{"id":1064,"date":"2012-02-12T10:01:36","date_gmt":"2012-02-12T15:01:36","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.explorica.com\/blog\/?p=1032"},"modified":"2012-03-13T17:01:49","modified_gmt":"2012-03-13T21:01:49","slug":"a-south-african-valentine","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.explorica.com\/blog\/a-south-african-valentine","title":{"rendered":"A South African Valentine"},"content":{"rendered":"<p style=\"text-align: center;\"><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"aligncenter size-full wp-image-1033\" title=\"A scene in South Africa |Explorica Educational Travel\" src=\"http:\/\/www.explorica.com\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2012\/02\/Africa_007.jpg\" alt=\"\" width=\"500\" height=\"330\" \/><br \/>\nThe South African look of love does abound on February 14<sup>th<\/sup> with flowers, chocolates, dates at the disco or even a trip to\u2026a wildlife park. It\u2019s true! Kruger National Park in the north of the country is a top Valentine\u2019s destination for visitors. (And it\u2019s teeming with rhinos, elephants, leopards and lions, too.)<\/p>\n<p style=\"text-align: left;\"><!--more--><\/p>\n<p>But in South Africa, Valentine\u2019s festivities begin weeks before the big day. Visit in early February and you\u2019ll find homes, stores and restaurants decorated with ancient symbols of love\u2014such as hearts, birds and, of course, Cupid. And on Valentine\u2019s Day itself, it\u2019s common for young South Africans to pin the name of their sweetheart on their sleeve. Although South Africans call this tradition Lupercalia in honor of an ancient Roman fertility festival, scholars suggest that the roots of this romantic ritual were actually laid by Pope Gelasius in the Middle Ages. The story goes it\u2019s all because he banned what was considered an immorally pagan Lupercalia festival and replaced it with a day honoring the Patron Saint of Love, Saint Valentine. (A far cry from traditional Lupercalian festivities, when priests would sacrifice two male goats and a dog before anointing the foreheads of noblemen with the sacrificial blood.)<\/p>\n<p>By the way, do you know where the phrase \u201cto wear your heart on your sleeve\u201d comes from? Although it was first recorded in the 1600s in Shakespeare\u2019s play named <em>Othello, <\/em>during the Middle Ages a knight in battle would pin a lady\u2019s handkerchief to his sleeve as a way of publicly proclaiming his undying (he hoped) love for her. Aw.<\/p>\n<p>&nbsp;<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>The South African look of love does abound on February 14th with flowers, chocolates, dates at the disco or even a trip to\u2026a wildlife park. It\u2019s true! Kruger National Park in the north of the country is a top Valentine\u2019s destination for visitors. (And it\u2019s teeming with rhinos, elephants, leopards and lions, too.)<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[173,63,172],"tags":[58,130,228],"class_list":["post-1064","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-parents","category-students","category-teachers","tag-educational-travel","tag-south-africa","tag-valentines-day"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.explorica.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1064","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.explorica.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.explorica.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.explorica.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.explorica.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=1064"}],"version-history":[{"count":3,"href":"https:\/\/www.explorica.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1064\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":1107,"href":"https:\/\/www.explorica.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1064\/revisions\/1107"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.explorica.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=1064"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.explorica.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=1064"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.explorica.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=1064"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}