Just your average day in Africa.

Well, that’s it. Friday was officially my last day of classes, I turned in the last (of way too many) term papers yesterday, and I am done! The ‘studying’ part of studying abroad is over. And if I do say so myself, that part was way overrated.

I have been thinking a lot about how fast the time has gone, how much has happened and how comfortable I have become with my life here. And since the next six weeks are going to look pretty different for me, I thought I would take this time to reflect on the last four months. You know, clue you all in as to what exactly I do here on a daily basis.

Let’s start with Monday.

I wake up around 8:30, make myself coffee and breakfast and head to school. The walk hike takes about 20 minutes, crosses two freeway off ramps, and includes roughly seven flights of stairs. I get to campus about 15 minutes before my first class so that I can sit on the Jammie steps and cool off. This is one of my favorite times of day. It is usually nice out, a brisk 18°C (as if I know what that means), and the people watching is fantastic. I have never seen a campus as busy as UCT- and I go to a school with over 20 thousand people. Its not that there are necessarily more students, there is just less space, and they all have to walk right by the Jammie steps no matter where they are going. Now might also be a good time to mention that the people here are confoundingly beautiful. I don’t know if it’s the old Dutch bone structure, or the style, or the sunshine, but like I said, it makes the people watching very entertaining.

The Jammie Steps, surprisingly uncrowded. 

Just another picture of our beautiful campus.

After cooling off enough that I can breath without panting, I go to class.  My classes, and this school in general have plenty of noteworthy oddities in themselves, but I’ll have to write some other time about that.

I have a break from 12-2 when I eat lunch, sit out on the lawn and catch up on some reading (not really). After my last class I get out at 3 and head home.

If it is a Tuesday or a Thursday, then I go to Shawco. Shawco stands for Student Health and Welfare Something Something, and it is the Non Profit group that I volunteer with. I go twice a week to small school that services a township in Hout Bay and tutor grade six kids in Math and English. I’ve been working with the same group of five or six girls since the beginning of August, and they have really grown on me. At first it was hard to tell if they were learning anything, or if they needed my help at all, but then one day one of them asked me what the word ‘beg’ meant, and I realized that probably over half of what I had said to them over the last couple lessons had gone well beyond their grasp of English. So I toned down my language, had them underline any words they didn’t know in their workbooks and worked slowly on correcting their grammar and spelling. Even math lessons became mostly English lessons. It was not glamorous volunteer work, but its always refreshing to be around kids, and these girls in particular always had a way of making me smile.

Sinawe, learning like a champ.

Tecious, Lindlewa, Phoziso, Sinawe, Beauty, and Ncinci. Try memorizing those names. 

I get home from Shawco at about 6:30 and go home to make dinner. Dinnertime is always fun at Charlton house- its loud, the kitchen is crowded with people in a good way and the good cooks among us always make something that smells delicious. You’ll all be happy to know that I can officially cook for myself. I never thought it would happen but I have mastered quite a few staple entrees to add to my cereal/quesadilla diet at home.

Yes, that is a brisket. No, I didn't make it. But I helped! We made a serious
feast for Rosh Hashanah a couple of weeks ago and I made a peach cobbler!
It wasn't quite as photogenic as the brisket... but you get the idea.  

After dinner is usually homework time, which usually translates to sitting around the big dining room table with a book in front of me, hearing about everyone’s day and maybe playing a round or two of banana grams. If it’s a Wednesday though, then I have choir practice. I joined the UCT choir for Africa, which is an acapella group of about 16 people, roughly 10 of which show up to practice on a weekly basis. It’s a great time regardless. We sing only African composed music, and they all already know the songs so we pretty much just stand in a circle and sing for two hours. They are all incredibly talented and passionate and so much fun to sing with, its always an uplifting way to spend a Wednesday night.

Speaking of Wednesday nights, those are also the nights we go to Stones, the not-so-local (chain) bar that we’ve frequented quite literally every Wednesday since we arrived. It’s really nothing special, more often than not it’s just us, other international students there, but it’s two-for-one from 10 till 11 on Wednesday nights so it’s become something of a guilty pleasure.

My friend Jen and I at Stones (clearly). 

We fill up our weekend days exploring the beaches and new parts of town, occasionally traveling, catching up on homework and hitting up the super cool Cape Town club scene at night.

