Saturday 9th April - 5.30PM

Saturday 9th April – Port Elizabeth Park

When telling people that I was going to Port Elizabeth for 3 nights, I was warned that there wasn’t much to do, and that I should reconsider. I ignored them, partly because it would mean I’d lose my deposit, but also because I was sure I could find things to do in a large, famous city. I was wrong.

Yesterday, after finding the cricket ground, I went off to explore the rest of PE. This didn’t take long. I wandered along the barren high street, to find not much, and I had a look in the park. After I had a read in the sun, I walked down to the other high street. This was busier, but there still wasn’t much going on. And that was Port Elizabeth.

While I’ve spent the past few nights going to out to nearby pubs or clubs, the fact that there aren’t any anywhere near my hostel means we spent the evening watching films back at base. We watched “Laws of Attraction”, “Harold and Kumar Escape from Guantanamo Bay” and “Envy”. Other than an offer of drugs (I declined) it was a pretty dull evening.

After waking up late (why bother getting up early?) I was asked by my roommates if I wanted to go out to the beach with them. You know when you just don’t want to go with certain people, but they’re insistent that you come. After racking my brains for convenient excuses, I just about blagged my way out of it, even though I did genuinely plan to go and do a bit of shopping at the mall. I may have taken up the offer to go to the beach, however, if it hadn’t been with my roommates. I genuinely don’t think I’ve met a pair of more dislikeable people in my life.

One is a 30-odd year old South African bloke who walks around topless, and keeps boasting about how many young girls he pulls. He evidently only goes backpacking just to see if he can find any new ones in the hostels, and preys on them there. He was also very controlling and manipulative of me, hoping to get me to come out to these weird clubs with him. I declined. My other roommate is just plain annoying. She looks like an ugly version of Nichole337 (for those asking whether that is possible – yes it is. I found the only other person in the world who is), but her looks pale into insignificance when you consider her personality. She is a German who lived in Birmingham, so she has developed the most grating accent I’ve ever heard. She has absolutely no self-awareness, and keeps telling me her most banal problems that I completely don’t care about. I’ve only known her one day, yet because I didn’t immediately tell her to f*ck off, she’s taken a shine to me, and rearranged her whole trip just so she can take the same Baz Bus journey as me. Great.

Anyway, instead of going to the beach with them, I took a walk to the big shopping centre which is about an hour away by foot. I bought some things, and then walked back. On the way back, I found a pub with a TV, and asked to put the Chelsea-Wigan game on. As the only one in the pub, that was fine, and the barwoman gave me the remote and told me to put on “whatever”. So I put on SS7, and watched the goalless first half.

While I’d watched the game pretty much on my own, one bloke had come in a few minutes before half time, and as soon as the whistle went, literally snatched the remote away from me, and put on the rugby. I was astonished by his lack of a) courtesy b) question c) explanation, and after politely enquiring as to why he was a massive bellend, I got the answer “rugby, mate”. After I questioned him further, he conveniently remembered he was Afrikaans and as such couldn’t speak English. Prick. So I got up and left.

I’m now in the park writing this, and am relying on texts from dad to keep my up to date with the score. I am struggling to find any redeeming features to PE at all, other than it having a “nice McDonalds”.