And when the world slows down, dear When those stars burn out, here

Mmmm I live for the weekends. Unlimited freedom, so many great things to see, do and explore. This week I started my off time much earlier than usual. 5:30am to be exact, because that was when I needed to wake up in order to be ready for my 5:45am pick-up to... you guessed it, run :) Just a training run this time, but what a spectacular thing to get up for. The Hout Bay Harriers are feeling the crunch for Two Oceans (very famous ultra marathon/ half/ trail run) training so a group of us met to get our run on before getting on with the rest of our weekend plans. I get that people like to train early, but it was ridiculous how many runners and bikers were hitting the pavement by 6am, it was barely light out! Battling a slight headwind we set out to Noordhoek via Chapman's Peak drive (one of the most beautiful and scenic stretches of road you could ask for) were thus treated to a beautiful sunrise over the Atlantic ocean. So wonderful to be able to long run with people too. Finished the work for the day promptly at 8:20am and had the rest of the weekend for endless possibilities.

After a breakfast of oat pancakes (I have been told repeatedly that I am a silly american for eating such desserts for breakfast... I maintain that if you add oats and other health things pancakes should be totally accepted universally as a morning food) and a bit of lounging I headed to the beach to start a fresh book I had gotten from the library (working on devoting more of this wonderful free weekend time to reading words, waaaay too many books on my reading list at the moment). Swirling sand cut my visit short but made up for it by taking some photos walking around town and doing a little painting later on in the day.

Sunday was indeed a Sun day. Perfect beach weather this time without a hint of wind. Me and my book decided that the day would be fully devoted to the beach (after a run of course). Met some of the local girls enjoying the waves and chatted a bit about sharks (yikes) before realizing my skin was getting upset with all the sun. Took the opportunity to check out some local s.a. music online that was recommended (they are called Goldfish, I definitely approve). Had a successful taco night minus the tortillas (those things are freaking expensive here!) and before I knew it the weekend was gone. Sad face.

Ah well, another work week is upon us. Time to buckle down and attempt to be productive while unexplored corners of Hout Bay call my name.

Lets spend tonight on top of the world, we can do anything, we can be anything

The things I do.

So somehow, in a series of fortunate events, I heard about a cool race in Cape Town this weekend and after originally planning on bandit running a leg or two with a friend I managed to get an actual entry 2 days before the race (thanks mystery person who had to bail because of a broken toe). This thing is called the Bat Run, its a 26k "run" starting at 7pm and takes up up all three of the mountains surrounding the city. Yes you heard right, at night, THREE mountains. Don't let the 26k fool you, what you don't realize is there is about 1700m of climbing ahead of you.

Anyhow, said friend and I got our kit together (I must also mention that in order to do this race you must bring with you a backpack with 1L water, cell phone charged with the race directors number programmed in, headlamp and backup batteries, enough food to survive the night on the mountain, first aid kit, space blanket, rain jacket, and a whistle) and head off to the race, hoping to find other runners new to the scene, especially ones that we could possibly beat. Pulling into the carpark of race registration there were no such runners to be found. Everyone looked 1. extremely fit 2. extremely experienced. Yikes. Our courage was completely shattered when at the pre-race briefing the race director stated "anyone who hasn't run this race before, or is unfamiliar with the course, should probably not be here". Awesome.

A few minutes into the race I decided that advertising this event as a "run" is a bit misleading. I would categorize it as an extreme hike, followed by controlled falling, then racing on jelly legs to the next mountain. Seems crazy enough right? Well factor in the "tablecloth" aka the gigantic cloud that usually rests on the mountain. At a certain point it felt like I was in a wind tunnel with cold mist coming at me from all directions, so powerful that 5 people I was with at the time went down on all fours holding on to each other and the rock we were climbing up. I realize I do crazy stuff sometimes, but at this point I decided this was more extreme than usual. Made it to the first checkpoint on top of Devil's peak and had to shout my race number to someone who most definitely drew the short stick of volunteer jobs. The weather up there seemed more fitting for an Everest base camp of sorts. Don't know how he stayed warm up there!

In between legs we stopped for food and water refill with my friend's family, who had showed up in their aqua Volkswagen bus, an ideal support vehicle! Heading up platteklip gorge I made another interesting observation, the strategically placed rock steps must have been created for a giant, because I nearly had my knee in my chest trying to climb up them. The gorge was the first full leg using headlamps which wasn't too bad until we hit the cloud again and visibility went down to abut 2 ft. No worries, if you slip on the rocks you have your pick of barbed wire fencing of nasty prickly bushes to grab onto. Yipee. Throughout this whole adventure there were constant "humor meter level" checks and surprisingly, with each obstacle we seemed to just laugh it off. Needing to change headlamp batteries with the wind flattening you against a mountain, getting lost 20 meters after the table mountain beacon, running out of water on leg 2...One couple actually mistook us for bat run regulars (apparently chatting while scrambling up mountains makes other people think you know what you are doing and have done said task multiple times before). In fact, we did fairly well for newbies, only getting lost twice!

The last leg of our adventure was up lion's head, the only peak not blanketed by clouds. This finally allowed us to see the full moon the most incredible view of the city bowl as we made the final ascent. Seeing bobbing headlamps snaking up the trails of all the mountains were so crazy awesome! Even felt fresh enough to do the more difficult chains route (metal chains and hand holds drilled into the rock face to climb up along with a few ladders). The downhill into the carpark was one of the greatest feelings of relief ever! Despite keeping our spirits high the whole night we were both cursing downhill steps by the end, poor knees and toes! 6 hours and 55 minutes after we started, the bat run was finally finished (and we weren't even DFL, success).