So there you have it. Every week is different and every day something notable, but for the most part, that is a glimpse in to my average day in Africa.

Muizenberg, South Africa

Cheers,

Emily

My alter ego is a vigilante.

Rocking the Daisies is Cape Town’s largest music festival. It’s somewhere between Coachella, EDC and Floatopia, only ten times cooler because let’s face it- it’s in Africa.  We left on Friday afternoon, and would have arrived before nightfall had we not taken a twenty minute detour down a dirt road through a township, gotten stuck in a sand dune of a road, and had to push the car back to paved civilization. After re-google mapping the directions, we pulled up to Cloof Wine Estate, home to the festival, just as the sun was beginning to set over rolling hills of grape vines. We set up our tent on a literal bed of wild flowers and prepared for the evening.

Friday night was a blast; after exploring the various stages and dancing until 3 in the morning we called it a night. Sleep was hard to come by considering the drum and bass in the background and the fact that we packed four people, our luggage, and a weekend’s worth of food into to our three person tent. We got up with the sun the next morning and wandered around the festival, taking in scenes of giant neon flowers, big stages, and hippie vans selling crazy hats. We skipped the musical acts that I had never heard of before (which was all but one, Jeremy Loops, look him up, he’s fantastic) and spent the rest of the day at the lake (pond). Watching people sun bathing, floating on rafts, mattresses, tubes or anything they could find, let’s just say I’ve never wanted a kiddie pool more.

That afternoon we napped, ate, recouped, and got ready for night number two. Saturday was even more fun than Friday- I could have danced all night, and was well on my way to doing so, until Jess’ wallet was stolen. She brushed it off, not wanting to ruin the mood of the night, but when Molly’s camera was stolen right out of her purse, we all got a little uneasy. That’s when my crime fighting skills kicked in. Noticing one guy that had been near us during both incidents, I kept my eyes peeled for anything suspicious. He definitely didn’t fit in- wearing a button down shirt and rain jacket (at a music festival). What’s more, there was at least three more just like him, and to my paranoid mind they were clearly all working together. When I saw him pick pocket a girl right in front of me, we told security. They took me to the makeshift police station where I had to identify the one along with two other suspects only to find out that they were members of a Nigerian gang that had robbed hundreds of people that night. Cool- that would have been nice to know before pissing them off.

Luckily I had no pockets and not so much as a rand on me, and I managed to evade trouble for the rest of the night. We stayed up till morning and briefly watched the sunrise before passing out. All in all it was an incredible weekend, although I have no pictures to prove it and I’m probably on a hit list somewhere in Nigeria. Totally worth it. 

Namaste.

            I have officially taken up yoga. This might not seem like a big deal to some of you, but those of you who know me best know that I don’t exercise. And I mean that in the most drastic of ways, I literally do not exercise, in fact I actively avoid exercise at almost all costs. I was the kid who hid behind the bleachers during laps two and three of the mile in eighth grade P.E. class. Not that I don’t like being active, I love keeping a busy schedule, walking places, and being outdoors, but if you try to stick me in a gym and tell me to do 30 minutes on the cross trainer and I will gladly run in the opposite direction (well- it may be more of a light jog). That being said, I paid R100 (about $15) for 10 days of unlimited hot yoga and I absolutely love it. I have gone every single day since because as it turns out, I have a good deal more will power than I ever gave myself credit for.

            Yoga is just one of the little details I haven’t mentioned yet that make up my daily life here in Cape Town. Transportation is another one. In a big city with no car at my disposal, my transport options are very limited. The first and by far most utilized is walking. Starting with the 20-25 minute trek up the base of the mountain and the 5 or 6 flights of stairs that it takes to get to my first class, I find myself walking for a solid portion of the day. I wish I could adequately describe just how many stairs there really are, but lets just say pre-yoga phase, I definitely considered the walk to campus exercise in itself. I not only have to budget time in my mornings for the walk, but also for a 15 minute cool down period once I get there, and even still I will inevitably go to class looking like I just ran a marathon.

