sophiastication

Breakfast

Sophia — Mon, 03 Jan 2011 18:35:25 +0000

Today for breakfast I ate a small yam, an hard boiled egg w/ soy sauce, a tangerine, a slice of raisin bread w/ PB and cinnamon, a big pile of almonds, and a cup of tea. It was great. Breakfast is part of my favorite meal (brunch) and I love eating big breakfasts. I used to not eat breakfast at all, but this all changed in Cape Town, where everyone in my house ate in morning and eating became a social activity. I always made a cup of tea when I woke up, and I started out just munching on some rusks or toast. But as I watched my housemates enjoy their morning meals, I slowly became a more adventurous breakfaster. So I started making eggs, omelettes, sandwiches, and experimenting with yogurt and granola and cereal. I also didn’t have class until the afternoon, so to pass the time I’d just hang out in the kitchen and eat/cook for an hour or two while people shuffled in and out getting ready for school. On a lucky day, one of my housemates would make huge batches of french toast to share. I swear it is the best french toast I’ve ever had, and everytime he made it it would get even better. On unlucky days, everyone ate bran flakes. It probably started out with one or two people eating bran flakes, but when you share a house with so many people, things like eating habits spread like wildfire. At one point we counted like 7 boxes of bran flakes in the house. People also ate a ton of yogurt. There would be at least 5 giant tubs of yogurt in each fridge. At least we were healthy, if not unoriginal. Though I was creative with one of my breakfast staples. My favorite combination was bran flakes plus a sliced unripe banana with coconut flakes, cinnamon, and honey sprinkled over it with yogurt or milk. That was soo good I ate for like two weeks in a row. Right before I left I saw Simon eat a bowl of cereal crunch with yogurt AND milk mixed together! It looked really interesting, and I can’t wait to try it. I hope I’ll have time to eat breakfast back in Berkeley.

on the road again

Sophia — Tue, 21 Dec 2010 13:38:28 +0000

I haven’t updated in far too long. This is because

1) I’ve been too busy having the best 5 months of my life.

2) I’ve kind of been keeping a physical journal, which I’ve never done before, but has sort of been working out well. I wish I could somehow post that online but I don’t know if it’d be worth the wait.

Meanwhile I’ve been stuck in Amsterdam Schiphol airport for days and I miss being surrounded by black and coloured people.

sophiastication.tumblr.com

Sophia — Mon, 25 Oct 2010 16:09:26 +0000

Just checked Tumblr after 4 months and reblogged a bunch of cool things I found. Makes me nostalgic for home. Not homesick, but nostalgic. Now that I have less than 2 months left in Cape Town, I’m dreading the day I have to leave.

(My parents still want me to leave around Thanksgiving, in less than a month, to vacation with them in Germany. Then I’d spend the rest of my time in London until December. I want to be with my family (and it’d be free, which is tempting considering my ever dwindling bank account), but I am having the time of my life in South Africa. I’m not ready to leave yet. My family will be waiting for me back at home… Is it bad of me to think that?)

Rocking the Daisies 2010

Sophia — Sun, 10 Oct 2010 12:09:04 +0000

I just got back from one of South Africa’s biggest outdoor music festivals and it was the most INCREDIBLE experience. I’ve never felt music sound so good before and the lights and screens were so captivating. There was an electronic music tent with booming music and tons of cool light art things and LCD screens and I could’ve stayed there for days, it felt so amazing. Everything was just so much fun, even just walking around, feeling the ground, and touching things. I also thought of this really sweet animation, it was just an endless stream of inanimate objects turning into people and turning to genitalia, and I wish there was a way I could have captured what I was imagining. It was really cool. What a great day!

PS- It was DEFINITELY a white person event though. In the United States I’ve never really been to or seen places or events that are really racially homogenous (except this one time I went to my godmother’s country club on the 4th of July, but even then it was different because the entire city was white). But in South Africa and Cape Town especially, there is an incredible amount of diversity, yet there are so many things that are just “white people things” and “black/coloured people things”. At the Festival, I saw less than 10 black people, and there were thousands of people there. It was really weird.

my biggest enemies

Sophia — Mon, 04 Oct 2010 16:46:17 +0000

are PAPERS. They are so scary and intimidating and stressful. I swear I get a panic attack from each paper I have to write. What really sucks is how much writing I have to do here at the University of Cape Town. I have to write at least 10 pages for each of my classes AND take a final exam. I guess that’s normal, but still it doesn’t make me a happy camper. I am especially sad that I’m not interested in both of my Politics classes. Technically they are Public Policy & Administration classes, which makes them even more uninteresting, but I didn’t know that. So now I am stuck researching South African public administration and local government and it is even more snore worthy and headache inducing than it sounds. The absolute worst part is that I keep seeing super interesting articles about gender, AIDS development, witchcraft, townships, and different cultural aspects of South Africa. I honestly couldn’t care less about PPA. Looks like I will be living in the (shitty) library for the rest of this month. At the very least I’ll get the chance to improve my food and coffee sneaking skills.

sharing experiences from around the world

Sophia — Sun, 03 Oct 2010 14:28:22 +0000

I am blatantly copying this from my friend Stephanie’s blog who is currently studying abroad in Barcelona because I think it is super applicable to me here as well.

