Today, we took a quick day trip to George by plane from Cape Town, rented a car, and drove along the famous Garden Route of South Africa. We didn’t really plan much, but we ended up packing the day pretty quickly with some stunning stops at beaches, ocean heads, and the very special Knysna Elephant Park, which is an elephant sanctuary that takes in orphaned and abused elephants. They were the first facility in South Africa to care for orphaned elephants and continue to employ a research unit dedicated to increasing the welfare of captive elephants in the country.

I’ve always loved animals since I was young, but I never really thought much of elephants. I knew they were large, supposed “gentle giants.” I knew that they were getting wrongly killed in great numbers across Africa for their smooth ivory tusks. I also was aware that there was controversy over elephants in countries like Thailand, and so I was never intrigued by the idea of riding on an elephant. But I never really thought they were beautiful creatures until I got up closer to several of them today. Part of our visit included feeding and petting elephants in the park, and so I got to feed an elephant a bucket of assorted vegetables and pet them. For the first time, I discovered what it was like to feel an elephant trunk enclose my hand to grab food (warm, rough, wrinkly, pebbly, and a bit damp). And as I pet Shungu, the ten-year-old teen male elephant we were assigned to, I immediately developed an affection for him. I stroked the side of his body — much softer and smoother than I imagined, and very unlike the feeling of the inside of the elephant trunk. The texture of his ears was buttery and leathery, and quite dry. I noticed his teeny little eyes (elephants have poor eyesight, which they make up for with their powerful hearing, hence their extremely large ears) and the long and unruly eyelashes that framed them. I felt his ivory tusk — cool and completely smooth. As we pet him, one of the assistants, stood by, and to be silly as elephants can be, Shungu ripped out some grass from the ground and sprayed it all over him. The assistant smiled and laughed. “He’s just playing,” he told us. “They love to play with us.” The relationship that the park workers have with these sweet, gentle creatures was so heart-warming.

I realized the meaning of the “gentle giants” label for elephants today. They can certainly be violent and deadly, but almost only when they are provoked. They are all domesticated at this sanctuary, so they understand and respond to instructions from the park workers. And as I continued to admire Shungu and his sweet face, I felt viscerally angry about all the terrible men hunting elephants solely for their tusks — these sweet, gentle creatures who mean no harm to the world are getting killed just for their ivory? It’s a lost life for a well-meaning animal that just wants to eat 18 hours a day and throw mud over his body to keep cool. Elephants’ only genuine predator is man, and man so far has been only pure evil to them… just to have and sell ivory that will merely sit on a shelf or in a cabinet. The desire for “things” has never seemed more stupid or senseless to me.

We left the city today and drove down to the Cape Peninsula to visit Boulders Beach’s African penguin colony and Cape Point. The last time I had been this close to penguins was in December 2012, when Chris took me to Phillip Island to see the fairy penguins flock from the ocean to the land. Fairy penguins are much smaller than African penguins; African penguins can grow to be about 2-2.5 feet tall, whereas fairy penguins average about a foot.

We encountered a bit of a sand and wind storm when we got to Boulders Beach, as sand was flying literally everywhere. But that did not deter the penguins, who all sat around the beach, some hiding between rocks, and others digging holes for their burrows. Some of the penguins even were attempting to mate, but unfortunately as is the case with African penguins, female penguins need to “accept” the male penguin to then begin the process; there’s no rape here. That led to some awkward penguin watching.

It’s also moulting season for the penguins, so many of them had unruly, fluffed up feathers and looked like they needed a bit of a haircut and smoothing out to do. I’ve always loved birds, and I especially love penguins because of how they waddle and flap their wings. They’re such beautiful creatures, and it’s amazing to me how Phillip Island and Boulders Beach makes it so easy for human beings to enjoy seeing these animals in their natural habitat. I felt so lucky to be able to see them today with my own eyes.

It’s Christmas day here in Cape Town, and it’s the first non-Melbourne Christmas that Chris and I have had in our time together. It’s also his 36^th birthday today. We’re certainly aging slowly but surely.

We spent the morning on video chat with his family in London and Melbourne, then spent the afternoon going up Table Mountain. From almost wherever you are in the city of Cape Town, you can see Table Mountain; it’s quite a sight to see, and has an incredible view of the city from the top. When we reached the summit and stared down at the city flanked by water, I realized how similar Cape Town felt to Rio when we went up Sugar Loaf Mountain there. These two cities have mountains and water surrounding their cities. It’s no wonder we both enjoyed these places so much.

There were informational signs throughout the top of the summit, and one of them included a quite from Nelson Mandela on the beauty and hope that Table Mountain brings to Cape Town. And as I thought about this, I looked out into the water at Robben Island, where he once was imprisoned for 18 years, and thought how ridiculous it would be for a human being to be imprisoned that long and still make it out alive, being both optimistic and hopeful. He saw Table Mountain from Robben Island as his “beacon of hope,” that one day, he’d be back on the mainland and making change happen for humankind.