            There is of course the option of the Jammie shuttle. The Jammie, nicknamed for Jamison Hall, is a free shuttle for students and runs to and from campus in almost any direction. It would be incredibly handy if it were just a little bit more predictable. There are only maybe six routes the Jammies take, but waiting for the right one can take anywhere between 30 seconds and 30 minutes and I’m pretty convinced that some days one will simply decide not to run altogether. They are always crowded and smell at least slightly if not unbearably of body odor. While I would rather walk to school any day, the Jammie is my transportation of choice to go downtown, especially since the alternative is a minibus.

            The minibus is a staple in the personality of Cape Town. Hundreds of them run daily up and down main street, from the city center to the suburbs, honking, yelling, swerving and picking up passengers off the side of the road. A minibus has about 15 seats but seats about 22. There is always room for one more; standing, squatting or sitting on a strangers lap, they will squeeze in as many people as humanly possible. Aside from the driver there is a caller who hangs out of the window or the open door yelling repeatedly at passersby on the top of his lungs in a barely discernable accent, hoping to find one that wants a ride. This makes it easy to catch one if you do need a ride, seeing as there are dozens and dozens of these shouting, stuffed people movers speeding down the street at any given moment in either direction. It costs about R5 (75c), so I really only take it when I’m carrying groceries or in a part of town that isn’t walking distance, but its an essential element of the city, if for no other reason, than to provide the background noise.

            Getting from point A to point B has definitely been a constant challenge in my day-to-day life, but I think I’ve finally got the hang of it. And while a car would really be a miracle worker in this situation, I frankly wouldn’t give up the embarrassing rock-out-dance-music seshs on the Jammie, or the awkward cultural immersion of the minibus, or the alone time of the afternoon walk home for anything. And while it’s no spring break extravaganza, it’s the little things, the details, the habits and the frustrations that make my life here real, and its all part of the experience.

Namaste.

Emily

Sprall Break

It’s been a while since I've written, and the noteworthy things that have piled up in the meantime make blogging seem more and more overwhelming by the day. So I'm going to keep this short, but with lots of pictures, which in this case really are worth much more than my words. 

By far the best thing about being in the southern hemisphere is surprisingly NOT that the toilets flush in the other direction (which I'm pretty sure is a myth), but that I get a second Spring Break 2011. You could chalk it up to stereotypes but I'm convinced that there is a significant difference between all other breaks and a SPRING break... on a fall break you're expected to catch up on sleep and hang out at home with your family, but on spring break you're expected to do nothing but have as much fun as possible. When Spring Break comes in September, however, expectations get a little blurry. Luckily, just in time to satisfy my growing desire for a good home-style fall break, my mom arrived, and together we rocked spring break part two. It was the perfect combination of home and abroad, adventure and comfort, relaxation and excitement; it was truly the best Sprall break I could have asked for. 

Madre arrived on Friday, just in time to see campus before it cleared out for the week. Walking her from my house up the hill to campus reminded me of the first time that I had made that walk. I remember it like was yesterday, but comparing what it felt like two months ago, the first impressions, the nerves, the excitement, the foreignness of it all, to what it felt like in that moment, I realized just how long I have been here. It was the first time I have really reflected on how comfortable I have become, how much campus feels like my campus and home feels like my home. It was a good feeling, but even from the best of homes, one can always use a vacation. Well, it was more of a staycation for the first three days. We roamed around Cape Town, hitting all the essential places I eat at and exploring the ones that were too expensive to eat at until mom came to visit. We shopped on Long street and Greenmarket square, went to the Waterfront, went to Old Biscuit Mill (a magical place that I will have to write about in more detail after a more boring week), rode a cable car up Table Mountain and enjoyed a panoramic view of the city, and took a Cape Penninsula Tour similar to the one I took during orientation (but with six or seven calm adults instead of four hundred college students). It was a great rapid overview of the city, even though our festivities were cut a half a day short when I picked up some sort of stomach flu and couldn't bring myself to leave my bed. Talk about perfect timing to have a mom around...

