not a good idea to do while, say, box jumping. But maybe I should try it on that blasted rower sometime. Anyhow. My point being: Dr Lan is a kung fu master who can do things physically that boggle the mind. His son Kim is an amazing physical specimen. There are many, many, many ways to skin a cat. I’m following a feeling here, and we’ll see where it takes me. In the meantime I get to watch boys play with knives.

So what of the short story that is our lives, or that Shakespeare quote about how all the world’s a stage and we are merely players?

Well, I’d say that just because it’s not a fairy tale doesn’t mean it can’t have a happy ending.

• “It looks like they’re spray-painted on.” – one CrossFitter describing the abs of another … and he was correct
• “Success stories that don’t end in success have only had Act 1 and Act 2.” – Petra
• “I tend to be very blunt.” – Jeff
• “I’m not as much fun when I don’t drink, am I?” “Nobody is!” – Ellie & Mandy
• “I know you’re not going to kill me. But at the same time – YOU’RE A SCORPION!” – Anton
• “Does anyone need another bottle of wine?” – Anton
• “Yes it’s true. But I don’t accept that.” – Peter
• “It’s like a horror movie. You’re talking and the blood is slowly dripping down.” – Kim 

Ever feel like your life is a video game?

You level up. You learn a new trick. The next day it completely vanishes. The next you do a strict muscle up while just messing around (I was actually kind of incredulous as it happened – the not-so-flattering bit is once I went to go get an audience, I failed my second attempt because I couldn’t press all the way out of it!).

At work. Dodging pedestrians, other vehicles, other non-vehicular traffic. At the gym. At the other gym. At the dojo. At work again. At home. At acupuncture.

With my web developer hat on. Then my graphic designer hat. Then playing bad cop to Peter Shrimpton’s good cop (I know, right??).

Going back to something I committed to in January and stopped … and pretty quickly getting back up to speed.

Demonstrating extreme patience with some people, and absolutely zero with others (well, I’m a Myers-Briggs “J” … what do you expect??).

At the gym in the morning before I realise I feel like puking. Squatting a little bit anyway, then noticing that the guy next to me is lifting less than I am (and I’m double-dip squatting…). Feeling like I have food poisoning, starting to eat, and miraculously recovering in time to finally break that 60kg clean (with ease, followed by 8 minutes of miserable mental fails), and also tie my power snatch PR with relative ease. Funny how a day can change on a dime.

I just wish someone would load the bar with 68kgs and tell me it was 57. The brain …. Best friend and worst enemy all at the same time. I could pretend I was like Mario when he gets super-charged and can kick some serious butt (Super Mario 3, my favourite Nintendo game ever!!).

Yeah, weird week. Super productive day on Monday at the office, then I worked remotely from a coffee shop in Hout Bay most of the day Tuesday, so as to accomplish some things. Accomplish some things I did … but the to-do list is still a mile long. But progress is progress … finally started qigong on Tuesday evening. Now THAT is going to be an epic challenge. Oh my word.

A sense of purpose. I think I’m regaining mine, along with the light at the end of the tunnel. Or maybe it’s the afterglow … who the hell knows.

Sometimes you also need someone else to tell you what to do, or give you permission. I got that on Wednesday, in a bit of a roundabout way. I think about it a lot, how fear holds me back (and most people, right?). But I think I’m ready to be done being afraid. Sometimes it just is that easy: when you or a situation reaches a tipping point, then it changes. So, we’ll see.

Easier said than done, but I feel like something’s already shifted. For the first time I wasn’t afraid of failing my back squats on Wednesday (I was just tired so I ‘only’ tied my PR from three weeks ago … the Keith Delaney special on Monday did me in; I’m still sore, it’s awesome). For the first time I wasn’t afraid of those rings … and bam, with confidence comes consistency (ok yeah I guess you also need strength and technique but you get my point).

So, we’ll see what happens next. As Mona always says, when you’re happy good things happen.

I’m not quite sure how I’m going to make time in all of this to be a better friend, because I feel like I’ve been kind of a shit friend to a bunch of people recently. If I make time for them it’s only ever on my terms, and almost certainly not after dark because once the sun goes down I go to sleep. But I’m taking care of myself right now and doing what makes me feel happy. We all must live our own life, because when you compromise to please others you fail yourself and you’re never going to make everyone happy all the time. It’s just NOT POSSIBLE.

