Jetlagged

My jetlag is killing me! After spending 2 nights back-to-back sleeping on airplanes my body clock just can't adjust. I am sitting here again post-midnight with high hopes for hiking tomorrow and sleep will not grace me. It's 6:40pm back home and 12:40 here and despite some Lunesta and red wine, here I am. Restless. Watching Delphine sleep. Missing my loves back home. Listening to music that should be making me sleepy but instead are making me a lil homesick. When morning comes I will be so cozy in my heavenly bed and all I can hope is that I don't lose a vacation day snoozing through breakfast AGAIN.

So let me use my time wisely and reflect on Cape Town. It reminds me a lot of San Francisco. It's a beautiful coastal city surrounded by tall mountains and rolling hills that are scattered with (surprisingly) modern, contemporary homes and apartment buildings. Delphine, my Frenchie, pronounces mountain "Mon-TAYN" and I love it, so from here on in it shall be called Table Mon-tain. Table Mon-tain is magical. It rises from the sea and is said to be covered by a 'tablecloth' of fog a lot of the time, though I have been blessed with perfect skies and 80/85 degree weather despite it being fall, so I haven't seen the fog at all.

The city feels very new. The architecture is very modern and sleek. The bars and lounges are hip and funky. The streets look pretty new and there is wi-fi all over. Unfortunately I do feel racial tension still. Or perhaps I am just more used to people being more friendly? That's possible. The fact is most of the people on foot are black and the people in the nice cars are white. I smile at everyone and the smiles are not usually returned. People don't seem very happy in general. I can't blame them. Every day I learn more about apartheid and can't believe that it was so recent that the blacks were moved out of the city and that the whites had that kind of power. I think I'd be pissed and untrusting as well. Some of this happened in my lifetime, and now here I am vacationing here. There is something uncomfortable in that for me.

But I do feel good about being a tourist here as I know I am helping the economy and I'm glad the World Cup will be doing the same.

We should never feel ungrateful. We have had it so easy.