Change your look? Yes we can!

Change your look? Yes we can!, originally uploaded by Aaron Michael Brown.

Woodstock, Cape Town, South Africa.

Ha Noi

Pigeon's head., originally uploaded by Aaron Michael Brown.

Okay, so if this photo looks familiar, its because this photo is from that crazy Spring Break 2006 trip I took with Papa Brown. Photos of Vietnam 2009 are likely to be online soon, as well as our spring break and all the photos from Langa... Apparently I'm pretty behind. Dammit.

We have safely landed in Hanoi, and I'm surprised by the level of detail to which I remember how most of the downtown area is laid out. I even remembered specific restaurants, and I visited my old hotel about an hour ago.

. I have a ton more photos to upload, and since I decided to spend my time on that miserable 12 hour flight from Cape Town watching the Simpsons and furiously scribbling and doodling instead of writing in my urbanity journal I'm keeping for this trip, I've got about eight rough draft entries that I intend to publish over the next week.

This pigeon's head was delicious, for what it is worth. Tam Biet until then.

sb09 sa.

Oh snap., originally uploaded by Aaron Michael Brown.

Spring Break on the northern Atlantic Coast of south africa for a wonderful week, starting tomorrow. After that, flying to Vietnam. Hope all is well in whichever corner of the world you reside.

One of my favorites.

One of my favorites., originally uploaded by Aaron Michael Brown.

Aaron: "And what did you think about Sarah Palin? Did you hear about Sarah Palin last year."
My Xhosa Host Mother in Langa, whos name means "successful" but is a whopping 14 letters long and I couldn't possibly spell it correctly so I won't even try: "I won't say anything. That's your country. That's your mess."

That doesn't even compare to the responses I received in Brazil. Deni said something along the lines of "that woman is absolutely crazy," and when I explained how fucked America would have been with her as president to Kika, my mother in Curitiba, she responded that she thanks god everyday that Palin isn't calling the shots right now. You should have seen the look on her face when I explained aerial wolf hunting.


Langa is intense. I have to be home by 7 every day, because the township is pretty sketch after dark, and we have to take a series of little minivans to get around to anywhere, but my host family feeds me and Avery very well, and her four year old grandson is possibly the most entertaining and intelligent little bugger I've ever met.

, originally uploaded by Aaron Michael Brown.

It is difficult for me to express just how much I wanted to see penguins on a beach. It was a pilgrimage of sorts. When I was down in the dumps last November dealing with a ton of school work and a ton of stress, the thought of seeing penguins on a beach kept me going, and alas, my waiting is officially over after a wonderful trip down to Cape Point and Boulder Beach last weekend. THEY WERE SO ADORABLE.

Today I leave for the township of Langa for a week and a half. After that, I've got about a week to backpack along the southern coast of South Africa, only to make it back to Cape Town in time for my flight to Vietnam. I'm going to miss hearing the Call to Prayer bellow through the streets of the Bokaap, although I'm excited to actually live outside of the City Bowl and see more of the city. I know I say this often, but the internet situation is unknown; I've just uploaded a kajillion photos to flickr, so check that out while you are waiting to hear more word of me.

This one is for Bonnie, originally uploaded by Aaron Michael Brown.

This is a photo of Kate Sokol from last Sunday, a wonderful excursion down to Cape Point.

LET IT BE KNOWN.

My last game of the season, originally uploaded by Aaron Michael Brown.

It looks to be almost certain that on Friday, Portland Oregon will be announced as the site for a new MLS team to play starting in April 2011. That gives me about nine months after graduation to get settled back in Portland to be there in PGE Park just in time for our opening match against the hated Seattle Sounders. Coupled with the ascension of the Blazers in recent years, it's going to be a great couple years for Portland sports. I can't wait to rent an apartment in north portland and bike downtown every day to work, timbers games, coffee shops, house shows, concerts in basements, voodoo doughnuts, and the like. All I have to do is score a sweet job fighting gentrification or promoting alternative transportation; everything about my idealized perfect portland life is falling into place.


I'm still in Cape Town, and the city is still beautiful. I never have time to get in depth about things I'd like to blog about, like how this is a ridiculous place for a city, or how neoliberalism sucks and is transforming the way cities exist in the 21st century (in especially profound ways for cities in the global south), how much people overlook ecology, and the generally problematic exportation and adoration of American suburbs in cities around the world. Nevertheless, I am well, and I have another couple days with my family in the Bokaap before we move out to families in Langa, a township on the periphery of town. I then have a week vacation to myself, and as of right now, I'm thinking I'm going to follow the aforementioned Amanda Garant on the backpacker's express "BazBus", and see how far around the coast I can make it before I have to hightail it back to Cape Town for a flight to Vietnam.

Last night, we celebrated St Patricks Day at a jazz club, and came back to our houses in the Bokaap and watched a fire burn along the edge of Table Mountain, with the city in the foreground covered in smoke. Scary, but beautiful. Photos are following; I'm terrified to take my camera anywhere with the risk of mugging, so I might wait until we get to Langa or perhaps even Vietnam to start extensively uploading photos of penguins, Cape Point, Valhalla Park, and anywhere else my travels take me. Keep in touch dear reader, I am only an email away at ambrown at macalester dot edu, and I would love to hear from you.

The Zen of Amanda Garant.

The Zen of Amanda Garant., originally uploaded by Aaron Michael Brown.

We climbed Lion's Head at sunset to catch the view of both the sunset over the ocean and the moonrise over the city to the east, and Amanda, in one of her many spiritual moments where she stands alone with a giant smile on her face while taking in the incredible scenery, managed to stand in the perfect spot to get a really nice photo.

Cape Town under the mountains and moonlight

Cape Town under the mountains and moonlight, originally uploaded by Aaron Michael Brown.

This picture reminds me of all those nights up on Pittock Mansion, with Alex Leeding, where we would see how many streets and roads we could identify while looking down on beloved Portland, counting off all the streets that we could recognize, watching Sandy and Burnside and the interstates snake through the city, eating voodoo doughnuts, even if its one in the morning there's still traffic on the streets somewhere. Sometimes, it is only in the dark that we can see the patterns and the different ways we live in and interact with the urban environment. In Cape Town, it's particularly pronounced: it's so easy to see the environmentally protected Table Mountain, jutting from the urban landscape above the city and the oceans, and how so much of Cape Flats in the horizon is set up to allow people to get in and out of the tiny, concentrated downtown of Cape Town that hugs its sharp, nonnegotiable natural boundaries. Of course, with a little extra knowledge of the area, you could also see how in the Cape Flats in the horizon, the areas with fewer lights are the Townships, the informal settlements without adequate street lights, or you could talk about the development patterns and the city by the alignment of major roads.

The view from my window. Bokaap, Cape Town, South Africa.

The view from my window. Bokaap, Cape Town, South Africa., originally uploaded by Aaron Michael Brown.

This is the view from my bedroom window. Somebody call Andrew Sullivan.