“The students are from all different study abroad programs from all over the US but I find that a majority of them in my classes are from the Midwest or East Coast, some even from the South. And oh boy, I have never had to be in an environment where the ideological mindset is so different from my own. Berkeley is such its own little hyper-liberal bubble that I forget there’s anything else in the world. This must be how conservatives feel at Berkeley, sucky. lol. I tend not to pay attention in my classes because I’m falling half asleep but as the discussions and debates go on in class and people give their opinions…I find myself noticing more and more how different I am. A class is a place where different ideas can interact with each other which is good because I guess I never really had that before but some people..oh man. I wanted to slap a girl one time for what she said. Everyone else had said about the same thing she did, but just the way she said it made me wake up from my sleepy daze and go O_O oh. my. god. REALLY? I think I’m even more sensitive to it being a sociology major too. Some of these people are really.. wow. I don’t even know. I can’t really blame them though, a lot of them come from super privileged backgrounds and never were educated about anything else. I just find it ironic because a lot of this happens in my Politics of the Developing World class. A girl the other day in the hallway said that all Asian food is the same and said sorry to us but that’s just what she thinks. Steve and I were about to fall over.

I really miss the progressive intellectual bubble that is Berkeley. I miss having people around me who have the same beliefs and values as I do. But I guess it is a good experience to be exposed to all this. It really makes me reevaluate what I believe in that much more.”

I MISS BERKELEY. I love the liberal progressive environment there, and being around people from different backgrounds and places has made me appreciate Berkeley even more.

PS, another rant: People here definitely think all Asians are the same. While walking down the street I am always greeted with “Ni Hao” or “Konichiwa” or “Hello China” and it makes me want to slap someone. Also, I hang out with another Asian girl, and we look nothing alike, but when we’re together people always ask if we’re sisters or something or if we came from China or Taiwan. On more than one occasion people have also asked us for “Asian massages”…. GET OUT! Another reason to be appreciate of the Bay Area.

puzzling

Sophia — Fri, 01 Oct 2010 09:38:54 +0000

Our house advisor/mentor said that last year our house built a pyramid of beer cans and liquor bottles on top of the fireplace. This year, we have a stuffed puppy, a Puss-in-Boots McDonald’s toy, and 5 Hot Wheels cars. We’re so cool. I skipped class on Wednesday to go to a used sports store with my housemate, and I bought a frisbee and a 1000 piece puzzle of “Amsterdam by Night”. For the past 2 1/2 days, the puzzle has brought the house together and we’ve been working on it nonstop. This morning I woke up at 8 and found someone doing some quiet morning puzzling, and by 9 half the house had joined in. We finished the entire thing just now, and it’s definitely going on top of the fireplace.

Also I found an authentic looking Chinese restaurant! They have dumplings (jiao zi) and a huuuge menu and I’m super stoked to try it.

Sophia — Wed, 22 Sep 2010 08:51:39 +0000

I just finished my homework almost 2 hours before it’s due! It’s a cause for celebration, but I am the only person at home right now, so it’ll be a party of one. Homework and papers are catching up to me, which makes life here a lot less exciting. I spend my days lounging around, cooking, and just hanging out with my friends and housemates. It’s so nice not to have any responsibilities or obligations, although I guess that’s even more of a reason for me to blog more and send out more postcards.

My friends and I are all really broke (my money situation is a whole other story) so we spend a lot of time cooking, since it’s wayy cheaper and a lot more fun. So far I’ve baked Nutella cookies, Funfetti cupcakes, Guinness cupcakes with amarula/rooibus icing, banana bread, and carrot bread. The banana bread was the real hit, and I think I’m going to make that again this weekend. I also made steamed green onion buns (it’d make my mommy proud) and green onion pancakes. Last weekend, after fasting for 24 hours in solidarity for Yom Kippur (no food or water!!) my friends and I cooked up a huuuuge Jewish feast of potato salad, noodle kugel, latkes with sour cream and applesauce (so good it changed my life!) and bagels and shmear. We have also feasted on many forms of chicken, mashed potatoes, avo/corn/feta salad, and one of my friends makes a meaan lasagna. I’m also obsessed with making and eating guacamole, I’ve been going through weekly tubs of guac for the past month. All this caloric intake isn’t exactly compensated by any physical output, so the pounds have been piling on. Everybody should mentally prepare for a chubbier version of me in December and don’t judge, because it would happen to you too if you had a 6 month vacation! Yup, I just called studying abroad a vacation.