And a final note: I am really looking forward to being a good teammate. I especially like being the utility player. I’ve always enjoyed being the pinch hitter. I was explaining comparative advantage yesterday to one of our interns. But more fundamentally I was floating for a long time wondering what my team status would be, or specifically if I was really wanted/needed. It’s nice to be needed. And reality being what it is, I am SO happy right now to be a part of this sports team.

I’ve also been thinking how our sense of ‘normal’ shifts. I was talking to Tammy the other day, who was saying how she used to feel deprived going out to restaurants and eating paleo, and she no longer does. I feel much the same way. There was a time earlier in the year when I felt deprived by not having certain things, but more recently, not at all. I’m also getting wiped from getting ‘only’ 8 hours of sleep; but at least I know to listen to it.

(ok, I still crave lattes … I admit it …)

• “I’m only doing a few. I want to be able to walk tomorrow.” – Wayne
• “If you think about your hand, it’s going to hurt. Don’t think about your hand.” – overheard at the martial arts training centre
• “When you start to try too hard is when everything falls apart.” – Bridget
• “You’re here to bring about change.” – Kerry 

Dear Diary

Is this really my life? Has it really been almost two years since I left Boston, not sure of anything except the most burning desire to be in South Africa? Am I now officially an expat? Am I American? Capetonian? What, if anything, does it mean that I’m now subvocalizing words like ‘progress’ with a South African pronunciation?

Why is it that I feel deeply satisfied and yet deeply unsatisfied at the same time? That as much as I do, as good as I am, at work, at sport, at life, is actually never quite good enough?

Have I really turned into the girl who goes out to a bar and doesn’t drink? Who has no couch but a set of gymnastic rings hanging from the balcony? Who works far too hard for far too little money, at work she loves, with people she loves, and yet finds herself in meetings wondering why her clean has been stuck at 60kgs for months now? Who, the leaner she gets, worries more about how she looks?

I read this blog post from someone I know in Cape Town when I was in the airport waiting for my flight to Joburg and it just tore my heartstrings apart. Probably this was because her experience has been so completely different than mine. Rather than come here for love, I came here for love of a different sort, and was lucky: I think life would be way harder without a work permit (organized by a kick-ass immigration lawyer who never charged me a dime), a bank account, and supportive co-workers and community of fellow [deeply strange, but also lovely] CrossFitters. Some of what she says strikes home though.

I’ve said it before but I do sometimes miss America … not just people, or a what-might-have-been or could-be life, but things like the chill of the autumn air. The first frost. Apple cider. Maple candy. Daylilies. Daffodils. Dunkin Donuts. Football. Ice hockey. When the trees leaf out in the spring and it’s as colourful as the autumn.

But I also love Cape Town. The light on the mountain in the morning. Camps Bay. Vida. The Old Castle Brewery. The Sea Point pool. The Biscuit Mill. Autumn in the winelands. Fynbos. Local honey. The Twelve Apostles. The beach. Sandbar omelettes.

I never thought it would be like this, though. The number of people relying on me to come up with ‘the answer’ or ‘an answer.’ The complexity of the money-no money white-black social enterprise-charity situation. The ‘beneficiaries’ (and how I squirm that the term even has to exist!) who see you as no more than every other paleface with rand signs where your eyes should be, to the point where you wonder if you are that different, after all, and if they are really that different from the same robot hawkers at the same intersections day in and day out. The seeing families in the park and wondering if a small part of me still wants that life. The wondering how long I can keep on paying mortgage on a house I no longer live in before the money runs out. The wondering why the heck I am doing the sort of work I’m doing, and whether or not it’s the right decision.

The feeling pretty good about how well I did in a workout until seeing the number of girls who beat me by a few reps (it’s all relative, huh … well, it’s still a 20% improvement over the Ellie of October 2011, so f*ck it, I’ll take it). The continuous annoyance at seeing people post scores with unacceptable ROM … when actually it shouldn’t matter to me at all because that’s their issue not mine.
                                                     

It’s like in some people’s eyes you can do no wrong, and in other people’s eyes you can do no right.

