Saw the waves but not the tide/ I couldn't stay, I don't know why

I have decided that all my weekends need themes, just to keep them straight and maintain some OCD in my life. If I had to choose I would refer to this past weekend as the weekend of the waves. Starting with Friday I was part of a crowd wave IN A REAL LIFE WORLD CUP STADIUM! Not going to lie, I was a little homesick for the Big House, I kept waiting for the speed up/ slow it down/ split the wave signals. Sigh. It was pretty great though, the stadium was amazing and we had tickets for the 3^rd row! Some things to note about S. African football (soccer) 1. Stadium food here is ridiculously cheap. We should look into this. 2. Vuvuzelas are just as annoying in person as they are via television. I don’t think they stopped blowing those things once. 3. Cheerleaders here… have capes?

The following morning some friends and I took the train to Muizenberg (suburb of Cape Town, about a 45min ride via the lovely public transit) for some more waves, this time the ocean kind. Or the really cold/ salty kind. Same thing. A girl we know lives there and teaches surf lessons to the local kids, so we were able to use wetsuits and boards for free. They don’t call it the surfing capital of Africa for nothing, there were seriously a LOT of waves. I just tried not to think about sharks. I did manage after a few tries to get into a lunge on my board while catching a wave. I say mission accomplished.

After we had our fill of being wrecked by waves and salt, we had a little picnic on the beach with our new friends. Good thing our eyes were bigger than our stomachs, we had meant to buy enough food for us plus our surf friends, but once we got back 4 local kids that often take surf lessons showed up too. Thankfully R230 ($32) was able to satisfy 10 hungry bellies. The kids here are so great, it breaks my heart to think that if we hadn’t given them food they might not have eaten until dinner, if then. After lounging on the beach a little while longer, the sun went away and the wind picked up (per usual) and we decided to warm up at a place called the Coffee Sha-Bean where we got the thickest hot chocolate I have ever witnessed. My little plastic spoon stood straight up in the mug! I will attempt to recreate this at home, but something tells me this is just the magic of Africa.