Fortunately I was feeling almost 100% by the next morning as we boarded a place to Kruger National Park for a four-day-three-night luxury safari. It was unbelievable. We were greeted with a glass of champagne, shown to our private room (complete with deck, mini pool, princess bed, and veranda) and were on our first game drive within the hour. We saw just about everything you can image, from the tiniest baby birds to the ginormous elephants. We saw rhinos digging for water in a dried up river bed, a baby elephant drinking milk from its mother, a tower of giraffe chilling at a water hole with a dazzle of zebra (yes- those are the technical terms for what normal people call a herd), and a leopard in a tree eating the kill that he had dragged up with him, not to mention herds upon herds of impala and just about every variety of "bok" (antelope).  It took a few drives and a bit of a goose-chase but we eventually came across a lion as well, completing our Big Five checklist and my Lion King Character checklist at the same time. While it was incredible to see so many animals up close and in their natural, beautiful environment, I am almost tempted to say that the people made the trip. There was Givena and Chris- a nice newlywed couple from York that pretty much bled British stereotypes, Lazarus- our trusty safari truck driver who gets equally excited over fresh rhino dung as a feasting leopard, Molly- a spiritual Iranian woman with a lot to say and James- her husband who I was pretty sure was mildly autistic and partially blind before finding out that he taught International Law at Harvard Law School, worked for the State department and USAID, and retired as the chief legal advisor for Freedom House. Wild card! In all with animals, the people, the three course meals, the first and second breakfasts, the African back massages and sunbathing on the deck, I'd say that Kruger treated us very well. I found myself immediately missing our pretty room once we left, especially considering where we went next.

We spent one night and one day in Durban, which gave us enough time to take a tour of the city sights, have an authentic (and questionable) Indian meal, and visit two craft markets to pick up souvenirs. From there, we set out on a two-hour drive towards nowhere Eshowe, Zululand.

So, Zululand is a real place, a fact I was not entirely sure about before getting there. It includes a vast and lush are of what used to be the traditional Zulu Kingdom and then became the KwaZulu Bantustan (homeland for blacks during apartheid) until 1994. Now it is a municipality governed in part by the reinstated traditional monarchy, with some remote villages, some more modern farm towns and a whole lot of huts. After driving through endless rolling green hills and sugar plantations Mom and I arrived in Eshowe, one of the more modern, bustling towns. Even though she found a nice little hotel with a restaurant, a bar, and every other tourist that was currently in Eshowe, Mom thought it was more “authentic” to stay with a perfect stranger, in his house, on the edge of town. It’s just not a Michael family vacation unless Mom books us into some awkward, slightly uncomfortable and possibly dangerous place to stay, under the pretence of “cultural experience”. Ryan, Tom- I know I don’t need bring up Hawaii again…

In her defense, despite sharing a bathroom with an elderly South African man, his thirty-year-old Thai girlfriend, and their numerous other houseguests, Zululand turned out to be the absolute highlight of the trip. Early on Saturday morning we set out with about ten other travelers and two locals on our way to the Zulu Virgin Reed Dance. It took another two hours driving further into the middle of nowhere to reach Ulundi, a village of sorts where the King lives and where the young Zulu girls would be celebrating their virginity by singing and dancing and presenting the King with a reed. Back in the day this was when girls who had hit puberty offered themselves to the King and he picked his wives, however, even the traditional Zulu king no longer finds that appropriate, so it has became a purely symbolic coming of age ceremony. I’m not exactly sure what I was expecting but it definitely wasn’t what I saw- 30,000 teenage Zulu girls dressed in nothing but traditional neck beads and skirts (emphasis on the nothing) paraded up a long dirt road to the palace carrying 15 ft. reeds and singing on the top of their lungs. It was unlike ANYTHING I have ever seen before, and not just because I have never seen so many naked boobs in one place. The masses of girls walking up the road was endless, they just kept coming and coming, singing all the while and dancing with pride. We were the only spectators, not even the families come since many of the girls came from distant corners of Zululand to get there. Our local guides gave us a completely meaningless badge to wear around our neck that somehow made us look like we were supposed to be there, and that coupled with my big camera led nearly everyone to assume I was working for the press. I figured out quickly that teenage girls are the same all over the world, and they all love to have their picture taken. I was happy to oblige, and it was a nice icebreaker for some of the most interesting conversations I have had on this trip. We were surrounded by, engaged in, and truly experiencing the Zulu culture in an intimate yet extravagant way and it was wild. As if it wasn’t a once-in-lifetime-experience already, we followed the girls into the royal palace (bigger hut) compound, where the King and his entire family awaited the arrival of none other that South Africa’s President Zuma. Apparently he’s a Zulu.

