Hi!!! Welcome to pizzadogs!
the start
This is my first post! I will try to post three times a week: Tuesday, Thursday, and Saturday.
Each day will have a theme: Trip Tuesday, where I will be talking about my travels. Thought Thursday, where I will be sharing my thoughts on things. And Story Saturday, where I will be telling a continuous story.
Trip Tuesdays
Madagascar!
It all started when we flew in. We were in Tana for a few days before our driver, a man named Gino, drove us out six hours to a place called Chez Rasoa. We went to a national park that night and then again in the day. Then we drove out another ten hours to a town where we saw an important lake. Then we went to another national park, where we went in the morning, in the night and then in the morning again. After that, we drove back to the city with the lake, and then back to Tana.
catch up
I just saw wild dogs! Okay that might not sound rare but it is, wild dogs are driving tourism in South Africa. They are critically endangered, and there are only a few thousand left in the wild. Another thing to know is… Johannesburg! It’s abbreviated Joburg, so that’s what I’m going to say when I’m talking about Johannesburg. Joburg has places called townships, one of those town ships is called Soweto. Soweto is a surprisingly safe place because the community punishes those who commit crime. And now I’m in tana (or Antananarivo if we are being exact) but the story of Madagascar is for another day, another Trip Tuesday.
The Recap
I’ve been in Cape Town for over a month, and it’s been fun. I’ve seen penguins, seals, and very impoverished people. But my favorite part is probably a gelato place called Gelato Mania. I’m sad that it’s coming to an end. I just hope I look back on this blog fondly.
Thought Thursdays
People Who Died Making World Monuments (and a Famous Boat)
Let’s start with the Empire State Building: The number of people who died is officially five people, from five different causes of death: falling down an elevator shaft, getting hit by a truck, falling off scaffold, getting killed in a construction blast, and getting struck by a hoist. Next, the Eiffel Tower, which has an official death toll of… zero people. That’s right, due to some safety equipment no one died during its construction, so why did I still add this one to the list? Well one Italian worker died off duty a few days before the Eiffel Tower was open to the public. Then there is the Titanic, where a total of eight people died, though only five of those deaths are completely documented.
Hi, pizzadogs here. You may be wondering why I decided to make a post about people dying in the construction of some of the world’s greatest wonders, (even if one of those wonders is currently submerged). The answer is that I was just at the Eiffel Tower, and one of my post ideas that I decided not to do was to explain the history of the Eiffel Tower, which led me down a rabbit hole that eventually led me to figuring out how many people died in the creation of three impressive things.
Why Is Johannesburg Considered The Richest City In Africa?
Johannesburg, though widely considered the richest city in Africa, does not seem to be as rich as it’s claimed to be. If you go downtown you will find it to be dusty and for how much people hype up Johannesburg as the richest city in Africa, on the borderline of depressing. The best way to describe it is if you’re expecting Gucci and end up with Target. So why do people still consider it as the richest city in Africa? Well, you have to consider a key fact about Johannesburg’s economy, it’s that Johannesburg has over 10 thousand millionaires, and 25 centi-millionaires, along with two billionaires. According to my calculations, the minimum that all of these people could be worth together is $24,025,000,000. Now just this 24 billion dollars could help shake the city’s GDP per capita, and it did. Johannesburg’s GDP per capita is around 12 thousand dollars per person. Now compare this to Cape Town’s 13 thousand dollars per person, now compare that two Cairo’s 4 thousand dollars per person. Now the last one may sound a little weird to put out there but its sheer numbers of people and importance to Egypt put it up there. The final verdict may be unclear but my take away from all this research is that what the richest city in Africa mostly depends on who you ask, and what data you chose to trust. For this post I chose to assume the most median number that was easy to work with. But think of it, this title could be more like ‘Johannesburg is NOT the richest city in Africa’, just by using different information. And so the answer to the question ‘why is Johannesburg considered the richest city in Africa’ is probably that people decided to trust the people who said it was rich.
Update
I just left Cape Town, and I’m kind of sad. It was fun being in Cape Town, but it might be more fun being in Kruger National Park. As soon as we arrived, I knew it was going to be fun. They have three modified Toyota Land Cruisers that they take out at dawn and dusk on safaris. You have to wake up at 5:30 to catch the dawn safari though. Just so you know, I will not be posting for a little bit, as I may not have access to the internet.
Story Saturdays
Attack of the Crazy Red-eyed Demon
James was looking up at the beautiful night sky when suddenly a flash of red caught his attention. James bolted up and looked around himself, and what he saw made him jump back in fear. Two red eyes, staring straight at James. James started running. The pair of red eyes followed. James ran down the river, trying to escape. After ten minutes of running down the river, James stopped. He had reached a waterfall. It plunged down 60 feet. The demon catched up to him. James could not survive the fall, nor could he kill the demon. That’s when he remembered, he was wearing a belt. He slid it off. Then when the demon got close enough, he hit it right on the top of its head. The demon roared as James ran into the forest.
The Aftermath
After they crashed, James claimed that it was all Miss Cackleberys’ fault, although they both knew it was James’. He still blamed Miss Cackleberys for their crash, and as the sun sank low into the sky it became clear that they needed to find somewhere to sleep. As the sun set, James decided to try to make a shelter by leaning a big stick against a tree, and adding more sticks leaning on the bigger stick, and finally adding some leaves on the ground. After the construction of his base, he proceeded to ban Miss Cackleberys from it, and after a hard day of waking up in Miss Cackleberys house, making a boat, crashing it, and then making a shelter, James finally fell asleep.
Shipwreck!
As James and Miss Cackleberys went on, it became more apparent that their boat was starting to break. The first sign of it falling apart was when one of the logs that they used to make the boat flew off into the river, then another one did the exact same thing. Soon enough James and Miss Cackleberys were clinging on to one log soaring down the river. Miss Cackleberys was able to shift her weight to get them ashore. Unfortunately they are still very far from where Miss Cackleberys wants them to be so she must figure out how to get there.