Staring out the window watching the stars and ocean as I sipped on some fresh orange carrot juice in the back of the vw, with sore legs and completely covered in mud and scratches I decided in this moment everything was right with the world. Maybe I am just mental. All I can say is my bed was so incredibly inviting that I decided to throw a huge towel down and pass out right there. Seemed too much of an effort to try and scrub 7 hrs of grime off the body at 3am. Seriously though, I can try and describe this weekend as best as I can, but nothing comes close to actually witnessing this adventure. Still trying to wrap my head around what actually just happened. I am just so crazy thankful that I managed to find a place in the world that have people that love ridiculousness as much as me. I have heard that there are normal people living here in Cape Town, wonder why I haven't managed to meet them yet.

If you cut me I suppose I would bleed the colors of the evening stars

I love my crazy life. Haha ok let me back up. Last week my boss made an appointment to have his feng shui design expert to come to the office, give us individual consultations, and map out where desks should be places/ how we should face depending on the proper flow of our energy. The perks of having a hippie boss :) Because we moved offices from CPT city center to Hout Bay it was essential to make sure that we were working in a good environment. I have heard about feng shui but it was very fascinating seeing the process first hand and getting an insight on my own life. Therefore, I have learned that I am a Earth Dragon sign (wicked cool) and my kua number is 3 thunder (again, sweet to be associated with the awesomeness of thunder). It was interesting to note how different my profile was from my coworkers. According to my chart, I should be living in a forest/ country area, my time of day is dawn, and I should surround myself with materials like plants/ wood/ bamboo/ and rust? Haha. Sounds about right.

During my one-on-one discussion I also learned it is imperative for me to express my creativity and unique abilities this year (as well as have my desk facing north). Its time for me to soak up knowledge, experience, and skills to use for the coming years. Its crazy how much this reading spoke to what I had been feeling lately, especially in relation to the emotions associated with my profile and phase of life (which is childhood and infancy fyi). I have really been feeling like this next year is a time given to me to experience life to the fullest, and it seems no coincidence that life has led me to South Africa during a time of learning. This is an exciting time for me coinciding with the color green (yesssss) and uplifting, refreshing, alive and creative qualities. The majority of the people I work with tend to be into the red or yellow phases, associating with fire and earth instead of my tree element. So crazy! Anyhow, all of this resulted in a huge furniture rearranging session on Saturday (after a coffee date a coworker and I noticed the boss downstairs and decided to help). Could already feel a difference this morning! Love the new layout of the office, and everyone seems to be working with a much clearer head.

For those that don't get so excited over ancient chinese systems of aesthetics, I also had a cooking breakthrough as well. Branching out to a new recipe provided by my lovely sister, my post long run feast became chicken tuscany. Essentially, its roasted peppers stuffed with chicken wrapped around spinach and mozzarella cheese. De-lish. Only problem is that the grocery store here didn't have big enough red peppers to fit the chicken bundle in, so I had to buy the assorted color pack... not quite sure how each color of pepper would affect the taste of the dish. In the food prep stage I came across another obstacle... no mallet or wax paper to flatten the chicken. No worries... two plastic cutting boards and a frying pan did the trick :) Last speed bump, each pepper was a different size yet the chicken bundles were equal. Poor little yellow pepper... he got a little overstuffed. Regardless everything turned out spectacularly (despite not really choosing to convert the oven temp or time from F to C) and not measuring a thing. Another recipe perfected for when I have company!

So there you have it, feng shui and creative cooking adventures. Mix in a little work, a lot of running and some random solo dance parties around my room you have my week in a nutshell :)

I've found hope and it gives me rest, I've found hope in a beating chest

Another week in Cape Town, more experiences to reflect upon. One huge load off my mind was catching the bus into town to pick up my passport and confirm that my visa is being processed! Thank goodness, I will not be living illegally here :) Another bonus, I could finally get a library card. Apparently knowing your id number is not enough, you need your actual passport and references from people living here (I swear to you Hout Bay Library, even though you tempt me with all of your out of date science books and plethora of thriller novels, I will fight the urge to steal from your book collection).

This weekend I also had a freaking amazing run. Sounds insignificant, but after a brutal week trying to recover from the trail run without a day off and simultaneously upping my mileage, a long run seemed rather unideal. However, Sunday morning I just had the urge to get it over with so in the heat of the day I headed out for Suikerbossie pass and Chapman's peak drive. Who knew this was exactly what my body wanted. I was flying by the end and having an ice cold ocean to jump into felt exactly right. Mmmm... just had to watch out for the crabs and sharks :)

Work is going well here too. Falling into a much needed rhythm after the hectic chaos of moving my life across the globe again and worrying about trivial things like visas, sleep and food procurement. I really enjoy finding a company that is legitimately working to help the world. A lot of my job is weeding around corporate responsibility reports trying to see the good among all of the required words detailing that the company was doing exactly the minimum to look good to investors. Today I was able to brief my boss on a company that was one of the good guys, and it reminded me of what can be accomplished with genuine effort.

One more bonus, my flat is starting to feel a lot more like home. I was given the curtains from the office today because the boss ordered some nice new blinds to replace them, yay! Upgrading to a much bigger refrigerator due to the prospects of having a flatmate soon makes a difference too (runner metabolism catching back up to me again). Starting to paint again and hanging things on the walls make it feel that much more comfortable in my new space. I think I am going to go read one of my 3 alloted books for the next two weeks now, thanks library :)