The whole experience was almost too much to take in, especially in the intense heat, and I mostly just wandered around wide-eyed, laughing in awe and the situation and snapping as many pictures as I could to try and capture it. I even did some high quality (not) photography for one of the King’s sons who referred to himself only as Prince and is writing an autobiography about royal life. True story.

At the end of the day I just sat back and reflected, not only on the day but on all the ones before it- I had gone from the top of table mountain to the back of a safari truck to the King’s palace in Zululand in less than a week. I had stood on the Cape of Good Hope, driven through a herd of wild elephants, been close enough to touch President Zuma, and sipped white wine in a sandy riverbed at sunset. And all of that with my wonderful mother at my side. I think its safe to say we had had one hell of a Sprall break. 

Cable car to Table Mountain, Cape Town

Top of Table Mountain, over looking Camps Bay, Cape Town

Cape of Good Hope

Isn't she pretty?

My hat + elephant in the background= baller safari picture

Our driver Lazarus in the sunset in the river bed.

Laz and I having our morning coffee and biscuits on the road (note the fold out table on the front of the truck.. I want one).

Rhinoceros 

Nala.

Just a leopard in a tree. NBD.

I always thought that stopping to wait for a herd of elephants to cross the street was just a safari myth.. I guess not.

Indian Ocean, Durban.

Virgin Reed Dances, the King's compound, Zululand. 

Beautiful. I wasn't kidding about the boobs.

Note that pants are apparently not allowed in zululand, just as a general rule, so I am wearing a scarf held up with a hair pin. Frankly I would have probably fit in better had I not worn it at all.

So much joy, so much dancing. 

President Zuma with King Goodwill Zwelithini kaBhekuzulu.

Cheers friends,

Emily

Happy Women's Day!

**Disclaimer: this is incredibly long winded, and more for my memory's sake than anything else, so feel free to skim or just look at the pictures! 

Last Tuesday was National Women’s Day in South Africa, which means two things- one, Christmas is no longer my favorite public holiday, and two, we had a four day weekend.  It was the first opportunity we’ve had since arriving to really get out of Cape Town, so about a dozen of my housemates and friends and I decided to road trip up the eastern coast of South Africa on what is know as the Garden Route. The Garden Route starts in Cape Town and winds up the countryside and coastline through little South African style beach towns and old Dutch settlements. It was the most beautiful drive I have ever done, and I go to school on the 101.

I’ll start from the beginning.

After making a reservation for a car rental the day before, I got up early on Saturday morning to go pick it up. What should have been a 15 minute process turned into a five hour ordeal involving two incredibly dull and useless salesmen who were clearly taking advantage of our youth and foreignness. It was one of those times where I would have loved for my dad to walk in wearing his I-can’t-believe-this face, throw out a “let me talk to your manager”, threaten to call the PR department, and walk away with whatever he wanted, probably for free. It worked out in the end though, and we drove away with three little white Nissan sedans more ready than ever to hit the road. 

 

It took us about an hour to get beyond the outskirts of Cape Town and when we did it was quite a sight. There were rolling neon green hills for as far as the eye could see, with big patches of an ambiguous bright yellow crop beneath blue skies. Ostriches, cows and sheep roamed the hills freely and the only signs of people were little white farmhouses in the distance. The picture really doesn’t do it justice, but my undivided attention was on staying in the right (meaning left) side of the road, and I couldn’t do any better.

We spent the first night in a place called Wilderness at a hostel with a panoramic view of the ocean. We sat around a bonfire and mingled with some locals in the bar before calling it an early night. The next morning a South African man staying in the hostel offered to take us on a short walk to show us something interesting so we followed him down to the old railroad tracks and started walking. The walk alone would have been worth it. It was perfect weather with the mountain on one side, ocean on the other and some impromptu whale watching to keep us entertained. But the real destination was so much cooler. 

This is the man that lives in the cave. I’m sure he has a name but I don’t remember it and he might not either so I’ll call him caveman. The caveman was homeless when he stumbled upon this deserted cave with the remnants of an old restaurant that closed after the train stopped coming through. He moved in and began making things out of seashells, trash, wood, or anything that people would donate to him and little by little he built up the eclectic work of art that is now his home. He somehow got twelve mattresses donated from a church group, built little rooms around them and now takes in homeless people, giving them somewhere to sleep and crafts to make and sell until they get back on their feet. To call him bizarre would be an understatement- he speaks in a high pitched, kind of fanciful voice and is truly delighted to be living in a cave. But there is something very sane about him at the same time and I found it fascinating. I have since decided that he is probably a retired angel who has just had a hard time adjusting to human life.

