The Bucket List

Seeing that my life is drifting dangerously into obscurity, I figured, what the hell, let’s be a bit naive and juvenile for a second and create a list of things I want to do or accomplish before they throw me in a silk-lined box, and drop me into the earth. These are my dreams. These probably will never come true. But anyway, this is my Bucket List.

Total Items listed thus far: Uncalculated.

Items successfully completed thus far: 2

Own a restaurant, jazz cafe or night club, and name it Ajaya in honour of my late friend; a joint bucket list item between us.

Start a travel blog… that will hopefully and eventually become my career.

Learn a new language… Latin, Spanish, French, Japanese or another local language.

Learn sign language.

Pass my first year at Rhodes University.

Complete my degree… Hopefully a Bachelor of Journalism, or Literature.

Go on a Southern Africa road-trip.

See and feel snow… and then build a snowman.

Learn origami… at least how to make a paper swan.

Fly as a passenger on a plane.

Learn how to fly a plane… get a pilot’s license.

Fly in a hot-air balloon.

Go white water rafting.

Backpack through Europe.

Visit every capital city in Europe.

Go skydiving.

Go bungee jumping… Bloukraans Bridge.

Sing karaoke.

Buy digital and film SLR cameras. Take photographs that compel me to write.

Ride a mechanical bull.

Write a book… Autobiography possibly. (IN PROGRESS)

Go paint-balling.

Play laser-tag.

Learn how to surf.

Abseil down Table Mountain.

Take a cruise… Mediterranean or Caribbean.

Learn how to play the piano… even if it is just one song made up of a few chords done really well.

Read the entire Bible. All 66 books.

Go scuba diving… either in Mozambique, Zanzibar or the Great Barrier reef.

Meet and see Jimmy Carr live.

Visit every beach in Cape Town in one day.

Find and eat the best gatsby in Cape Town.

Do a lap of the Nurburgring Nordschleife racing circuit, Nurburg, Germany.

Attend Oktoberfest, Munich, Germany.

Visit Ibiza, Spain during summer. Watch a sunset at Cafe Del Mar.

See John Mayer performing live in Cape Town.

Attend a Cape Town football derby between Ajax Cape Town and Santos.

Take the Nelson Mandela Gateway ferry to Robben Island, Cape Town.

Play a round of golf at one of the US Open venues.

Have a Wembley Whopper from Wembley Roadhouse, Athlone, Cape Town.

Go shark cage diving off the False Bay coast, Cape Town.

Attend the Rio Carnival. Rio de Janeiro, Brazil.

Hang-glide off Sugarloaf in Rio de Janeiro, Brazil.

Learn HTML and CSS.

Go strawberry picking and/or cherry picking in the Cape Winelands, South Africa.

Climb Mount Kilimanjaro, Tanzania.

Attend the UEFA Champions League final. Preferably with Manchester United as one of the finalists.

Attend the FIFA World Cup final. Preferably with Bafana Bafana as finalists.

Become the owner of a pinball machine.

Learn how to ice-skate, properly.

Go snowboarding in the Swiss Alps.

Attend a mountain stage of Le Tour de France. Preferably, the climb towards Alp d’Huez, France.

Attend a live studio recording of the BBC’s Top Gear. And meet the cast.

Meet and shake hands with Nelson Mandela.

Meet and shake hands with Larry King. I would love to interview him.

Go sea kayaking.

Swim with dolphins.

Take part in the Tweede Nuwe Jaar celebration as a minstrel in Cape Town.

Vote for the most unknown political party when the next elections take place in 2013.

Make my own clay pot or mug.

Learn how to make a souffle, without having it fall over.

Bake my mom a birthday cake.

Shave my head completely bald in support of cancer victims.

Live in every major city of the world (or continent, at least) for two to four weeks.

Learn how to kite-surf.

Attend the Mardi Gras in New Orleans, USA.

Visit the Playboy Mansion.

Complete/solve a Rubix Cube.