Like Kelsey said. It’s been a tough couple of weeks …

In happier news, my ankle is slowly recovering. I was able to do max squat cleans Saturday, which was a first since the injury (the torque had been too much for it). Managed to squat clean my clean PR a couple of times before my right shoulder gave out (when it gets tired or strained the arm moves too slowly to rotate fast enough that I lose the lift). And, for the first time since October, there were a couple of hours on a few separate occasions in the last few days where I’ve forgotten that I have an injury to my left side/back. Dare I tempt fate and say that in another two weeks or so I should actually be 100% healthy?

• “Oh! How beautiful is our city?” – Tammy
• “Don’t hate the player hate the game.” – Lauren 

Standards

Wow, this blog apparently reached 10,000 pageviews in the last few days. Who knew so many people were interested in the random stuff I get up to?

Anyhoo, I was reflecting further on my weekend with Katharine. When she was out on a 33km run (she’s training for Comrades … I was busy sleeping!) she encountered an informal settlement literally abutting an expensive resort. We see this every day, here in South Africa: the [usually black] workers walking to work in the city or to their jobs as domestics in the white suburbs. South Africa has one of the worst Gini co-efficients in the world. If you don’t know what that means, Google it.

It’s not the sort of thing that can be changed overnight or even in a generation. But especially when you work as I do, in the field sometimes, you can’t help but notice. When people take advantage of that inequality to better themselves …. Well, there are very few things that make me properly angry nowadays. That’s one that makes my blood boil.

However, everything is relative. EVERYTHING. It’s impossible to see the world through someone else’s eyes. I mean yes, there are concepts of absolute right and wrong, that religions have argued about for thousands of years. But in pretty much everything that doesn’t come right down to don’t hurt other people or take sh*t that isn’t yours, it’s a gray area. And hey … even that ... short of murder and mutilation, how do you define ‘hurt other people?’ What actually constitutes emotional abuse, after all? What if it’s unintentional? What if a tree falls in the forest? Same goes for ‘sh*t that isn’t yours.’

Truth, like perspective, is also not absolute. Every story has a side for each person that tells it. We learned this lesson very strikingly my first week at St Paul’s when some class or other they staged a verbal fight between a person coming in and the teacher. When we then had to write down our recollections of the appearance of this person (let alone the actual course of events) the results were, of course, very different. And if we can’t even get basic facts like what colour skirt someone had on consistent, and we know that our perception of past events is coloured by our own beliefs, thought processes, etc., no wonder two people can look at the same situation and come up with completely different conclusions.

It’s so funny, we like to think of our memory as being like a movie we can play back or a series of photographs we can recall. In fact, it’s nothing like that. Even how we make decisions is more akin to a typical Supreme Court decision where there is a winning side, but just as strong of a dissenting opinion. But the dissenting opinion is stuck in those little gray cells. No, I haven’t been re-reading Jonah Lehrer. Just thinking.

As an example, what I think my top priority should be isn’t necessarily what the other people around me think it should be. Goodness knows I get pulled in about 12 directions every day at the office, and it’s hard to balance keeping other people busy with keeping other people productive with urgent admin items (like chasing down payments and generating invoices), with the BIG STUFF that needs to get done and that requires focus. Some of this is personal stuff like getting my cats imported, some of it is work stuff like writing concept notes and marketing collateral, that requires being in the right head space. But hey, working for a small company or startup is like training CrossFit. It’s different each time, and you have macro and micro cycles, and there’s always tons of things you’re good at and tons of things you suck at and need to improve.

Another example, I got called for a couple no reps on my burpees yesterday at CrossFit. Now, none of these were intentional – I was just moving so fast that I didn’t actually do what I was supposed to be doing. Now, I will try harder in the future to make sure that I put movement standard above speed. It used to be that my pullups weren’t always above the bar, or my squats weren’t deep enough or I didn’t open my hip at the top. But you can’t always necessarily see or feel these things yourself, which is why you need to be told. But after you’re told, you need to listen. Chris gave quite a …. Well, I won’t call it tirade, but a long speech to the attendees of the advanced class on Tuesday night about movement standards.

We’d just done a workout called Cindy which was 20 minutes of as many rounds as possible of 5 pullups, 10 pushups, and 15 air squats. Each of these things has movement standards. We all know what they are (or should). I myself saw quite a couple no reps for each and every exercise. I hope to heck all mine were legit … if not, it certainly wasn’t by intention. These things matter. There ARE cases where there are absolutes, and you should respect the heck out of those absolutes. So I REALLY appreciated Chris’ lecture because it really is that important. And that’s one of the reasons why we tend to respect the likes of Chris and Rika as athletes, because we know they hold themselves to the standards.