We left Wilderness fairly early and headed to Knysna (pronounced Nice-na) where we visited the Knysna Elephant Park. The park is part of the conservation effort to preserve their particular elephant species and while the elephants there are in captivity, they are free to roam around a very large and natural area. Elephants are really remarkable animals. I mean, have you ever stopped and considered how weird the trunk of an elephant is? Or why their ears are so big? Or why THEY are so big? I couldn’t tell you either, but I was definitely in awe when standing right in front of one. I ran my hand over his rough, thick skin and through the deep wrinkles that form an intricate design across his face. It was impossible not to smile in wonder. I think that to watch an elephant is to see Africa, for they are as ancient as the land and their presence holds the authority of time. 

After the elephant park we hiked up to a viewpoint called the Knysna Heads. On one side was the whole Indian Ocean while on the other was the quiet protected harbor and the town of Kynysna. It was a very peaceful place to sit and have a glass of wine and just enjoy the view. 

We left just as the sun began to set and on the drive back down we could see it was going to be pretty. Out of sheer good luck and timing we happened upon this big sand bar with no more than foot and a half of water and sand for 100 yards in any direction. And boy did we happen upon it at just the right time. 

On the drive from Knysna to Tsitsikamma the next day my car decided to follow the signs for a scenic route to a place called Nature’s Valley. We ended up at this great, expansive, empty beach and ran around playing like kids for at least an hour. It was just the four of us, the sound of the waves and untouched sand- how could I not do a few cartwheels?

We got to Tsitsikamma where we made plans to go on a zip line canopy tour through the national forest, but not before having an All American breakfast at the quirky 50’s style diner next door. Zip lining was fun, we had a great tour guide who knew everything about everything in the forest and it was cool to get a Canopy view. The actual zip lining was more of a way to get from tree to tree than anything else, but it was still a good time. It’s just hard to get excited about zip lining now, compared to what came next. 

Yep. I actually did this. I jumped off a bridge. And not just any bridge, the highest bungee jump bridge IN THE WORLD. We hadn’t planned on doing the bungee jump this trip, in fact it wasn’t even on my bucket list yet, but when a few people from our group came back from doing it the night before their enthusiasm somehow swayed me. Three girls from my house and I spontaneously decided to do it the next morning, probably out of a false confidence, but we got in the car and didn’t turn back. Seeing the bridge was pretty terrifying, but it wasn’t until the walk out there that my stomach began to churn. The bridge is 216m tall, the tallest single arch bridge in the world. Luckily there was this deep bass pump-up music playing over loudspeakers on the bridge so I just jumped up and down and danced to keep my adrenaline up. After watching a few people go it started to seem pretty doable, but once it was my turn and I was sitting there being strapped in by the feet all self-assurance went out the window. The fear started to set in. Thank god for Ilana (above right), the only person I know who has forty inspirational quotes memorized and ready to recite in under two minutes (with enthusiasm) at any given moment. Once strapped in they lifted me over to the edge and told me to inch my toes out. At that point the sheer panic started- 3 million years of evolution, every animalistic instinct in my body, was telling me not to jump. I would have done anything to step away at that instant (Lizzie even threatened to sue), but they count down anyway 5..4..3..2..1... 

For two seconds every muscle in my body contracted, my lungs closed up and I thought I was going to die, but then I released. I was free falling, flying, soaring through the air in a swan dive; it was pure unfiltered bliss. I couldn’t tell if I was moving up or down I was weightless and taking in the scenery as fast as my eyes would let me. The jagged mountains, the ocean, the river with its swirling white water below me- it was all simply gorgeous. So much raw emotion, excitement, pride, and happiness swelled in me it was one of the biggest feelings I’ve ever had. A man then came to hoist me back up and set me safely onto solid ground where I was met with a storm of hugs and cheers and a screaming rendition of Pretty Woman (it was after all, Women’s Day). 

Love always, Emily

This is just the beginning.

