Friday, September 25, 2009

Weekend in Kimberley!!

Several other interns and I spent last weekend in Kimberley, a huge diamond mining city. We made the ten hour trek Friday morning and had a fun night on the town with Lindsay, Hooter, and Kristin - the GRS interns stationed in Kimberley - serving as our tour guides. After sleeping for a couple of hours, I woke up to go fly fishing with Hooter, Lindsay, Allen, Taylor, and Corey. It was my first time fly fishing and I was pleasantly surprised by how fun, peaceful, and hard it was. After fishing for a couple of hours (and catching nothing), we left to attend a South Africa versus Madagascar Soccer Game. Although it was a friendly match, it was the first time the South African National team had ever played in Kimberley. The stadium holds about 20,000 fans and was completely packed for the occasion. We spent a little too much time tailgating with the locals so the only seats we could find were standing right behind the Madagascar goal. Minutes after we entered the stadium, Bafana Bafana (term meaning "The Boys, The Boys" in reference to the South African team) had a penalty kick. Unfortunately the Madagascar keeper made a great save and the score remained 0-0 until the second half when South Africa took the lead. The rest of the game was great and the atmosphere was unlike anything I had ever experienced before.

After watching South Africa coast to a 1-0 victory over Madagascar, the ten of us spent the night at Lilydale Lodge. We spent the night braaiing, drinking, and hanging out. I introduced everyone to my favorite desert - toasted marshmallows hollowed out with a splash of Amarula (similar to Baileys). After a short night of sleep, we woke up and walked down to the river for a second round of fly fishing. We had much more success on our second day of fishing - all together, we ended up catching 5 fish (I hooked one, but wasn't able to bring it in). We eventually said goodbye to Hoot, Linds, and Kristin around 2:00 and made it back to Cape Town a little after midnight.  All in all, it was a terrific weekend.

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