09 April 2010

Why I love Cape Town

I woke up this morning to grey clouds. The sky was grey, white misty clouds over Lion's head and rain trinkling down from the sky.

 This is my favourite sight to wake up to. If I were to be honest, this weather is the reason I fell in love with this city because it is unpredictable and schitzophrenic.

I remember being here with my friends about three years ago and the weather was gloomy and grey, then sunny in the afternoon. We were frustrated and I remember saying how much I loved it and that if there ever was a reason for me to move here, the weather would be it. Three months later, I packed my stuff and have been in Cape Town for about three years now.

But besides the weather, Cape Town has a different pulse to the city I grey up in, Pretoria.

Pretoria is actually the opposite of Cape Town in a lot of ways. It is warmer and sunnier in Pretoria. I would go as far as to say that the people are warmer too.

Cape Town is full of my favourite people, the hippies. They come in all different shapes, races and sizes but they all have something in common. It seems that there are people here who have decided that life is messed up and instead of dwelling on things that they do not have, they would rather focus on things that they do.

So you have the  writers, poets,  filmakers, musicians, volunteers, nomads etc who do not know where their rent money is going to come from, but still insist on doing what they love. Even if it means that they may be broke for the rest of their lives. Because at some point in these people's lives, they realised that having a dream/talent and making it work was more important than all the riches in the world.

Besides the fact that they do not have much, they will still be the happiest people to have around you. You see, since I have been here I have been exposed to a lot of these people and at some point I find myself thinking that they are crazy. That I am crazy because I am one of those people.

It is this craziness, this energy that makes me love this city.

It also helps that we live by the sea and have a lot of gorgeous places to hang out. But I love Cape Town because of the people. The crazy ones. The hippies. The dreamers.