PICTURES! Finally. I have been taking so many that it is really hard to narrow it down, but at the same time its hard to find even one picture that can really do justice to the experience it represents (although maybe thats speaking more to my photography skills than anything else...). 

Cape Town, South Africa

Cape of Good Hope, the most southern tip of Africa.  Debatably the most beautiful place I have ever been.  I dangled my feet off a bluff overlooking the waters where the Indian and Atlantic Oceans meet, feeling very much like I was at the ends of the earth. 

Jamison Hall, University of Cape Town. These are the last of the 235971200 steps I walk up every day to get to class (really only a slight exaggeration), leading to the main part of this beautiful campus. In the background Devil's Peak, the highest summit of Table Mountain, adds to the stunning setting of UCT.

The main walk in Upper Campus where I have all four of my classes. Classes started last Monday and have been fine. School is school, no matter what continent.   

African penguins on Bolder Beach in the Cape Penninsula.

This is the platter of mostly unknown meats at a braai place called Mzoli's in Gugulethu, a township on the outskirts of Cape Town. It was one big room under a tin room full of plastic tables and chairs, loud African house music, and literal buckets of meat. It was wonderful, a culture hub of the township, jam packed with vibrant people and good food.

A bar across the street from Mzoli's in Gugulethu. 

Sunset at the Waterfront. I met up with Christopher Wyatt (for those of you from LC) and his mom and we got dinner and  caught the sunset at the Waterfront, a big dutch style outdoor mall along the port. We also hit up a karaoke bar and sang and danced until at least one in the morning. It was a great time, I mean what are the chances that two old friends from home would be on the other side of the world in the same city at the same time? 

This weekend we went to the Stellenbosch Wine Festival. Stellenbosch is a little more than an hour outside of Cape Town and is an old, very dutch settlement surrounded by some of the best wine country in the world. It looks a little like central California really, rolling vineyards and big country houses. This was the only picture that captured any of the scenary, and it definitely doesn't do it justice. The festival was a day long so we stayed in a hostel and went out to the bars that night. It was a long weekend and I'm feeling the repercussions now, but it was definitely worth it. This is Adriane one of my housemates and my wine tasting partner all weekend. 

I've only been in South Africa two weeks and I already love this flag. I feel like I've been here for months, and like I've known these people for years. My bucket list just gets longer with every new place I go or person I meet. It may feel like I've been here a long time but I am always happy to remind myself, this is just the beginning. 

Lesson Learned.

Its been almost one week since I arrived now, but it feels like so much more. The last few days have been just as exciting as the first, but now that the initial whirlwind has settled I am beginning to learn a few things about this place and my place in it. 

Lesson 1: Whoever said that South Africans speak English took a very liberal approach.

Once I figured out that the robots people kept directing me towards in the streets were nothing more than traffic lights and the weefee they tried to put in our house was actually just internet, I began to realize that even between english speakers many things can be lost in translation. A bru is not a beer and black label is not whiskey, lekker is a good thing, they don’t barbeque- they braii, and the Aggies are not a school mascot but a violent South African gang (safe to say I won’t be wearing that sweatshirt again...). The accent is wonderful, and although difficult to understand at times its all very fun to learn and even more fun to imitate. My goal is to have at least one conversation with a local before I leave without them knowing I’m American. 

Aside from English, Cape Town is a rich blend of about four main languages: Afrikaans, Xhosa, Zulu, and Sutu, and they are all much more prevalent than I anticipated. Everyone seems to speak at least two, but its still a very interesting and  influential social divide around the Cape and more broadly the country that often coincides with racial divisions. I signed up to take Xhosa (pronounced with a click), so *Enkosi Kakhulu!

Lesson 2: In a country with one of the highest rates of theft in the world, I just might be my own worst enemy.

Despite the dozen or so safety lectures and travel advice I got before leaving and upon arrival I’ve decided that the best way to avoid theft is to rid myself of everything worth stealing. Thats why I left my laptop behind at JFK security last week and also why I gave that taxi driver my wallet last night. Pure strategy. 

Lesson 3: We underestimate our luxuries. 

