South Africa is, in fact, a country

My flight to Berlin is booked for Thursday night, hence the "just passing the time chilling" blog frequency of late.

I popped into a tiny side-alley, self-proclaimed market store yesterday afternoon for a snack. While mostly ignoring the ongoing conversation between himself and another bloke, I was caught out when the elderly shopowner asked me with an English tongue if I wanted a plastic bag. In hingsight he'd probably been asking that in Greek a couple of times before.

"Are you from America?"

he asked. Easy assumption I guess. I replied no, that I was South African. At which point, both men lifted their fists into the air Madiba-style and with broad smiles shouted "aahh Nelsonnn!". That made me smile too.

A little later in the day I got chatting to a Brazilian girl in the hostel courtyard. After a while she asked where I was from and I told her.

"Which country in South Africa? Namibia?"

she asked. Lost in translation? I explained that South Africa is, in fact, a country, and that my home city is Cape Town, the southern-most city in Africa.

"Is that near the Cape of Good Hope?"

Right then, moving on.

Elsewhere that day, I bought a new pair of shades. There's an amusing story here, considering my history with sunglasses. I had an awesome Dunlop (yep, truly unique - you won't find them anywhere) pair that disappeared when my kite pulled me into the surf on Blouberg beach some years ago, in view of hundreds of onlookers. My shades weren't the only thing to fall off, unfortunately.

The replacement pair got scratched after a London pub crawl. They lasted two years or so.

Well, I did find a pair in Nice two hours before arriving in Italy and they cost *cough* €90. Also, they were Made in Italy. Typical. They featured interchangeable lenses; if they got scratched I could just buy a new lens. The only problem is that they didn't fit me as well as I'd initially thought, so my eyelashes would flick against the lenses when I blinked if they weren't sitting on my nose correctly - very annoying. This is all in past-tense btw, since they promptly snapped on my first day in Corfu.

My new Arnette pair fits perfectly, has inter-changeable lenses too (but only came with 1 pair) and cost *cough* €10 less. Yay, happy times.