Helicopter chaos

Annnd I am already failing at posting weekly. But to be fair, things are really super exciting enough right now to share much with you – especially compared to life in the bush.

My days are mostly filled with sitting at my computer in the lab writing up my dissertation, showing it to my supervisors, dying a little bit on the inside, re-running analysis I did months ago and then writing some more. Luckily, Ryno gets to come to the office with me a few times a week (he is totally my dissertation-writing emotional support dog).

Oh, something exciting did happen whilst in the office! I was in on Saturday (yes, legit, this has become life consuming, but also it is not like I have ever had normal weekends anyways)… anyways, I was in the office on Saturday and I just kept hearing helicopters. Hmm, that is odd. Maybe there was a car accident nearby and the news was reporting the traffic? Okay, no. There were multiple helicopters flying so close that my desk was vibrating. I went to the window to check it out and the helicopters had big baskets of water – there must be a fire somewhere! But wait… they are REALLY close! Is the fire on campus?? So I rushed out to go see what is going on and worry about if I needed to move my Land Cruiser or not. The fire was not on campus, but there is a big dam on campus and the helicopters were taking turns in procession dipping their baskets into the water and whisking it off just a short distance away to drop on the mountain.

Well, that was pretty cool. I must admit, I probably spent a good 45 minutes watching these helicopters fly in and out collecting water. Hey, it is definitely not something you get to see every day.

On a social side of things, Cape Town does have a lot to offer – it really is a beautiful city and always has something going on. On Sunday a bunch of us went to the Kirstenbosch Summer Sunset concert series to see a band called Good Luck. Kirstenbosch has the most picturesque setting for a concert with Table Mountain lining the background. Seriously, it is stunning! And somehow Good Luck is always playing on my yearly pilgrimage to Cape Town so seeing them has become sort of a tradition now.

But yeah, that is pretty much where I am at and have been at the past two weeks. I have not even had time to go on a proper mountain hike yet, but I do promise that will happen soon – it must!