I don’t mean this in the “its my first time in Africa, these people have so little” way,  but rather its the unanticipated difficulties that I’ve come across that I find noteworthy. Internet is the first and most frustrating one. Did you know there are only TWO fiber optic cables coming in to the entire continent of Africa? Wifi is hard to come by, free internet is nonexistent, and all internet is limited. Its been harder than I would have thought to get used to not being able to look up a phone number or an address or check my bank account or contact my family at the  push of a button. On the bright side, it looks like I’ll be able to break my facebook addiction...

Another one I have had some trouble with independence. While living here I don’t have the luxury of walking to the store by myself or sitting in a coffee shop past dark. What I do and when I do it depends on who is around to go with me, which is a concept I never had to grasp in the states. I suddenly appreciate the safety of my neighborhood both at school and at home in ways I never did before.  

There are lots of other notable ones- printing, being eco-friendly, electricity, being germ-o-phobic, GOLD (UCSB’s online registration system), and spare pillows to name a few.

I could go on, I learn more and more on a daily basis and its truly wonderful, but these entries are already too long and I am going to lose my fan base if I ramble. Love you all!

PS. Pictures are coming soon... I have taken a good amount, but despite my earlier comments I’m not ACTUALLY trying to lose everything valuable to me on this trip and I would rather not bring my camera to the cafe. 

* Means thank you in Xhosa... makes no sense in context but its the only word I know. 

Howzit!

So I survived all three flights and arrived in Cape Town safely last Friday afternoon. Kylee, a friend from Santa Barbara/my new roommate, and I were picked up at the airport and taken to a dorm on campus where we spent one night before moving in to our permanent residence, Charlton house, on Saturday. 

Charlton is an old bed and breakfast now used as housing for international students. The electricity is glitchy (to say the least), there is no internet access, and the showers have a way of mildly electrocuting you whenever the water is on... but I absolutely love it. Its huge and old and filled with personality, partly due to it’s quirkiness but mostly due to my eighteen new house mates. We are a wide range of people from a range of countries, but so far we’ve all gotten along really well. In fact, on the second night in our house we quickly bonded over our love of the only thing we had in common at that time, the house, and decided to throw a party to celebrate being there. With no music, no food or drinks, and temperamental lighting we figured it would be low key... Turns out that word of a house party travels just as quickly in Africa as in America and within two hours we had nearly sixty international students and the police in our house. Yep. Way to go Charlton house, starting the semester off with a bang!

Since then I’ve mostly been occupied with orientation events on campus, registering for classes and exploring places to eat around town. As part of orientation al of the international students (there are about 400!) went on a day long tour of the Cape Peninsula. We drove through downtown Cape Town, hung out with penguins on the beach, saw a few other landmarks and beaches, but most notably hiked to Cape Point at the Cape of Good Hope. Everything in this city is beautiful but Cape Point was by far the most impressive sight yet. Situated at the southern most point in Africa with a view of the Indian ocean to one side and the Atlantic to the other, I felt a little bit like I was at the ends of the Earth. 

I could go on forever about the details of the first few days and the beauty of the city, but I’ll save some of that for another day. More pressingly, internet at the cafe I have been frequenting is painfully limited and expensive, and I just might run out any minute. 

Much love! 

Onward

Hello all! I've been debating over the last few weeks whether or not to start a blog. At first it seemed slightly egocentric of me to assume that there are enough people out there interested in what I am doing to warrent a public forum, but I've accepted that blogs are more like high tech travel diaries than anything else. So I bought the $8 airport internet, picked out a trendy background and I'm officially up and running. Good thing my mom alloted enough time to hit a tornado on the drive to LAX and still have an hour to spare in the terminal...

I found a great seat at the JetBlue gate, right in front of a big window, and at 7:35 PM the sun is just starting to set. It feels like an appropriate setting to say goodbye to California for the next five months as I set out on truly the adventure of my lifetime. I'm nervous- there are so many things that I am unprepared for. I'm a little sad- there are so many people I had to say goodbye to. But most of all I am overwhelmingly excited. I don't know who my friends will be, I don't know what we'll do, I don't even know if I have a ride from the airport when I get there... but I can't wait to find out!

I'll keep this short since my future posts are bound to ramble. Now all I have to do is survive a 5 hour plane ride to New York, 6 hour layover in JFK, 16 hour flight to Johannesburg, 3 hour layover at O.R. and a 2 hour flight to Cape Town... See you all on Friday, here goes nothing!