Traveling to Cape Town
On January 2, I finally embarked on my journey to Cape Town. This involved frantically picking up typhoid and malaria medication the morning of departure, washing two loads of clothes and stuffing everything into my suitcase as fast as humanly possible, thanking my parents as they looked on and added parental things that less adulty adults like me would forget (bug spray, plug adapters, etc.), and racing to the airport, only arriving in the nick of time because past Elizabeth lied and told present Elizabeth that her flight was an hour earlier than it actually was. Such is my life and I've given up using New Year's resolutions to try and fix it.
After finally settling on to the plane, I became very fascinated with my experience on Emirates. As a hardcore Gunners' fan since I was 10, I've always revered Arsenal's beautiful red jerseys that always advised me to Fly Emirates. And now I was finally listening to them and flying Emirates to the other side of the country. Emirates is based in the United Arab Emirates which became immediately clear with all of the flight announcements being read first in Arabic and secondly, in English. The plane was absolutely beautiful and I am supremely impressed by the Emirates flight attendants' uniforms. A+, you guys.
As luck would have it, the only seat that happened to be empty on this packed two-level plane was the one next to me. Which meant instead of sleeping and binge-watching Star Wars sitting up, I could sprawl across two seats. I'm not sure if this was worth a whole paragraph of your time, but this was an especially important part of my 13-hour flight to Dubai for me, personally, so I thought it was worth mentioning.
And yes, you read correctly. Emirates is also a beautiful airline to fly, not only for the stylish flight attendants and high usage of Arabic. It also sends most of its connecting flights to Dubai, which meant I had eight hours to spend in one of the most interesting places in the world. I was super excited to explore a place that so seamlessly combined Muslim conservatism with opulent Western consumerism. (Oh, and toilets that looked like this. Yes, it took me a double-take and a extra second to understand how this worked.) Unfortunately, I was pretty exhausted by the time I reached Dubai and decided that my adventure around the city would have to wait for my return trip home. Instead, this time in Dubai would be for sleeping, eating at the airport Shake Shack, and wondering around the many stores in the crazy Dubai Airport.
Finally I took my second flight from Dubai to Cape Town. While I didn't get two seats to myself, I sat next to a German girl who'd been living in South Africa for the last six years, and a Swiss girl who was studying abroad at Stellenbosch University. Both seemed really awesome and we exchanged advice about fun things to do around the country. I also finished Star Wars Episode III and spent a lot of time staring out the window and marveling at the idea of being on the other side of the world. (Though this now seemed pretty small-scale since Anakin and Padmé were flying across the galaxy a few minutes ago, but I digress.) I had finally made it.
However, my first thought coming off the plane at Cape Town Airport was: "I'm in Africa...but where are the black people?". Seriously, the entire line for immigration was white. Later on, one of the other students mentioned being confused and wondering if she accidentally got on the wrong plane to the wrong...continent, I suppose. I was equally confused but I was almost certain I tried to make sure I actually ended up in Cape Town. South Africa. So where were the black people?
Eventually, after meeting up with other students and finding our driver, I finally started to see more melanin in the crowd. Stanford sent all of us a driver to take us to our Cape Town residence. The driver was really nice and pointed out various parts of the city on our drive into town. He tried to teach us how to pronounce various words in Afrikaans. (Sidenote: Afrikaans is a language predominantly spoken by white South Africans. Hopefully in my next blog I'll address some black South Africans' experiences being isolated and marginalized by whites who opted to only speak Afrikaans in spaces where they knew black minority wouldn't be able to understand.) I immediately noticed that there was a township right next to neighborhoods of nice houses and solar-paneled roofs. The inequality in South Africa was stark and no one bothered hiding it.
Finally we pulled up to our residence, a huge house surrounded by live electric wire. The bright sun, 80-degree warmth, and bright, warm smiles finally made it all set in. I was finally here. I was in Cape Town, South Africa.