The human psyche is quite powerful; it is often one’s disposition rather than life circumstances that determine how happy or hopeful one is. The fact that Nelson Mandela was able to get through his horrific imprisonment, as well as all these other former political prisoners of Robben Island, are a testament to that statement. Seeing the natural beauty of Table Mountain and using that as his reason for hope for the future is inspiring, and after having visited it today, I can definitely understand why. Although he was imprisoned, he probably felt lucky to be able to see this mountain every day. When I think of the oppression he faced, it always makes me sad to think of how miserable and negative people like my mom or my cousin are, and how they always think their circumstances are so much worse than others when in fact, they are so much better off than most people. They cannot realize that it’s their own minds that are preventing them from being happy, not to mention the poor choices they themselves have chosen to make. On days like Christmas when most people are celebrating or happy about life, they dwell on how terrible the world is. Their dispositions need a change, but unfortunately never will.

Robben Island in Cape Town, South Africa, is primarily known as the island prison where Nelson Mandela, the former president of South Africa, was imprisoned for 18 out of his 27 years behind bars. For most people at least remotely interested in history, when visiting Cape Town, this is one of the sites on their list, and we made sure to book this tour as early in our stay as possible to make sure there were no issues with weather, as bad winds can cause the boats to stop going to the island and all tours of the day to be cancelled.

Although I knew that former prisoners were the primary walking guides for the tours, it didn’t hit me exactly how powerful it would be until Parks, our guide, revealed that he was a former political prisoner at Robben Island for seven years in the 1980s. Their cells had glass-less windows, which meant that any time of the year, especially during winter, they were fully exposed to the elements (today, they have enclosed them in glass). They were not allowed to wear proper shoes or socks; all manual labor was done without proper footwear, even in the winter time. For the slightest infractions, they were beaten repeatedly until they were bruised and bloody. They were not allowed to speak to each other. Their meals were small, especially if they were black, and if black, their only “lunch” was puzamandla – a white liquid made from a mysterious white powder that was mixed with water. They were told this was a protein drink; in fact, it was actually a drink to make them infertile because the prison wanted all black prisoners to leave and be unable to ever bear children. They had a different menu for “coloureds/Asiatics” vs. “Bantus” – blacks.

I asked Parks why he decided to come back to work and share the story of his time at Robben Island. In my own mind, I cannot even fathom going through a fraction of what he’d been through, but if I had, the last thing I’d want to do was to go back to that putrid place of imprisonment and relive those terrors every single day as my line of work. He said he originally went to college and hoped to do something else for a living, but it was hard to find work, and when they asked him to come back and share his stories to visitors, he agreed. It was painful at first as we’d imagine, he said, but he realized how important it was for people to know what really happened there. It’s part of his country’s history. And he’s learned to forgive the prison guards who beat him and tried to make him infertile; he actually gets along with them now as they all work side by side in the prison, now not as a place of imprisonment, but as a World Heritage Site to educate the world. He calls some of them his friends today.

It’s difficult to understand the amount of forgiveness in his heart to get to the point of actually considering these people his friends. But to that, I deeply admire and respect him and all the other prisoners who have chosen willingly to come back and work to share their stories. It’s always deeper and more meaningful when the stories of our past are shared not in textbooks, but in real life circumstances that we can relate to. And this is one of them. The entire experience is so humbling because I don’t think I could ever be that lenient in the same circumstances.

In the U.S., we are way too used to the consumption of domesticated animals. People complain when their lamb tastes too “gamey,” they get upset when they find out how their chickens and cows are slaughtered, but still continue eating the meat, and the elitist liberals try to avoid grain-fed cows and chickens… until they realize that the USDA has little to no forced regulation over how strict “grain-fed” vs. “grass-fed” is.

So it’s funny coming to a country like South Africa where game meat is the meat that people eat and wondering how the average American deals with it. People here are used to the “gamey” taste of animals… because guess what, that’s how animals are supposed to taste in the wild. They’re not supposed to be corn-fed, they’re not supposed to be injected with growth hormones and antibiotics, and they’re certainly not supposed to be stuck in cages with only inches of “personal” space for themselves to wander around.

Tonight, we shared a springbok shank and marveled over how tender and juicy it was… it fell off the phone and was clearly game meat; there was no hiding it. Other meats we hope to try include ostrich, snoek (game fish), impala, kudu, and blesbok.

Being a life partner to Chris also means learning about his heritage… or at least, the culinary heritage that comes with being Indian with parents who have roots in India and who have also lived in Malaysia and Australia. To me, the easiest way to learn and get acquainted with a culture with which you are not familiar is to eat their food and learn about its nuances; so much about one’s culture, religion, and tall tale stories can be found from the different types of food that is part of a people.

I’m not one of those traditional wives who thinks that just because my husband is of a certain background that I absolutely need to cook the food he grew up eating; in fact, I resent that type of expectation. I only know and cook Indian food because I really love the process, and I love how many of these dishes came to be. A lot of it is laborious and requires a slightly insane number of spices, but now I have a varied enough spice collection where when I want to make something Indian, all I really need to do is buy some form of protein and some extra onions or tomatoes from the market.