Having said that, I was quite happy with Cindy because this was the first time I’d ever done it that I hadn’t lain around staring at the floor waiting for my arms to recover sufficiently to do another [legitimate] pushup. I still got tired and slowed down at some point but I hit a PR (that’s three in 25 hours … but who’s counting?).

Wednesday was a public holiday. Human Rights Day. I think it’s great that this is celebrated. South Africa has one of the most progressive constitutions on the planet, and while politics here is its own brand of messed up, well, at least we don’t have Rick Santorum, either. Things could be a whole heck of a lot worse. So I did what I normally do when I get a day off … I trained, and ate, and trained again, ate again, hung out with a friend, ate for a third time, and then got to work on some of the BIG STUFF.

I’ll also say this because it’s on my mind: attitude matters a lot. I have a book called The Art of the Idea that says the world is full of sunrise people and sunset people. Simply put, a sunrise person gives out energy, and a sunset person sucks it up. Here’s a great quote:

“Nelson Mandela electrified a room, not through soaring rhetoric or slick salesmanship, but through integrity of purpose. He had an idea for a whole country and he wanted everyone to help make it float.

Often in meetings, he’d listen to people being angry about the past. When they were finished, he’d agree with them. They were right, he’d say. But then, he’d ask that their anger at the past not contaminate the future.

When you are angry and right, that’s a difficult ask.”

• “That was priceless: ‘What did he show you?’ ‘I don’t know.’” – Jeff
• “You might say they’re good problems, yes, but they’re still problems.” – Jeremy
• “Whining won’t stop it.” – Chris
• “It was good! I didn’t rip my hand. … Oh, no, wait, I did.” – Ellie 

Once Bitten, Twice Shy (or, Joburg’s not so bad)

How often do you try something and fail, then succeed on the second attempt? You know so many failures are mental fails, and fear is the reason why.

Hermann was saying the other night how he was reading about the theory that if you go for a lift and miss it then the next time you attempt that weight you have in your head that you missed the attempt, and it can hold you back. This was shortly after we were at the gym and Chris was saying how if people couldn’t do muscle ups before doing 150 wall balls and 90 double unders they sure as heck couldn’t do them afterwards.

But then, I was watching the Carl Paoli prep video and he made the comment about how many people might get their first muscle up in this workout, given how many have hit PRs in this Open season. How about Suad whose snatch improved from 24 to 33kgs when under pressure in week 2, or Hes, who got her first toes-to-bar last week?

So is trying something you’re not sure you can do a good stretch or a bad one? Obviously you don’t want to be attempting things that are far above your capacity, but what about those slight stretches? You HAVE to take risks and try things you’ve never done if you’re ever going to do them. The best way never to get muscle ups is never to try.

Who’s right? They both are. It depends. On so many things … the person, the mental headspace, the physical capabilities on the day … there are no easy answers. Ever. If there were, this stuff wouldn’t be fun.

And maybe it’s just my Facebook feed but you see this sort of stuff all the time … whether you think you can or you can’t, you’re right. Don’t let anyone get in the way of your dream. Where there’s a will there’s a way, etc, etc. Wonder what makes people share these sentiments? This is probably one of the reasons CrossFit New England is always so good – they don’t ignore the mental muscle. I can always tell the athletes who not going to do well in competitions – they are the ones with fear and strain on their face. The smiling ones might do well or they might not, but at least they’re having fun. Fear WILL kill you, every time.

Of course there are also the people cheering from the sidelines, of which there are the sort who are actually supportive with constructive criticism, and the sort who just like to criticise, without the aim of helping you improve or helping to resolve the situation … those who are just, well, bitching. There are the second sort in all environments, like it or not. Our gym. Most workplaces. Maybe even some of your friends. Maybe even some of my friends, ha!

