Cinco, seis, o siete de la mañana, su hija esta en buenas manos

Have I ever told you I went to South Africa? Or Brazil? Yeah I know. I talk about those trips a lot on here, but let's be honest. You end up doing things out of your element iwth a greater chance to be good stories or have good unintentional comedy in a foreign country. So sorry for the all the foreign talk. And if you want me to shut up about it, stop reading and go travel yourself. It is awesome.

So in South Africa we, a bunch of (mostly white) Americans were shown around Durban by predominantly black Africans and an Indian guy who did a kick ass impression of Michael Jackson. Dancing not inappropriately touching little children. Our exposure to white South Africans was fairly limited, but not completely so. I was happy with my experience and loved everything I did there. I was glad not to have just done the white person trip.

One day though, we decided to try to go to the "white club". In post-Apartheid South Africa race is still pretty important. We figured though it would be just like all the clubs and bars we had been frequenting. We were wrong.

We were informed we had to have collared shirts to enter the premises and wear pants. We went out to a cheap store and bought these items. We were not told we had to wear shoes. Hence, we were kicked out of the club for wearing sandals.

That's right. In South Africa, in a coastal city known for its beaches, we weren't allowed into a club because the guys were wearing sandals. We said "fuck em" and packed it up and headed to the casino. The club was also called "The Toy Tiger", which is a pretty stupid name if you ask me. The Burn kicks your ass anyday.

I love playing blackjack at casinos. I love it even more when you have a 5:1 exchange rate in your favor and you are playing with foreign currency that is color coordinated. It is like gambling with Monopoly money. Needless to say, we were throwing Rand around like it was confetti. I believe the phrase "I wipe my ass with 5 Rand" was muttered on more than one occasion.

Needless to say ... we were loose at the table and quickly tripled our money. We had a hoot gambling and talking with the locals and taking the casinos money, winning 300 Rand (aka 60 bucks, it sounds so much better in Rand). Then it was time to go home.

We hopped in a cab and the cabbie was cool. We had a shit ton of money on us but were in good spirits. Then the cabbie said "Hey I need to stop off somewhere, I will take you off the meter and only charge you 20 rand for the ride, that cool?" The ride should have cost like 45 so we agreed. Stupid Americans.

Actually, we are just too trusting. However, we drove to some shady area and stopped outside of a house. I took my wallet and hid it under the seat. The guy ran in the house. We discussed how stupid we were. He returned. Thanked us and drove us promptly home. He was a really good guy. We were too trusting, but got rewarded this time.