Last Post from SA!

So I must say,
definitely struggling with leaving South Africa!
Tomorrow is my 21st birthday, as well as my last day in South Africa!!!!
I definitely need to come back here, I love this place so much!!
I finished work last week, and have just been taking it easy this week. Yesterday me, Emma, Sandra, Tueva, and Georgina rented bikes in Tableview and cycled into Cape Town! On the way back, we found a very nice cycling path that went all the way to Tableview, however on the way in, we braved the freeway, sketchy!! It was very hot biking around Cape Town, so we jumped into the pool as soon as we returned to the house. Was good fun though! Tomorrow I am going to go back to Capricorn and Muizenberg, say some goodbyes, maybe go to the beach in the afternoon, and then in the evening me and some friends are climbing Lion's Head to watch the sunset and the new moon rise (quite a popular thing to do out here). After that we're going to head out to Tiger Tiger I believe, and from there I'll be heading straight to the airport! (Not looking forward to that). From Cape Town-Joburg-Doha (Qatar) - Paris, where I will be meeting Brady and Jason, two friends from home. It's sad because I'm not excited for that yet, because I can't get past leaving here! But I know that we will have lots of fun there, and hopefully it will make coming home a little easier since I'll be with them. As must as I don't want to go home, I am excited to see family and friends though, and play the piano again!!! And to use a washing machine again!!  And to eat real food, as opposed to very cheap food.
I made a note on Facebook, entitled "So long South Africa" and tagged all my friends that I met during my time here. For those of you who aren't on Facebook, here's the text from it:

Even the thought of leaving this beautiful place is hard to handle. Sadly, I will be leaving early Friday morning.

However, this has been the best experience of my life, and I will always remember it dearly!

Over the last five months, I have....

Climbed Table Mountain, saw the big 5 on a game drive, ziplined, bungee jumped, skydived, rode an elephant, rode an ostrich, fed an ostrich with my mouth, fed a wild seal with my hands, fell in love with my class of kids at Sunrise, got my hair done about 500 times by the kids in the playground :), had a monkey jump on my head, got a foot away from a cheetah, watched a world record attempt for most surfers on a single wave, saw a whale, had 5 African boyfriends (ages 4-11), saw wild troops of baboons, climbed onto the roof of a shack and looked out over Capricorn township, spent many a evenings at Melting Pot & The Village Inn, blew my vuvuzela as I cheered on Bafana Bafana at Green Point Stadium, got addicted to Rummycube!, helped build a creche in a township, went surfing (in shark-infested waters), went to Hillsong church, went waterfall cliff jumping, went canoeing down a beautiful river in Wilderness, worked with an endangered species, the African Penguin, went to release a group of penguins back into the wild at Betty’s Bay, stuck my arm down a pelican’s throat, went to five professional soccer games (go Ajax!!), went on two road trips down the Garden Route, went to a surfing competition, saw Imogen Heap perform acoustically, oh ya and met her!, went to Robben Island and saw Nelson Mandela’s cell, went streetfeeding underneath the bridges in Cape Town, haggled my way to cheap deals at Greenmarket Square, enjoyed many Sundays at Caprice, a few Mondays at Mercury (stagediving anyone?), R1 shots on Wednesdays at Chrome, biked from Tableview to Cape Town and back as well as around the city, learned how to make the best pumpkin dish EVER, made friends from all over the world, and fell in love with South Africa. Cheers to all the good times we had, the memories we made, and all the other craziness! It’s been an unforgettable experience. T.I.A.! <3 <3 <3 

Imogen Heap!!!!!!

OH MY GOSH. IMOGEN HEAP. IF YOU HAVEN”T HEARD OF HER, PLEASE YOUTUBE HER BEFORE CONTINUING TO READ ONWARD SO THAT YOU CAN BETTER APPRECIATE THIS POST. 

I would recommend listening to “Hide and Seek,” as it my favourite song of all time!!!!!

Okay.

WOW WOW WOW WOW WOW WOW WOW WOW WOW WOW WOW WOW.

So before I go on about the concert, because believe me I will, let me tell you a little bit about how this all came to be.

Six years ago, in 2005, I came across Imogen Heap. Immediately fell in love, needed to get the CD, “Speak for Yourself”, but it wasn’t released in North America yet, so I ordered it online from Europe. My mom used to ask if I could change the song, because whenever I was on the computer, I would just listen to “Hide and Seek” over and over again. 

Unfortunately, she never came to Winnipeg. She did come to Minneapolis, but I wasn’t able to see her at that time. To this day, I still listen to Speak for Yourself all the time. It’s my most-listened to album, that somehow I have never gotten sick of!

About a week ago, I saw on Facebook that Imogen Heap was in South Africa! I immediately started screaming, stopped breathing, and had heart palpitations all at once, which is quite the task!!