Visit and spend a week in Las Vegas, USA. (Bachelor Party)

Visit the source of the Nile River, Africa.

Attend Burning Man in Nevada, USA.

Ride the world’s longest and fastest zipline in Sun City, South Africa.

Spend a week away with my friends in Sun City, South Africa.

Milk a cow.

Visit all the wine farms in the Western Cape, South Africa.

Ride the Trans-Siberian Railway across Russia from Moscow to Vladivostok.

Go for a swim in the Dead Sea, Israel.

Visit my cousin in New York City and let her “show me the REAL NYC gems”. As requested!

Then… visit the top of the Empire State Building in New York, USA.

Visit the Cango Caves, Oudshoorn, South Africa.

Learn how to ride a bicycle.

Learn how to blow a proper bubble with chewing gum.

Get my motorcycle license.

Attend the Knysna Oyster Festival, Knysna, South Africa.

Own a house in Knysna, South Africa.

Ride an ostrich.

Attend Diwali (Festival of Lights), India.

Run the Two Oceans Marathon, Cape Town, South Africa.

Run the Comrades Marathon from Pietermaritzburg to Durban, South Africa.

Travel to Old Trafford, Manchester, England to watch Manchester United play… Preferably against a major European or English team.

Get my shirt signed by Paul Scholes, Ryan Giggs, Sir Alex Ferguson and Ole Gunnar Solskjaer. The others would be a bonus.

Attend a 20/20 cricket match between South Africa and Australia at Newlands, Cape Town, South Africa.

Play and clock Guitar Hero 1.

Build my own gaming computer.

Go wakeboarding.

Get a tattoo.

Wear a Wonderbra.

Go fishing for Black Marlin.

Go on a safari in South Africa.

See and photograph the Big Five.

Go on a R10,000 shopping spree for clothes only.

Attend the J&B Metropolitan horse race, Cape Town, South Africa.

Attend the OppiKoppi music festival, Limpopo, South Africa.

Hang-glide off Lion’s Head, Cape Town, South Africa.

Finish an assignment or essay one week before its due date.

Own a pair of Ray-Ban Aviators.

Get completely smashed at one of Grahamstown’s many watering holes.

Wear a mascot costume.

Dance with the Vodacom Stormers girls.

Have a The O.C series marathon.

Have a How I Met Your Mother series marathon.

Take a jumpshot with all my friends.

Learn how to river dance in Ireland.

Finish my friends’ “Quote Book”

Wear a Speedo on Copacabana Beach, Rio de Janeiro, Brazil.

Learn to forgive and forget.

Meet Scarlett Johansson. (Date her too.)

Walk along the remnants of the Berlin Wall, Germany.

Visit the Lourve Museum in Paris, France.

Go dog-sledding in Alaska, USA.

Climb Hawaii’s two volcanoes, Kīlauea and Mauna Loa.

See a real, live volcanic eruption.

Experience a hurricane in Miami, Florida, USA.

Eat a serving of Kobe beef.

Own an Alienware laptop.

Have a Star Wars movie marathon.

Pass a round of exams all with upper firsts.

Ride the cable car up Table Mountain.

Own a pair of Prada lace-ups.

Touch (and I wish, sit in) the McLaren MP4/4 Formula 1 car driven by Alain Prost and Ayrton Senna during the 1988 Formula 1 season.

Tour with the Formula 1 circus around the world, watching each Grand Prix of the season live.

Attend the Formula 1 Grand Prix de Monaco.

Become a successful journalist.

Find ultimate happiness.

Find something to believe in.

Go on an amusement park tour around the world and ride the fastest/most feared rollercoasters on each continent.

Drive Route 66, from Santa Monica to Chicago, USA.

Play a full 18-hole round of Pub Golf.

Attend the USA College’s American Football Rose Bowl final.

Book a ticket on the first plane out of Cape Town.

Tour Cape Town on an open top bus at night.

Travel on a party bus around Cape Town.

Attend all the major music festivals around the world. (A list of these will be drawn up soon)

<p