It's funny how the smallest decisions can have the largest affect on you. My decision in August of 2007 to take the news story covering the influx of international students at Trinity led me to a man who I hardly knew who may have had the biggest impact on my life of anyone to this point in my mere 21 years.

The most recent decision was to stick around in Stellenbosch this past weekend, passing up opportunities both to go to Cape Town and to central South Africa. I did not have a really good reason, I'm just so indecisive that I ended up missing the train to Cape Town. This ended up being a wonderful thing for me.

It was the first time that I truly explored Stellenbosch on my own, just me and the sights and sounds of the small college town, and the hustle 'n' bustle of a Saturday afternoon. I saw a beautiful little river that ran next to several restaurants on the side of the road. I decided to explore. The name of the restaurant was De Ouwer, still not sure what it means, to me it means solitude, the peaceful kind. I sat down in a little wicker bench next to babbling river, just the right size for me to sit with my back rest comfortably against one side, my feet pressed firmly on the opposite end. I ordered a glass of wine. I ordered a glass of wine. I stood up and did not order another glass of wine. But the feeling I got while I was there was one that I could have plenty of to come.

The next day I headed back to my new favorite place in Stellenbosch with my newly found Fedora, a journal, my homemade stationary from home, and a book. I sat in MY wicker bench, and to my pleasant surprise there was a saxophone trio playing in the foreground. I introduced myself and told them I know what they do and I do it myself. We exchanged information, and I learned about many musical opportunities to play my horn here in Stellenbosch, which I am going to do tonight. I enjoyed an African salad, several glasses of wine, wrote my first letter since I have been here, and poured myself on paper. It was truly a wonderful weekend. Yet it was so simple. It was all because I missed that train.

Yet sometimes it is the decisions you don't make, the decisions that make you, that other people make for you, which you have no control of, which can have quite a polar effect. Recently I have found myself in frustration over some of my relationships here in South Africa. It is wonderful to meet people everywhere I go, to experience the excitement of sudden communication, of spontaneous emotion, of letting yourself flow naturally.

I still am so happy that I talked to that man from the news story about where he would go if he could go anywhere in the world. I think you've figured out the place that he said. I have never talked to him since. It's incredible how one meeting with one person can change the course of your life.