I called it a "Bad Idea Jeans" thought. An allusion to an old Saturday Night Live satirical commercial.

We'd gotten back to the hostel after a lovely second straight night of dining at Tandoori, Windhoek's only Indian Restaurant. It was about nine and there was loud music and amplified shouting coming from several blocks away.

I suggested we go find it.

"A perfectly respectable neighborhood."
This, of course, meant walking through dark streets we knew nothing about... except that the hostel advises you to take a taxi at night. But turns out it was a perfectly respectable neighborhood requiring only some common sense vigilance.

I expected to find an energetic church revival kinda thing. Not generally my scene, but the music sounded fun and I created an image of dancing with some church-going ladies in large, lacy hats and dresses.

"The big acts were over."
Turns out it was the live music portion of a cultural event at one of Windhoek's two universities. The security guard let us onto campus for free and we found the stage quickly. A lot of people were leaving as we arrived, seemingly indicating the big acts were over. But there was still some music and part of the crowd was still there.

Then Carla walked up and asked us if we were Germans. Yet another guess that I'm German. Not unexpected in an old German colony, though. Carla's a second-year student at the university and fun to hang out with. We ended up meeting her friends Vidalia and Brenda... and a few others whose names I can't remember.

"What a world."
And get this... remember our trip to Mariental to the south? And the local kid who helped us find a place to camp? Carla's from Mariental... went to Mariental High School... and knows the kid who helped us! What a world.

We chatted and danced for a while till things were obviously winding down. We told them we'd been planning to go to a dance club tonight and they wanted to come along. So we're supposedly meeting them on our way there this evening.

"You have to take some initiative sometimes."
I wrote before about how so many great experiences happen almost by random. I suppose this one demonstrates you have to take some initiative sometimes, too.

We've rented a car for Friday and plan to head up to Etosha National Park for a total of four days before coming back here to Windhoek. We're looking for one more person to fill the car and share gas and rental costs... but who knows it that'll happen. It's not overwhelmingly expensive anyway.

Videlia, Brenda, Carla