Hoppers, or appam, is one of those dishes that Chris loves that I have also come to love since his mom first introduced it to me in 2012. It’s traditionally a breakfast food in southern India, and it’s made from fermented rice and freshly grated coconut, and then cooked in a rounded pancake-like pan. It’s then served with different chutneys and a curry stew of some sort. We went to a place called Hoppers today for lunch with Chris’s cousin, who also loves eating appam. Appams are called “hoppers” in Sri Lanka, and when we were eating there, I loved every single thing that came to the table. So that made me realize how ignorant I was about Sri Lankan cuisine, so I started researching that.

Sri Lankan cuisine has a lot in common with southern India, or the area where coconut-based curries and dosas/appams come from. Their curries are heavy on the coconut, but supposedly their usage of spice is supposed to be more pronounced. Cinnamon (real cinnamon, not the cassia that stands in as “cinnamon” in the U.S.) is featured heavily and curries, and caramelized onion chutney is frequently found on Sri Lankan dinner tables. Curry and pandan leaves are used; I was used to using curry leaves, but the pandan leaf usage is definitely different than what I have heard of in Indian cuisine.

And to get me even more excited, I just found out that a decent Sri Lankan population lives in Staten Island, which also means that I can find more Sri Lankan restaurants there than anywhere else in New York City. I’m definitely planning to go out there once the weather gets warmer and have Chris come with me.

After having the good fortune of visiting Christmas markets in Berlin, Hamburg, Basel, Vienna, and Budapest, I was excited to learn that London has its own Christmas markets. Mulled wine, German style miniature Christmas houses and villages, and European Christmas stalls are things I have loved and enjoyed the last few years, and initially discovered during a trip to Chicago in November 2009, when I first learned about the Christmas market culture that exists all over Germany. So I was a bit disappointed to find out that London’s version of Christmas markets is really just a fair-type setting with children’s rides, arcade games, sprinkled with mulled wine stalls and artificial lit-up Christmas trees. The biggest one at Hyde Park called Winter Wonderland even charges admission, which would never happen in a place like Germany and Austria, but it’s mainly because this place has real roller coaster type rides. Well, at least now I know what to expect if I ever come back to London during the Christmas season.

In Tokyo, there are “up” arrows denoting to walk up the stairs in the subway, and “down” arrows denoting to walk down the stairs. Everyone (except Chris and me) follows this while in Japan, even if it means queuing up in a single file line. There is no crowding in the stairwells, just neat lines. The same is the case with boarding the trains on the platform; everyone lines up. No one crowds around the door.

In New York City in subway stations, people crowd around subway doors. But the order that I never quite appreciated before was that people always walk in the way that in the U.S., you are expected to walk: keep right, keep right, keep right. You walk to the right, and to your left, are people walking to their right. Occasionally you will see people in a rush interrupting this, but they are the exception, not the rule.

Well, here in London, as I’ve observed in the last two days, there’s no order at all. People crowd around train doors, and when walking on the street, sidewalks, or underground, no one keeps left or right; everyone just walks right into each other or gets close enough to move out of the way just at the very last second before running into each other. I figured… okay, I’m here in the UK, and people are technically supposed to keep left. I tried to keep left, but it made no freaking difference. People were constantly walking into me and getting into my personal space, and I still just don’t get it. Does it add a little extra drama or interest to the day? Is there not enough stress already in life as is that they feel the need to add this to their walking commute?

Ever since I found out that chicken tikka masala was supposedly the national dish of the UK, I knew I had to explore Indian food in London more. While doing restaurant research for this trip, I became a bit obsessive and actually made five restaurant reservations, including three Michelin-star-rated restaurants and one famous afternoon tea spot that won the 2017 award for best afternoon tea in London, and is also a spot where Princess Diana, Winston Churchill, and Oscar Wilde used to frequent.

The first spot we ate at is The Quilon, a modern South Indian restaurant named after the city where Chris’s dad was born. The decor was chic and refined, and the presentation of the food was much different than what I am accustomed to in Indian restaurants back in New York. Everything is much more formal, artfully presented, and at this specific restaurant, vibrantly fresh. Even the little pappadams came with their own assortment of chutneys, including the true standout, a freshly grated coconut chutney that had a texture I’d never enjoyed before. The Kerala fish curry was so good with different nuanced flavors that I wish we could have packed just the curry gravy to take back with us. And the paratha that they gave us was so flaky and fresh, with each layer of dough distinct from one another.

Chris makes fun of me when I say this, but I think the level of innovation in Indian and Chinese restaurants in London far surpasses that of New York City or San Francisco. In London, they seem to be playing on traditional flavors but making the presentation and techniques a lot more modern, and that’s what has been so fun about reading about the London dining scene… even if it isn’t traditional British pub/white people cuisine. They’re not trying too hard like some places (ahem, Mission Chinese), but trying just enough to be interesting and different.