I quickly googled her tour, and learned that she would be in Joburg that night and the next night, and in Cape Town the next Friday and Saturday night. I tried to buy tickets that instant, but all four concerts were sold out. I was heartbroken. After waiting for so long to see her, to be in the same place as her at the same time and not see her, was unimaginable! I was not that easily dissuaded though. I went through all the South African classifieds, but no one was selling tickets! I found a few people mentioning that they had tickets, so I emailed them saying that I would do anything for them! When that didn’t work, I then sent out a mass email to every person that I had met in South Africa whose email I had, and asked if they knew anyone who knew anyone who had an extra ticket. At this point, I was starting to get rather discouraged. My next step was to email Imogen Heap personally, and plead with her to see if she knew of any way that I could get a ticket. I went to her Facebook page, and saw that due to popular demand, she was thinking of adding a third concert in Cape Town!!!

Two days ago, she decided to add a concert on the Thursday night, but this concert would be very different from the other two. This one would be a private, acoustic show. Just her and a piano in a man’s house in Somerset West. There would only be 100 tickets, and they would sell for R999 ($140ish) each, with half of the proceeds going to a charity. It wasn’t so much of a decision, but an instinctive knowledge that I would do whatever it took to get to this concert. I immediately emailed the events coordinator, and got the payment details on how to get a ticket. Unfortunately, it involved a money transfer, which required a valid South African bank account, which I do not have! But at this point, there was no stopping me. With the help of my friends Tim and Iviwe, I managed to get a ticket!!!! 

Now fast forward to today. SO EXCITED, but a little nervous as I wasn’t quite sure how I was going to get there. A taxi would have cost R1600 (just over $200), but thankfully, a friend of a friend who does some taxi driving offered to drive me for R700! Once that was figured out, then there was the decision of what to wear (having such a limited wardrobe while traveling really doesn’t leave you with many options!!!). Once that was sorted out, I couldn’t contain myself!!!! I got to the house just after 6:30 (the concert started at 7:30), so I waited outside with a few of the other keeners. It was raining a little bit, which was unusual for this time of year here! Around 7:00 Imogen herself just walked outside and told us that we would be able to come in in 5 minutes, and that they were just finishing the sound check. She went back in, and that’s when it became real. I could have reached out and touched her! From inside the house, I could hear a note, or a string of keys every now and then, and I wanted to start jumping up and down, I couldn’t believe I was going to see her live!!!!!!!

We were let into the house shortly after, I got a seat in the second row on the edge, about four or five feet away from the piano. She was fluttering about, getting the webcast set up, talking to us about how maybe she should put some shoes on, it really felt like she was just hanging out with us.

And then the concert started.

AGSRIULHAFIUAEHF;OAAFHUAFGAEHGAELRKJHARE;KGHA

Real words can’t describe it. 

Her first song was “Wait it out,” a song from her most recent album, “Ellipse.” About a minute into the song, I started crying... yes I know, how sad is that! I just couldn’t believe I was hearing her live, in the flesh! It was so beautiful. She is so gifted on the piano, you could tell she’s the type of person who never plays the exact thing twice.  She was so good live. Occasionally she would be flat on a note, but that just made it all the more real. On one song, she sang the wrong chorus, so she stopped playing and started the show again! But about 99% of the notes she did hit, and those notes fell in maybe a 4 octave range, so you have to give her props! It was just so raw, so real. She took a few requests during the show, and at one point a guy asked her to play “Daylight Robbery.” That is a pretty heavily produced song, and she said she had never played it on the piano in her life! But during the break halfway through the concert, she went and listened to the song, and then figured it out in her head, and played it for us for the first time! And it was brilliant of course. 

I just can’t say enough good things about the concert!!

Halfway through, we took a break, to figure out which charity to give the proceeds to. There were many online submissions, which were then voted on, and she had a few people there to discuss the top three. We all came to the conclusion to give the money to an organization that is going to hang out 22,000 children’s books to kids in South Africa to help promote literacy. 

She ended with “Hide and Seek,”  which I wasn’t sure if she would play because I had no idea how she was going to do it on the piano! But she did, and wow it was phenomenal. 

I actually recorded most of the concert, so that I can learn how she played them on piano, as it was beautiful! So maybe when I return home (and don’t have to pay for internet), I can post a few videos from the concert.

After the concert, I had the chance to formally have a conversation with her, get a picture with her, even get her autograph! It was SO GOOD. I think she was going to hang out there for a few hours, drink wine, and hang out with everybody, but unfortunately, I felt bad because my friend had been waiting out in Somerset West all evening for me, and it was already 11:00 (and he was an old man). So I figured I should probably go, so I headed home!!

And have been listening to the concert videos ever since I got home, and am still so impressed. I feel so lucky that I had this chance to see her at such an intimate venue!! This is definitely one experience that I will never forget!!!