I'm Officially a Newbie

I'm sitting on a fold-out-mattress on the floor of my new messy bedroom in my new empty apartment in my new beautiful city I now call home. Cape Town. Unfortunately I cannot pleasure your eyes with any visuals of my first-independent-day because I'm blogging off my iPad and to attempt to take and upload pictures by any method that isn't my laptop will not aid my persistent effort to be happy.

However, this day certainly did aid such an effort of mine. After I had been left with the keys of my apartment; after going through the gory admin details with the estate agent; after my little sister had been fetched by a friend - I was alone in my dusty, empty apartment and I had never felt lonelier.

But! Never fear! Thanks to two of my beautiful friends - I had a rich supply of new songs to blow my speakers with and prance around to, pretending I know how to dance. I started putting my belongings into their new places in their new home, found their new places in their new home to be too dusty, found my feet to be pitch-black because of said dust all over my apartment, called mom to ask what to buy at the supermarket and then set off to partake in my first independent shopping expedition.

For someone who considers herself to be the least-domestic person on the planet, I think I pulled off quite a decent job - shopping up a storm and spending more than I had planned to. Student-living isn't going to be easy. I just bought the basics - and I threw in a tub of chocolate mousse because sometimes I like to be a drama and think of future nights involving me crying in front of a black and white romance on tv, tub of dessert in hands, tissues strewn across the room.

I got lost trying to find the parking to the supermarket. But once I arrived back home was when the real fun started. I wish I could take a picture - but since I can't I'll have to describe it. My parking bay is a parallel parking on the bottom level of my apartment block. I have to walk up a winding staircase to reach the first door, which, when opened, blocks one half of the corridor - Murphy's Law: the side jdjdjdjdof the corridor my apartment is on. The front door to my apartment has a trelly-door in front of it. The actual door to the apartment has two locks to it.

Upon arriving at home, I certainly did not want to make two trips to the car to get all the groceries, and so I tried to take everything all at once. I held packets of groceries and single items anywhere I could - I filled up every possible opening. I put things under my arm. I put things in my mouth. I still wasn't able to carry everything. Two trips would have to be made. Once I had reached the top of the winding staircase, I had to put all the groceries down on the stairs to try and find the right key to open the gate with. There are eleventy-thousand keys on the keychain that was given to me. Because the groceries were stacked awkwardly on the stairs, they all started falling down the stairs and out of their packets, and I had to do a professional-dive in order to save the eggs. Once I had the door open, I had to keep it open with one foot, while reaching to try and grasp at what grocery bags I could. I then had to pile the groceries on one side of the door, close the door, and then attempt to pick up th groceries again.

I did this with little ease and moved on to discover my next challenge - I couldn't open the door to my apartment. To be honest, I'm still not sure how it works. I'm not even sure if I'm locking it properly when I leave the building. I didn't know whether I was meant to be two keys in at the same time in both locks - I wasn't sure how I was going to do that. I thought I was going to be locked out of my apartment forever, left only with 18 eggs and a tub of chocolate mousse.

I called mom. Mom didn't answer. I managed to get the door open, and then I killed myself laughing in the kitchen for the next fifteen minutes.

The rest of the day (fortunately/ unfortunately) did not produce as many challenges. After that, I soon left to the V&A Waterfront to meet up with my Aunt and Uncle. We watched The Hobbit, wandered around, bought myself a towel (did anyone actually realise how expensive towels are?!) and shared a plate of sushi on a balcony overlooking the Cape harbour. It was one of the most beautiful nights of my life.

For the r