Cape Town and Vancouver, sitting almost 17 000 kilometres apart, are similar in so many ways. Like Vancouver, CPT sits on the ocean and is framed by towering mountains. The variety and quality of food is amazing. Like Vancouver, the incredible and nearby outdoor activities – hiking, running, surfing, kiteboarding, biking, etc. – are a huge part of the culture of the city. Cape Town and Vancouver both like to proclaim loudly to anyone who will listen that they are the best goddamn city in the world. And of course, like Vancouver, the awe-inspiring, incredulous-smile-inducing natural splendour found in Cape Town frequently has me babbling in a French accent. On warm, sunny days (everyday?), I am convinced that there is no better place to live (other than Vancouver, of course, Mama Fin).

Having pointed out the similarities, however, it is the differences between the two that are most interesting. Whereas Vancouver is safe, polite and no fun (at least in terms of non-outdoor-activity, juvenile, binge-drinking fun), Cape Town is (comparably) dangerous, (relatively) racially tense and (very) fun (in both the outdoor fun activity adrenaline sense and the immature binge-drinking sense).

Allow me to elaborate.

1. Welcome to the danger zone

South Africa is dangerous, or so I’m told.

Luckily for me, as far as I know (Oh, hello there… Oh, look at you you have a switchblade, that’s nice… Wait, are you trying to sell me that retractable sword you’re holding or is this a mugging?…. Is that a weird question to ask?…. What’s wrong?… Hey, look it’s the police!… Where are you going…?) I’ve been able to avoid this well-known dangerousness thus far.

Now, at the risk of sounding naïve and overconfident, let me suggest something radical here: maybe, just maybe, the reason we’ve been safe thus far is that it’s not as dangerous here as most people back home believe (unless, of course, we are speaking about Johannesburg. It is just as terrifying and dreary as you may have heard). Is it more dangerous than Vancouver and Toronto and other places in Canada? Absolutely. One always has to be on edge a bit when walking down the street and common sense is more important on a day-to-day basis in terms of staying safe. And is it dangerous for people in less fortunate circumstances than I? Although I can’t really say, I would guess it is. But, generally, I really do feel confident and safe walking around, and it’s not like one sees crazy violence every day (Right after I wrote this, our waitress at a restaurant near our apartment chased away a hobo with a broken beer bottle while shrieking death threats, but she appeared to be having a rough day. We’ll label that one an anomaly.) On top of that, even when overt acts of violence do occur around me, such as that time we happened upon a gun-toting, marauding gang of hoodlums chasing other gangsters down the middle of the street, I’ve proven very adept at scrambling behind the hotdog vendor lady.

People love to play the danger game. Everybody one-ups each other with stories of the absurdly dangerous things that have happened to them or their friends. It starts out with something relatively harmless, something about how a group of three Europeans has been relieved of twelvephones over the past three months (in fairness, they gave up one of those phones voluntarily in exchange for three hotdogs). Then you find out that you have to be scared of the animals too; some German students returned home once to find that baboons had broken in, smashed all the furniture, and then shit everywhere, including, somehow, in the microwave. And of course, there was the house of students in Capetown that was robbed eight times in one semester. The eighth and final robbery, and by far the greatest, involved the thieves literally boring a hole in thewall of the house, piping in sleeping gas and then making away with absolutely everything, including the iPod and passport from under one guy’s pillow (a pillow he happened to be resting his head on). Honestly, that doesn’t anger me at all, I’m just impressed.

But there may be other reasons we’ve been safe so far. It’s possible that no self-respecting carjacker would allow themselves to be seen in a baby blue 1993 Mercedes.

Most likely, however, it’s that our street cred is at an all-time high. It’s amazing what one act of badassery will do for you. One night The Salzberg and I were walking down the street to grab a quick drink. I was prattling on about the time in 1987 when I told a guy reaching for Little Womenat the video store to “Please Fuck Off” when I heard a roar typically not possessed by 100-pound Asian girls: “WHERE’S MY PHONE MOTHAF****!?!?” Colour me surprised when I turned around to find her holding a tall and skinny local fellow by the scruff of the neck. The other hand, of course, was raised up and ready to inflict damage. At this point, as the clearly physically inferior member of the duo, I had to decide how to help. You’d probably be surprised to hear that the best way to do so was to start feeling the African guy’s ass to see if the phone was in his pants, but this is the route I took. Colour the would-be thief surprised to find himself being emasculated by a small Asian girl and sexually assaulted by a slightly perplexed white guy. Oh, he didn’t have the phone, by the by.

The good news for those breathlessly waiting for my safe return to the Motherland (Mama Fin, Papa Fin, … Levin?) is that I have concocted the perfect recipe of ruggedness to ensure that nobody will eff with me. First, I make sure to rarely shave, thus sporting a shockingly impressive beard at most times. Second, I show I mean business by never leaving the house without the white and gold sunglasses/pimpshades I accidentally bought off the internet (although this decreases mugging, I get offered drugs every few steps down the street).