Sport is always a good metaphor for life, right? So I hate wall balls, and I hate double-unders, and I did my first ones since the ankle sprain a few days ago. Funny thing about recovering from an injury is even once the injury is healed, the fear remains. Once bitten, right? Remember when we were kids and we were fearless? Walking on our hands wouldn’t scare us then. The Open workout of last week started with 150 wall balls, which was dreadful enough on its own. It was ok until about 100 at which point I just started to get really bored and wanted it to be over already. Then the double-unders began and I’m not very good at those under ideal circumstances. But boy, this was sad. Unfortunately my ankle was not happy, and started to hurt, and that slight pain killed my focus. Killed. Interesting lesson.

I had another good mental fail this morning. Went for a back squat PR, got it, but it was challenging. Not due to strength, due to the fact that I had slightly bad positioning. So I added another 5kgs to the bar … and there was no way in hell I was going to make that lift. In my head, I’d already failed, because the last one was so hard. That’s the reason I still struggle with 1 rep max attempts; my fear level is too high for anything other than safe lifts. Something [else] to work on. But in happier news, I smashed the hell out of my Grace (sorry, 30 clean & jerks for time at 43kgs/95lbs) PR from three weeks ago. 4:05 -> 3:20. Now, I am mostly limited here by my inability to control the bar on the way down to do consecutive reps. Something [else] to work on, right? There’s always something, even for stuff you’re good at.

Which brings me to the next subject: improvement. If you try and work on too many things at the same time it’s going to be hard to improve. Picking and choosing your battles and your areas for improvement is hard. If your squat sucks and your pushups suck and you can’t do a ring dip … where do you start? Probably not by trying to fix all three at the same time. One of the Tom Peters concepts that my old boss Ed Boudrot loved was the: “to don’t list.” There are always FAR more things you can do than you will actually have time to do. By not explicitly choosing what you are not going to do, you’re making some implicit choices. Eish, I know that one well enough by now….

So eat the elephant one bite at a time. And don’t try to sit down to a meal when you’re not hungry: getting 25% of the way in and then having to stop is the same as trying for a max lift and failing. The next time you go in, you’re going to have that slightest bit of fear that wasn’t there to begin with. Apprehension may be a better word.

I did manage to sort out a bunch of things in the last few days: the replacement glass for my car window, finally FedExed some forms to an ex-intern, and I got my data stick and on the mobile phone sorted out. On to the next things on the to-do list.

Turns out I was a tad overtraining last week. I discovered this when on the weekend, when I was in Joburg visiting a friend (and by Joburg I mean Magaliesberg to the northwest). I was absolutely wiped on Saturday, like could barely keep my eyes open wiped. I had about five cups of coffee, just to get to normal. That’s not normal. Saturday night I slept for over ten hours and woke up feeling something like myself again.

But it was an awesome weekend. So cool to catch up with a friend I hadn’t seen in ages, and talk, and talk, and TALK (well, we are girls, right?). I think we covered everything from work to training to motivation to family to whether or not Johannesburg would be a pleasant place to live to my recent romantic trauma (that apparently was so bad I nearly blocked it out!) to the relationship-that-isn’t to the striking similarities between the reasons we both ended our previous relationships.

Mainly, though, we relaxed. Listened to some music, ate a lot of food, drank a lot of coffee (and decaf!), drove around, explored some caves. I was fascinated by the giant underground lake in the caves. All I could think about was The Hobbit because if Gollum lived in South Africa it would be in this giant dark, wet, cold, cavern. And, Cape Town being what it is, I ran into someone that I knew from Cape Town while we were having dinner in Parktown. Didn’t see any prawns however.

My conclusion? I could live in Joburg. The level of security is extreme (when my driver picked me up from the airport we were tailed for a while by the local armed security patrol – Tactical Unit!), and you are living in what amounts to compounds. But there are nice areas where you can feel just as safe as Cape Town, and there are lots and LOTS of trees and parks. The city itself has a grit to it that I like, much like New York. But at the end of the day, the weekend accomplished its mission which was to get me out of town, refresh me, and make me appreciate Cape Town that much more when I got back. Even the hornet’s nest I walked into Monday morning fresh from the airport wasn’t enough to make me turn tail and run.

• “How many homes do you have?” – Ellie (kinda like asking how many pairs of Inov8s I own…)
• “Oh good, they have CrossFit-branded injury gear now!” – Jon
• “People tend to bash what they are a little bit threatened by.” – Katharine
• “You can’t share the office with worms.” – Mawabo