vacationing in my study abroad city
In South Africa, the Ubers have old seats like the ones in my 2003 Honda Civic. They’re covered in that extra soft type of cloth, the kind that’s is clearly cheaper than leather, but that never gets too hot when you leave the car sitting in the sun. They smell like cars that belong to someone, too. In San Francisco, most of the Ubers I get into smell like a new car; a lot of them are leases so new that they don’t even have a license plate number yet. In Cape Town, they aren’t like that. The cars seem a lot more lived in.
In one of the many Ubers I took on my recent trip back to Cape Town, I leaned all the way out the window and almost cried when I saw Camps Bay for the first time. Cape Town is one of those cities that has always known how geographically beautiful it is, and so the roads are all built up against the mountains, with nothing on the other side except miles of sparkling ocean. And so, naturally, when you sit in Ubers and for the first time see the incredible reveal that is Camps Bay below you, it’s an overwhelming experience. I remember seeing it for the first time and being confused as to why I was so young and living in a place that was so beautiful without even trying. I remember seeing it on my second, more recent trip and almost crying because it felt like home and a foreign paradise, all at once.
The thing that they don’t tell you about studying abroad is that it doesn’t really matter so much where you go. For most college students in the U.S., any study abroad experience is going to be a first time living outside of the country, and it’s going to feel like a new beginning, and that’s the thing that matters the most anyway. I spent three years of my life convinced that I was going to spend a year of my college experience living in Paris. And yet, I went to one information session about my college’s study abroad program in Cape Town, and I abandoned Paris for the fact that I can go there some other time, and there was no complimentary safari organized by my school, and there aren’t any lions in France anyway. I have to wonder what different kind of life I would have lived had I been in Paris instead of South Africa, if I would have traveled more, if my grandparents would have come to visit, if I would have worked harder on my French. But I don’t regret my choice.
In Cape Town the first time, my friend tried to kiss me and burped into my face instead. I slept in the dirt, and my dog died, and on the beach one day I accidentally touched a glob of spit in the sand because I thought it was a seashell.
In Cape Town the second time, I got really irritated when three ATMs in a row didn’t work because that kind of thing would never happen in the U.S. I bought veal I couldn’t finish or afford at an expensive restaurant twice in three days, and my friend’s friend bought us a bottle of Patron and a table at a club, and wondered aloud if we were lesbians since neither of us had tried to have sex with him yet.
In Cape Town the first time, I had a baby lion bite me on the back, and I ended a toxic relationship, and I climbed a mountain all by myself. I fell in love with a country that wasn’t perfect, felt intoxicated on an experience that constantly seemed too good to be true but never really was.
In Cape Town the second time, I woke up on different beaches every day. I got up early in the morning and finished two books in a few days, and took deep breaths and felt the gentle pain of good memories that hurt when you realize they’re already over.
People ask me if I have friends in South Africa, and the truth is, no, I don’t. I don’t really know anyone in South Africa because most of the friends I made were American. My memories of abroad are colored by my experiences as an American student surrounded by other American students. We all went to Ultra together, and we got margaritas at the same little bar, and we ordered pizzas together and we lived in an apartment building called The Nest. We all had the same doorman, the one that helped me practice my French for three hours late one night. We all took the Jammie bus to school, and we all volunteered for the same program with school kids in townships, and we all went to parties thrown by our friends when they rented huge houses in Camps Bay for two nights because they wanted to play like kings but couldn’t afford to live like them. I didn’t live in South Africa. I studied abroad there. It’s an experience that can’t ever be replicated, because it’s the kind of experience that only feels like magic the first time it happens.
My trip back to South Africa was good. I missed things about the country, the weather, and the food, and the way the beach smells. But I think more than anything else, I missed studying abroad. And of course a two week trip down memory lane won’t make my nostalgia hurt any less. I didn’t expect it to, but I also didn’t expect to miss California as much as I did, to feel more like my life was being interrupted for a vacation, to not feel like I had taken a little trip home. I guess that’s what happens when you put roots out in more places than one. I went abroad to get away, to escape from my life for a while. I set myself down in Cape Town, and I decided to live those five months. And when those months were over, I grieved, and I decided to live again, and I moved to California. And when I finally got to go back, it was to a place that was the same, but different. And I was a person that was the same, but different.