Third, I make sure that my admittedly rippled, muscular chest is puffed out at all times. Fourth, I walk with purpose, never making eye contact with anyone. This signals to would-be muggers that I have places to be and that an attempt to mug would just be a waste of everyone’s time. Finally, I never stumble. Stumbling is bad. Stumbling is weak. Just ask any wildebeest (did you know that a wildebeest can fully run within 45 minutes of being birthed??), stumbling costs lives.

So sleep well, rest easy - my safety on the streets of CPT is ensured.

2. It seems to matter if you're black or white

I am well aware that I’m not really the person who should be educating anyone on race relations in South Africa. I am a privileged white Canadian from a relatively homogenous neighbourhood in the least black city in North America. I took a class in Black Canadian History at Queen’s once (incidentally, probably the least racially diverse university in North America) and learned that the Underground Railroad wasn’t as awesome as we think it was (nor was it literally a railway). I’ve watchedRemember the Titans and absorbed its message (racism is bad). I have 1.5 black friends (hi Rach!!) and people usually find it funny when I listen to rap.

So with my credentials clear and your expectations of the insight I may provide as low as possible, allow me to proceed.

As we all know, South Africa’s government policy for more than 40 years was that ofapartheid(literally, apartness) between whites and all other ethnicities. Enabled by a well-trained racist police force and justified by the euphemism of “separate development” of blacks and whites in different delineated areas, whites retained the power and the best land in South Africa despite comprising less than 10% of the population. Meanwhile, blacks were left uneducated, undernourished and powerless in townships and “homelands”, despite making up approximately 80% of the population.

In the late 1980s and early 1990s, this all supposedly changed. Crippled economically by international economic sanctions and spurred by public opinion, the ruling National Party released Nelson Mandela and other political prisoners from jail. After considerable political jockeying and negotiation, majority rule became a reality in 1994 when the African National Congress, led by Mandela, was voted into power. The ANC preached reconciliation and equality, and South Africa was to become the great Rainbow Nation in which people of all colours live in harmony.

So where do blacks and whites in South Africa stand now? From my point of view, still very much apart.

I realize that it takes time for things to change and that, in the grand scheme of things, 16 years is not a whole lot to undo decades of systematic racism. But at the same time, on a day to day basis, I’ve been very surprised at what I have seen and haven’t seen. I have almost never seen blacks and whites walking down the street together or talking like they are friends. There are still “black” neighbourhoods and “white” neighbourhoods, the former often found on the side of the highway

and the latter often found by the ocean with incredible views (at least in Cape Town).

There are “black” sports (soccer) and “white” sports (cricket and rugby, despite what Morgan Freeman and Matt Damon may tell you). The vast, vast majority of service industry jobs and/or menial jobs (for example, as a sort of make work project, there are men everywhere waiting to help you park your cars and to watch over them while you are gone) are possessed by black people. You get the picture.

The tough thing is, what is the typical South African, black or white, supposed to do?

If you are a white farmer who possesses land probably as a direct result of policies from the apartheid era, are you just going to hand over your livelihood? If you are black and have noticed that your quality of life is still the same as it was in 1993, do you do nothing or do you get violent? I certainly don’t have the answers and it’s impossible for someone like me to empathize. Like I said above, I’m the last person who should be pontificating beyond his firsthand experiences. (Goo, how topical: http://www.theglobeandmail.com/news/world/white-supremacist-leader-eugene-terreblanche-killed-in-south-africa/article1522118/)

But, joyho! There is some positive news. The one place where I frequently see black people and white people regarding each other as friends and as equals is at school. Schools and universities are also apparently the only places where HIV/AIDS rates are relatively low in South Africa, despite countrywide rates currently sitting at approximatley 25%. I guess this is the operation of that sublime axiom: education frees people. From prejudice and hate. From inequality and poverty. It certainly isn’t perfect, but it’s pretty exciting stuff eh? Good talk, I’ll see ya out there.

3. "And it’s a sin, to live this well" – Harvey Danger’s ‘Flagpole Sitta’ from the seminal album, Where Have All The Merrymakers Gone?

To the Fun

More good news it that the amazingly awesome things to do and places to see in and around Cape Town far, far outweigh the negatives mentioned above. Cape Town is fun. Like really, really fun. In fact, it’s a little too fun, as the prospect of leaving has me genuinely sad and wrought with Anticipatory FOMO at times (and I’m not even leaving for good for another 3.5 months). I mean, I’ve been here 2 months and I’m not even ridiculously good at kiteboarding yet, FML.

Anyways, let’s start with a simple proposition and proceed from there: It’s Always Fun When It’s International Model Season

In Cape Town, You Can Hang Out With Dimwitted Models

Through some mutual friends, we have found ourselves acquainted with a male model from Ottawa. While he is decidedly non-male-modelly in terms of his ability to occasionally string together a sentence longer than 4 words, emphasis on “occasionally”, the rest of his brethren, both male and female, are walking, talking caricatures of themselves. This obviously makes for near-constant hilarity. Certain days at the beach or nights at the bar are basically real-life Zoolander sequels, complete with non-accidental use of “Blue Steel” and gasoline-fight incidents. Before you ask, obviously I spend most of my time trying to organize walk-offs, but none have really gained momentum, presumably because Billy Zane has not been around to watch nor has David Bowie been available to judge (yet). I should also note that, from what I’ve been able to deduce, only about 60% of the female models around Cape Town are ambi-turners (My sincere apologies if you understood none of that because you are pathetically unversed in Zoolander).

