Hope In Love

so i left stellenbosch on December 24th at 1am. my sister and i got into a car with a perfect stranger supposedly going to PE and headed west. “what? but PE is east…” you say, and you are right. we later found out we were first going to cape town to fetch his friend, but there was a moment there where i was like silently freaking out on the inside. anyway, stranger’s name was Giovanni, and his friends name was Sizwe. so yea, my sister and i were getting a lift to Port Elizabeth with two random guys we didn’t know. i call it adventurous, my parents call it naive. either way, the roadtrip turned out to be awesome! the guys were super funny, mostly gentlemanly with a not so gentlemanly conversations (about girls) thrown in here and there. we left CT at around 2 am and at around 5 or 6 as the sun was rising we stopped at a very deserted beach and got in the freezing water for a minute and then played catch (or hit tsholo with the ball as it is sometimes known). got to PE at around 8 am i think, and said goodbye to the guys.

the rest of the day was filled with visiting relatives and doing last minute christmas lunch food shopping and cooking up a storm. we didn’t do christmas presents this year, so no mad rush for last minute presents. i just got something for my sister and my brother.

woke up early morning on the 25th and went to church. really enjoyed that. then came home and had a fabulous lunch. then i went out for a walk. i think i was gone for about 2 hours, and everyone except my brother only realised i was gone when i walked back into the house. my sister thought i had been sleeping and my mom and dad thought i’d been watching tv in the next room. how sad is that. at least my brother realised i wasn’t around and that was my christmas.

on the 26th, the siblings and i decided to go to the fair. but then when i got there i realised that i didn’t really feel like being there so i started walking back home while they faired it up. then i realised that just near the fair there was a street market vibe thing happening and so i went there and found a used book vendor. i snagged me two “new” books and headed home to read. it was quite a long walk, but it was along the beach so that was cool, though by the time i got home i was too tired to read, so i just vegged in front of the tv and watched mk.

on the 27th, my sis and i woke up, cleaned the whole house, then went on a mission to find sushi. i had been seriously craving it and my sister had never tried it but i’d been talking about it so much that she decided she had to try it. according to my twitter peeps the best sushi in PE is at Fushin (central) but since my parents are anti-sushi, they weren’t willing to give us a lift into town so we decided to find something walking distance. first we went to john dory’s but i didn’t like the place…seemed too…chain restauranty for my liking…didn’t feel sushified. so then we went to the boardwalk and ended up at 34 deg South. they have a cool sign at the entrance that says “warm beer, cold food, terrible service, welcome” or something like that, and i thought that was funny so we went in. our waiter was sooo cute…his name was josh…and he was super sweet. the wine was great, the service was not so great (we had to wait forever to get seated, eventually seating ourselves and then wait forever to get a waiter to come to our table but once he did come he was awesome and kept coming over every 10 minutes to check if we were still ok), and the food took like at least an hour to make (really? did you go catch the fish yourselves?) and josh kept coming over to apologise…so cute! anyway, the food wasn’t amazing. i would go back there though just to chill and have a glass of wine, but not for the sushi. so basically we went sat at a restaurant for 2 hours for ok food. lol. afterwards my brother joined us and we went 10 pin bowling – which was so much fun. seriously enjoyed hanging with my siblings…they are a very funny pair.

on the 28th, i woke up early and headed to the beach. spend around 3 hours there just sitting and watching the waves, the other beach visitors, the surfers, and a pod/school/group of whales/dolphins/something that swam by…was super cool, but not close enough to see them too clearly…also, i don’t know how to differentiate between the fins so don’t know what it was that swam by…assuming it wasn’t sharks though cos the surfers stayed in the water. i got back home, cooked, showered, repacked and headed for the bus station.

that was followed by a 12 hour bus ride to Durban – arrived at 9am on the morning of the 29th. got to Durbs and got a lift from my friend Rasta-Kev (who does not live in Durban as i found out) to Howick. got to midmar dam and set up my tent, found out that i really didn’t need to be there that early because the volunteer tasks had already been mostly taken and so hung out for a little bit with one of the security guard ladies then went into my tent and slept. woke up just in time for a volunteer braai, which was cool…met people, ate food, then went back to sleep.

the 30th started with a 7:30 am volunteer meeting. i should explain the volunteer thing. i went to midmar dam for arisefest – a christian music festival from dec 30th – jan 1st – and i volunteered to help out with…whatever they needed helping out with. ok. so the meeting was basically to remind everyone of the duties they had signed up for. i was signed up for the merchandise tent, but it wasn’t going to be open for a while so went back to sleep some more. eventually i woke up again and went to help out with the setting up of the food tent. then afterwards i went to help out with merch tent but there were too many people in there so i was told to take a break, which left me with nothing to do, so i roamed about the dam then hung out with another of the security ladies (they were super friendly…i think they felt bad for me cos i was always walking alone) then went back to my tent until the acoustic stage started. oh yea, i also ran into Brett and Val in the food tent and then they left to go find their sleeping place or something. anyway, the acoustic stuff was pretty cool…enjoyed sitting in the sun listening to live acoustic music…and getting a shout out from versus the wolf .

after the acoustic set chilled out until the main tent stuff happened, which is when my friends (Madeleine, Louise, Ashanti, and Drew) arrived so i chilled out with them for a bit as well, then helped out in the merch tent. after my slot i went and listened to some music and then headed to bed.

31st started with a 7:30 meeting again, followed by more sleep. woke up again and headed to food tent and met new people and played cards. then headed to acoustics and listened while running around helping out where i can. went to go get lunch and ran into my friend katie and her friend roxy then hung out with them and the other peeps until the main tent stuff started. later i worked in the merch tent and got to hang out there with the VTW guys… after that, went back to more music and brought in the new year with worship – awesomeness! lots of dancing vibes after that, then went to sleep.

woke up the next morning (2011 woo hoo) and all my friends deserted me. so hung out with roxy and her friends and played 30 seconds (so much funny) then got a lift with roxy to katie’s house in PMB where i took a looooong bath and a nap, had lunch, then they gave me a lift back to Durbs to catch my bus. a 26 hour bus ride later i was back in Stellenbosch…so very tired. took another loooong bath, ate dinner, and slept.

and that was the end of my holidays. 10 days. short, but packed. fun was had. music was had. loved it.

i wrote about the musical side of arise here and here. and there’s also this post and this one also on arise…sort of.