Life is full of compromise. And it’s full of memories, too. There isn’t anything wrong with realizing that things change, and life moves on, and each day there are things that we forget about. Cape Town is a city that took me in and grabbed hold of me, and gave me the courage to take leaps of faith. Of course I’ll go back again. And again. But it isn’t the only place where I’ll find home.
In one of the many Ubers I took on my recent trip back to Cape Town, I leaned all the way out the window and almost cried when I saw Camps Bay for the first time. Cape Town is one of those cities that has always known how geographically beautiful it is, and so the roads are all built up against the mountains, with nothing on the other side except miles of sparkling ocean. And so, naturally, when you sit in Ubers and for the first time see the incredible reveal that is Camps Bay below you, it’s an overwhelming experience. I remember seeing it for the first time and being confused as to why I was so young and living in a place that was so beautiful without even trying. I remember seeing it on my second, more recent trip and almost crying because it felt like home and a foreign paradise, all at once.
The thing that they don’t tell you about studying abroad is that it doesn’t really matter so much where you go. For most college students in the U.S., any study abroad experience is going to be a first time living outside of the country, and it’s going to feel like a new beginning, and that’s the thing that matters the most anyway. I spent three years of my life convinced that I was going to spend a year of my college experience living in Paris. And yet, I went to one information session about my college’s study abroad program in Cape Town, and I abandoned Paris for the fact that I can go there some other time, and there was no complimentary safari organized by my school, and there aren’t any lions in France anyway. I have to wonder what different kind of life I would have lived had I been in Paris instead of South Africa, if I would have traveled more, if my grandparents would have come to visit, if I would have worked harder on my French. But I don’t regret my choice.
In Cape Town the first time, my friend tried to kiss me and burped into my face instead. I slept in the dirt, and my dog died, and on the beach one day I accidentally touched a glob of spit in the sand because I thought it was a seashell.
In Cape Town the second time, I got really irritated when three ATMs in a row didn’t work because that kind of thing would never happen in the U.S. I bought veal I couldn’t finish or afford at an expensive restaurant twice in three days, and my friend’s friend bought us a bottle of Patron and a table at a club, and wondered aloud if we were lesbians since neither of us had tried to have sex with him yet.
In Cape Town the first time, I had a baby lion bite me on the back, and I ended a toxic relationship, and I climbed a mountain all by myself. I fell in love with a country that wasn’t perfect, felt intoxicated on an experience that constantly seemed too good to be true but never really was.
In Cape Town the second time, I woke up on different beaches every day. I got up early in the morning and finished two books in a few days, and took deep breaths and felt the gentle pain of good memories that hurt when you realize they’re already over.
People ask me if I have friends in South Africa, and the truth is, no, I don’t. I don’t really know anyone in South Africa because most of the friends I made were American. My memories of abroad are colored by my experiences as an American student surrounded by other American students. We all went to Ultra together, and we got margaritas at the same little bar, and we ordered pizzas together and we lived in an apartment building called The Nest. We all had the same doorman, the one that helped me practice my French for three hours late one night. We all took the Jammie bus to school, and we all volunteered for the same program with school kids in townships, and we all went to parties thrown by our friends when they rented huge houses in Camps Bay for two nights because they wanted to play like kings but couldn’t afford to live like them. I didn’t live in South Africa. I studied abroad there. It’s an experience that can’t ever be replicated, because it’s the kind of experience that only feels like magic the first time it happens.
My trip back to South Africa was good. I missed things about the country, the weather, and the food, and the way the beach smells. But I think more than anything else, I missed studying abroad. And of course a two week trip down memory lane won’t make my nostalgia hurt any less. I didn’t expect it to, but I also didn’t expect to miss California as much as I did, to feel more like my life was being interrupted for a vacation, to not feel like I had taken a little trip home. I guess that’s what happens when you put roots out in more places than one. I went abroad to get away, to escape from my life for a while. I set myself down in Cape Town, and I decided to live those five months. And when those months were over, I grieved, and I decided to live again, and I moved to California. And when I finally got to go back, it was to a place that was the same, but different. And I was a person that was the same, but different.
Life is full of compromise. And it’s full of memories, too. There isn’t anything wrong with realizing that things change, and life moves on, and each day there are things that we forget about. Cape Town is a city that took me in and grabbed hold of me, and gave me the courage to take leaps of faith. Of course I’ll go back again. And again. But it isn’t the only place where I’ll find home.
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