This weekend is a three day weekend for Heritage Day (a multicultural day of some sorts) and I’m hoping to hike Table Mountain again and go to the beach. I really need to make more use of my weekends, which have been disappointingly uneventful so far. At the same time I need to save money, so I can’t really do anything too exciting. Basically I have just enough money to keep eating until December, but there’s a few weeks after finals where I want to travel around Africa. Except by that time I won’t have any money left, and my parents are unsupportive of any non-academic endeavors. (My dad: why go whale watching in South Africa when you can pay the same amount of money and do it in California?). There is also a slight chance I may be leaving Cape Town early since my dad really wants me out of here, which would be a huge bummer. Wish me luck. Any quick money making tips would be appreciated!

eu amo Moçambique

Sophia — Thu, 16 Sep 2010 09:18:25 +0000

I just had the best and worst, most adventurous and fun spring break.

Day 1, Saturday, Cape Town to Johannesburg:

frantically did laundry in the morning, called random backpackers, packed
2 hour flight from Cape Town to Johannesburg
meet Vincent, who takes us to our hostel in Melville, a nice suburb of Joburg
dinner (incredible steak), dessert, drinks on 7th street, then called it a night

Day 2, Sunday, Melville/Soweto/Joburg:

caught a minibus to Cresta Center, an ENORMOUS mall to book bus tickets to Mozambique
4 hours at the mall, but still no plan of how to get to Moz (read: we suck at planning)
another failed plan to spend a night in Soweto, so we book a motel in the CBD (central business district)
Vincent picks us up and takes us to Soweto
Hector Pieterson museum, tour of different suburbs in Soweto, dinner at Sochilla in Diepkloof (best lamp chops of my life)
sketchy sketchy sketchy motel for the night

Day 3, Monday, Joburg to Maputo:

wake up at 6am to find a bus
Park St. Station is one hell of an experience (sights, smells, peoples)
10 hour minibus ride from Johannesburg to Maputo (8am-6pm)
Mozambique border = most helpless struggle of my life, we kept the entire bus for 2 hours while waiting for our damn overpriced visas
finally arrived in Maputo, saw some familiar faces
mediocre dinner, good Portuguese bakery dessert
interesting, but not that great party

Day 4, Tuesday, Maputo to Tofo:

8 hour minibus ride to Tofo (5:30AM-1:30PM)
it was dusty, rainy, cramped, and it sucked
Tofo is gorgeous, undeveloped, and amazing
yummy fish dinner at the beachfront
on and off electricity so we slept early

Day 5, Wednesday, Tofo:

woke up with literally 50 mosquito bites all over my face and arms (mosquito net fail?)
breakfast at the market (fresh coconut, bananas, papaya) and crepes
failed snorkeling adventure, didn’t see any whale sharks, humpback whales, or dolphins but we did have a fun boat ride
delicious lunch at cheap local restaurant, Black & White
drank lots of “Tipo”
fun and adventurous night

Day 6, Thursday, Tofo:

beautiful weather
breakfast, market, shopping
custom made dresses, souvenirs aplenty
lunch and dinner at Black & White (amazing prawns)
too much Tipo
stayed awake until 4AM, but in good company

Day 7, Friday, Tofo to Maputo to Joburg:

4AM-12PM minibus back to Maputo
unattractively slept almost the whole ride
Central Market in Maputo, more shopping (cashews and fabric)
pizza dinner with more pastries for dessert
7PM overnight bus to Joburg
we finally booked a coach bus, and it was mad comfy in comparison

Day 8, Saturday, Joburg to Cape Town:

arrived at 3:30AM (8 hours later) at Park Station
went to airport, couldn’t get an earlier flight home, breakfast at Mugg&Bean
Golf Reef Casino, gambling for the first time, didn’t win anything
Gold Reef City amusement park
2 hella fun rollercoasters, good hotdogs, didn’t get to go on super scary looking Tower of Terror (face forward free fall)
flight back to Cape Town (2 hours)
home sweet home

And that’s Spring Break in a nutshell. There’s more substantive stuff I wanted to write about, hopefully I can get to it later. I am also super behind on postcards. Gahhh!

sick and robbed

Sophia — Mon, 30 Aug 2010 10:36:34 +0000

So much has happened since my last update. What hasn’t changed is that I’m still sick. My cough is finally gone (crossing my fingers on this one), but this past weekend I had to deal with the worst nausea ever. I think it’s from the medicine I’m taking for the cough. It sucks.

Speaking of things that suck, my house got broken into and robbed last week. Thankfully, my room was locked and I didn’t lose anything, but it still sucks. We have no idea who did it or how they even got into the house in broad daylight. Then another one of my housemates got pickpocketed which just added to our misery. We got our locks changed which is comforting, but tensions are still really high at home. Some people don’t feel safe sleeping in their own rooms while other people are obliviously insensitive to what has happened, and it’s just a tough/annoying environment to be in. Another reminder of how unsafe Cape Town is.

Today is the start of the 6th week of classes, aka the middle of the semester, aka MIDTERM WEEK. I have two tests on Thursday which I am insanely unprepared for (blaming it on the aforementioned sickness). But after this week is SPRING BREAK (weird to think of Spring Break in September) and I’m planning on going to Mozambique which should be a shitton of fun. Unfortunately I have a paper due the Monday after Spring Break, and we all know that means I’ll be pulling an all-nighter two Sundays from now.

P.S. I discovered really fun hip-hop classes.