I've been meaning to write this post for 2 months; since the 26th of June when I arrived at LAX tired from traveling, excited to see my family, and relieved that almost everything on the trip went perfectly. I say almost because I had one major catastrophe.
The 50 kilogram bag that I was carting around was stolen in Cape Town. The morning Jeff and I were supposed to be headed to Europe, we walked out to our rental car, which was unassumingly parked in the hostel parking lot, only to discover the back window punched in and my bag gone. Wonderful right? What was supposed to be a fun morning hiking up Table Mountain turned into a stressful, tear-filled morning of filling out police reports and realizing what I no longer had.
However, as terrible as having five months of memories and possessions stolen from me, the experience really wasn't that bad. Jeff and I ended up sampling all the coffee shops in the Cape Town airport, which at least gave me a much needed caffeine buzz to make it through the day. Not to mention, that Jeff somehow weaseled our way into a first class lounge which was a lot more comfortable place to spend the last 3 hours in the airport. Plus, on the bright side, I no longer had to cart a giant bag around the streets of Paris, London, and Cologne.
France, England, and Germany went by in no time and before I knew it, I was on Air Tahiti Nui heading back to California...
As much as I loved South Africa (and am longing to return), it is great to be back in California. Six months abroad has made me appreciate California and the US so much more than I could have ever imagined. It has also made me more humble and more conscious of all the injustices and issues around the world. I will have to expand more on that at some later time, however, those who have seen me since I've been home have heard my two cents regarding that matter.
Since I've been home, I've been eating and cooking a lot (thank goodness for all the choices of food available and California), cycling, running, and swimming a lot (I completed my first triathlon last week), and stressing out over the fact that I graduate from UCSB in 9 months!
But C'est le vie! I have to enjoy the end of my undergrad experience right?
I'll write more later, but for now, I'm supposed to dash into the city to sample some vegan Mexican food!
Cheers!
