On the floor (South Africa, Day 14)

[Make sure your speakers are on while playing video.]

I don't understand German, but I imagine Gelia, Timmy, Katrin, and Markus are all admiring Jean's awesome peeling out skills.

Hahaha, I love our little gold Chico.

Kids (South Africa, Day 14)

TEACHER

Hi sweetie, I'm Miss Rosie, and I'll be your teacher while you're in the hospital!

PATIENT

I like your hugs! You're nice and soft!

ME

[awkwardly]

That's because she's growing a baby!

PATIENT

Is the baby in your butt??

--

Kids. They really do say the darnest things.

Pretty visitors (South Africa, Day 13)

Knock knock.

I walked over to the door, puzzled as to which of my friends loved me enough to trek all the way over to Container City to visit me. And after dark at that!

I'd never seen the girl at the door before. Blonde, tan, and beautiful, she seemed a bit taken aback to see me. 

GIRL

Oh. Um. Hm...is Michelle in?

ME

That's me! 

GIRL

Hahaha, no. I was told that Michelle lives here.

ME

Yeah. My name's Michelle. And I live here.

GIRL

No no, I'm looking for the guy Michel. Did you just move in?

ME

Oh. Yeah, um, don't know what to tell you. I guess I'm the girl Michelle. And I've been living here for the last two weeks.

She left. And no more than twenty minutes later, yet another blonde and beautiful girl knocked on my door. Also looking for Michel. 

Who the hell was this Michel and why were people confusing him for me?? I figured someone was playing a prank on someone, and I was just an unfortunate pawn in this game.

I found out a few hours later, when I woke up to hear some loud sex noises coming from the container next door. Only, it wasn't the sex grunts that woke me up. See, a girl was yelling out my name every now and then.

Passionately. 

It was quite the disturbing night, needless to say. 

And then, the next day, I started finding those crazy disgusting condoms in front of my door. So lovely.

Europeans. Apparently Michel/Michelle is one of those androgynous names over there. 

Best part? After thinking about it, I realized that I had met this Michel character two days earlier at the weekly braai. He was greasy and sleazy, and I remember he rudely interrupted my conversation with Mark and Jean, by quite forwardly draping himself over my shoulders, and opening the conversation with "Hitler's my hero."

Yeah. I still dunno why I didn't go home with him. Such a catch, that one.

Walk this way (South Africa, Day 12)

The cutest kids ever.



And I got to play with them for a whole month. Although, I gotta admit, I was a little thrown off when I first met them, and they started making Bruce Lee moves at me.

They'd make Tyra proud with their fierce walks and all that smizing going on. So freaking adorable.

Best neuro exam ever.

Spring cleaning

Hey friends! A couple of things:

• I'm slowly but surely uploading pictures onto facebook! Will try to do one album a day. Today's = wine tasting! Go take a look; all of my friends from South Africa -- all beautiful and gorgeous -- are included in it.
• Will be posting additional blogs about South Africa in the coming days - ziplining, shark cage diving, ostrich riding, and more! So keep checking back. But, word of warning, blogs will be out of order so you might have to look for the new ones (to keep the days chronological). Sorry to the OCDers out there.

Thanks for reading! Comments are still disabled, but if you're feeling so inclined, you can send me an email at michellelwu [at] gmail [dot] com.

Please remember me (South Africa, last day)

Sitting in Heathrow, enjoying my first drip coffee in god knows how long, and missing my friends like crazy. 

I will follow you into the dark (South Africa, last day)

Leaving South Africa is quite bittersweet.

On the one hand, I'm glad to be going back to Chicago, where I have unlimited access to washing machines, hot water, and all the tv shows I could possibly want to watch. Yes Bravo, I've missed you and all your trashy housewives. And I only have a few more weeks left in Chicago too, and I still have so much I want to do before I move back to Los Angeles. There's yet more deep dish pizza to eat, final pictures to take with The Bean, and all the tourtist-y things I never got around to doing. Like how even after ten years of calling Chicago home, I have yet to go up to the top of the Sears' Tower.

So I know I have to get back to Chicago, so that I can start the whole goodbye process there.

But this past month in South Africa has quite possibly been the greatest month of my life. (Yes, even with all the strenuous hiking involved.) I've fallen in love with the culture, the vibe, the gorgeous scenery, and all of my lovely and wonderful friends here.

I will miss our family dinners as we all piled around a four-person dining table, Gelia's fantastically strong coffee, the crazy inappropriate jokes, stealing beers from Mark and Markus to give to the dean of Tygerberg, our GPS leading us through the craziest (and possibly most dangerous) routes, all the German lessons as we bastardized our way through ich's and das boot's and gutentag's, the number of red lights we ran through in order to stay together with the rest of the Chico caravan, my nightly ride back to my container, the amarula song, the lighthouse song, the Bavarian songs, the constant eating, and all the new adventures we had.

Can't I just stay here forever?

I love these people. So much. Thanks friends, for the best last hurrah of my medical school life. I will miss you all terribly.