If South Africa made feel like a kid again, being on the Stray bus made me feel like I was back in college: the dorms, the ramen, the canned meat, the slightly damp clothes cause you’re trying to save money on the drier, the gossip on who has hooked up with whom, or rather on who is trying to hook up with whom, and discovering what you have in common that made you all chose to end up in the same place.

After hours and hours on the bus, hours chuckling as our driver said “sweet as” to everything, “I mean, if you don’t want to participate, sweet as, but uh hem, loser…”, and hours and hours sleeping together or hiking together, we came together and discovered that had a supremely talented bus.

We had a National Cup Stacking Champion, who could also solve a Rubics cube in under a minute (he is 18), two people who could horse vault, one chef who owned a restaurant, one fireman, two really good dancers, one coder (of computers), one guy who could sing and play guitar and literally brought down the open mic night in Abel Tasman, and I think at one point we even had a synchronized swimmer.

This is all to say, that everyone is special and talented and you just have to take the time to find out. 

Scratch that, this is all to say that I was on a bus with supremely talented people … Be right back, I’m off to sign up for mahjong lessons…

Miss you guys, thanks for my first hitchhike, my first haka, my first (and second and third etc) 19km hike, and my first rugby game, basically – thanks for the great time!!