My personal favourite of the models goes by the name of Darius, a super-inflated American who has been known to label himself with monikers such as Dizzy D, Thursday D, Saint D and/or Half Taye Diggs, Half Tyson Beckford. If he’s not telling me that his greatest fear is African Killer Bees or that he models himself after Ochocinco, or spending 45 minutes explaining the essence of true beauty to my friend Alex, then he’s providing incredible entertainment with his 85 IQ and freestyling “abilities”. Upon hearing that Dikembe Mutumbo, a 7 foot 2 former NBA Centre from the D.R. Congo, once walked into a bar, spread his arms wide and yelled “WHO WANTS TO SEX MUTUMBO” at all the terrified Georgetown students, Saint D thought it would be a good idea to start yelling “WHO WANTS TO SEX DARIUS!?!” at passersby in any and all locations (I’m not even exaggerating). Evidence:

Not surprisingly, Dizzy D is a hit with the ladies. His skillz were especially apparent when he used his considerable knowledge of the Far East to try and pick up The Salzberg. He told her he studied computer science in college (presumably because we all know that computer smarts + Asians = Sex) and that he likes girls like her because he, and I quote, “loves those slanty eyes”. When she mentioned that her heritage was Taiwanese, the response was, of course, “Ya, I knew that girl! I love Thais!” When she good-naturedly told him that Thai girls don’t come from Taiwan, he smiled, disagreed, and then asked her if she wanted to touch his pecs. We also got him to freestyle the other night: “I love your eyes cuz they are slant-eee; Jackie Chan UHHHHH (Kanye grunt) Jet Li; I love you China Girl UHHHHH China China Girl” I love international modeling season in Cape Town. Needless to say, she’s smitten.

In Cape Town, You Can Go To World Class Beaches (Pretty Much Every Day When You Have Such An Embarrassing Amount of Free Time)

For example, this one

Or this one

Or this one

This one

Aaaand this one

And my personal favourite, Dias Beach at Cape Point i.e. the most Southwesterly point of Africa (or something):

Why is it my favourite? Well, I have never seen more than 5 people on it at any one time

And it features a rad flipping, Superman-ing hill

You Eat Very, Very Well Here

There are many examples, but the most amazing is the South African phenomenon that is Chicken Bunny Chow. This involves gutting a loaf of bread and filling it with chicken curry. Cost? 3 dollars. Rumour has it that the impending visit of one Michael A. Richmond has both fathers locking up their daughters and food peddlers stocking up on loaves of bread. This is a File Photo of Mr. Richmond from “The Chunky Years”:

And You Can Watch Penguins Awkwardly Waddle Around

Or Even Occasionally Watch Them Awkwardly Have The Sex

In addition to tender moments afterwards...

(Note: I am terrified that the list of animals I have seen in the act is getting entirely too long. I swear this is just something that happens when you travel a lot, get your mind out of the gutter Sioned. And it’s not like I seek it out, I mean, it’s not like I’m never going to improve on this picture anyways):

You Can Drive Your Baby Blue Benz Through The Mountains Like You’re Jimmy Bond, While Repeating Your Mantra: “Left Side Not Right Side Left Side Not Right Side”

And Sometimes Miscellaneous Rad Things Come Up, Like Thoughtful/Kind of Hilarious Graffiti

Or Counting Out Tens Of Thousand Of Rand To Purchase A Baby Blue Mercedes While Dressed Like What I Think A Drug Dealer Might Dress Like

You Can Scale Great Peaks

Such as Table Mountain

Or my personal favourite, Lion’s Head

Or Watch Concerts and Festivals From Your Deck

Pretend You Can Surf in Muizenberg

(Many popular South African beaches feature flags to signal to surfers if any sharks have been spotted. There is one that means "all clear" and one that means "Ohmyfuck we just saw a shark get the eff out of the water". That black one, incidentally the only one that is ever up, stands for "The water is ridiculously murky and we can't see a thing, but good luck and godspeed".)

Or There Is Always The Ridiculously Awesome Rooftop Pool

Of Course, I Especially Enjoyed Belting Out ‘Oh Canada’ at 4AM After Canada Reigned Supreme At The Olympics

(Note: Attracting the attention of the armed guards of the neighbourhood when your excited screams sound like home invasion)

If You Are Lucky, You Get Visited by Mike Touch

File Photo:

And J. Kronick (plus his lovely better half)

And Sister Fin

And Brother-In-Law Fin

And the Cupboard Nazi

And Leighdawg (Who was clearly very much influenced by Who Wants To Sex Darius while she was here, as you can see)

You Also Spend Time Getting Ridiculously Excited For the World Cup

And, Of Course, Drunkenly Gallivanting With Pals

I can't believe you made it this far. You rule, stay cool.